track and trace // calum hood

3 | Elizabeth

thank you all for the lovely reactions on the previous two chapters. i love how y'all got so emotionally involved with Caz, and so am I ksksksks i feel your pain. WHY DID THEY EVEN BREAK UP sdfusdhf yall lucky this fic will probably have over a 100 chapters as well sksks
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"We should go out tonight."

I looked up at an already slightly tipsy Ashton who just spoke and raised my eyebrow.

We were all still at Michael's place, hanging in front of the tv.

"What?" I asked him. "Yeah, it's our last night in LA, we don't have a show tomorrow, just a flight. We should go out, celebrate that we're going on another tour that's almost sold out everywhere."

I looked at the other boys. "Sure, let's do it," Luke said and Calum nodded in agreement. Michael just shrugged. "I'm staying home." Crystal said. Everyone looked at me. "C'mon, Liz, it'll be fun. We haven't seen you much lately." Ashton said and I sighed. "I'm so underdressed for this." I muttered but Ashton smiled and jumped up. "I'll call the cab," he said before disappearing into the hallway. I sighed, taking another sip of my cocktail.

I didn't go to clubs as often as I used to do, not after that one night where Tommy had drugged me. The first time I went back to a club, four months after it happened, I got a massive panic attack before I had even entered the club. Now, two years later, I did go every once in a while and Calum came up with the lights idea. He would ask me every now and again how I was feeling. If I said I was green - everything was okay. Yellow meant that I was getting a little nervous and wanted someone close to me and red meant get me the fuck out of here.

It was an easy way for me to express how I was feeling without actually saying it, making it a lot easier for me. After our break up I've never went to a club again, mainly because I didn't have other friends to club with in LA and because I was too embarrassed to tell people that I had a traumatic experience at a club once because my crazy ex-boyfriend drugged me and tried to kill me and that's why I might get a panic attack when they are out with me.

I wasn't even sure if Calum was going to his usual check-ups on me while being in the club, but I guess I just had to wait and see. I was an adult - if I wasn't feeling good I had to tell someone myself. I couldn't depend on Calum all the time, we aren't even together, I'm not his responsibility anymore, I'm just dead weight for him. I could understand if he didn't check-ups.

The past two years had flown by and it was weird that I had been single for a little over six months after dating Calum for so long.

I think we both were consistently trying to put off our ending, the distance between us was only getting larger with time and we still couldn't let go. After a while I started to think about it, how long has it been since Calum and I had a real conversation when we still dated? I think it was two weeks before we broke up when I started missing the memories with him. I didn't think our sparks were still there and I've used all the matches in the world to try and ignite something again but I think that at that time I realized that we simply just burned.

Babylon turned into more than just my favorite Calum solo, it described us. We said we'd both loved higher than we knew we could go, but still the hardest part is knowing when to let go and we burned too bright, now the fire's gone, watch it all fall down? That was us.

We both had to be honest with each other and admit that somewhere down the line something had changed and I didn't blame Calum. I didn't blame him because I got tired of fighting for this too. I still loved him with all my heart, but we needed something to change.

I had to let us go. Not only for me but for his sake as well. It was weird being around him even though we agreed to be friends, I didn't want to be around and be constantly reminded of what could've and what would've been. I know what I had to offer but we both weren't ready, so I had to let us go.