Tiny Voices (A Calum Hood fanfic)

chapter twenty-six

-- Brooke’s POV --

I sat at the kitchen table listening to the clock tick away. I wrapped my hands around the steaming hot cup of tea I made myself.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

The steady beat of the clock, which was slowly putting me to sleep, was interrupted by a faint bump coming from the other end of the house.

“Chlo?” I shouted to her bedroom, not moving from the wooden chair in the dimly lit kitchen.

“Yeah?” she replied faintly.

“What are you doing?” I called back, not wanting to move.

“Uh, nothing!” she shouted, innocence dripping from her words. Too much innocence if you ask me.

I, begrudgingly, got off the chair and quietly moved to Chloe’s room, still clutching the warm mug of tea. Chloe wasn’t in her bed where I expected to find her. Instead, she sat crossed legged in the middle of her floor, basically her entire wardrobe surrounding her.

“Wha-” I started, but was interrupted by Chloe.

“Listen Brooke, we’re going to Australia. I don’t really give a shit what you think but you need to see Calum and, to be honest, I want to see Luke. I miss him. I miss them...I miss us as the ‘collective couple’, man!” she spoke quickly, and sighed.

She slowly stood up, balancing herself on the edge of her bed. She made her way over to me and placed her hands on each side of my face.

“I’m fine, chick. I’ll be grand. Now, you have a lot of packing to do,” she said, slapping my face lightly before returning to her suitcase.

I shook my head.

“I can’t do it,” I said softly. Chloe looked back up at me, her face riddled with shock. I shrugged my shoulders slightly and slowly made my way to my room.

I set my tea down and flopped on my bed. And then I cried.

And cried some more.

🌺

-- Luke’s POV --

I sat at a table, with Calum to my right and Ashton to my left, at the rehearsal dinner for Mali’s wedding. To be honest, I don’t even know where Michael went. He was probably trying to pick up a bridesmaid or something.

It was a spacious room, decorated with white fairy lights at every possible opportunity; along the top of the curtain poles, around the centerpieces, along the edges of the top table, everywhere.

Ashton was texting his girlfriend, Maddie, as usual. Their relationship was really nice; they were best friends and basically kept in quiet contact permanently - not flaunting their love in front of everything. And they’d been together, well, forever. They played drums and stuff together, they were really cute, even I admit it.

Calum was staring. At nothing. His head was tilted away from me slightly, and his face was expressionless. We were surrounded by walls of noise - people laughing, conversations drifting by our ears - but you would have thought we were all sitting in silence by Calum’s body language.

I got up from my chair and made my way to the hallway, just outside the big dining hall. I removed my phone from my pocket and dialled Chloe’s number without thinking twice. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hiya,” she said happily. I could almost see her beautiful face lighting up in my mind as she spoke.

“What’s going on?” I asked casually. I felt like I had so much to say, I didn’t even know where to begin.

“I’m all ready! I was all packed up in a minute,” she stated proudly.

“You’re coming?!” I practically screamed with a mixture of delight and worry. She laughed humorlessly.

“Well…” she trailed off, “I intend to, but I just need to convince Brooke. She just walked out of my room when she saw me packing. We need to be at the airport in, like, an hour. It doesn’t look good.”

“I hope you guys can come. I’m really worried about Calum, he’s being really weird,” I said. She sighed.

“I’ll get her there, I swear. I just need to convince her it’s the right thing to do, and also that I won’t die or anything on the way,” she laughed. I smiled a small smile.

“See ya later cutie,” I said, ending our conversation because I heard clapping from the hall.

When I got back to my seat, Calum was still in the same position as when I left him. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“You alright, man?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, brushing the matter off. He shifted his gaze to his sister, and smiled lovingly at her. But it wasn’t enough to hide the sadness in his eyes.

I hope Chloe worked her magic and got Brooke on that plane. God knows, we all needed her here.

🌺

-- Brooke’s POV --

My stomach was doing cartwheels as I shut my eyes. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was a picture.

It was a photo Chloe had taken of Calum and I backstage at one of the UK shows. We were sitting on the brown leather sofa that was in their dressing rooms, in Glasgow I think, and Calum had his arm lazily around my shoulder and I was snuggled into his chest. He had that stupid, cheeky smile on his face and was staring down at me. I had my eyes closed and my smile was one of pure contentment.

I don’t know why it was in my minds’ eye, but it was all I could see at the minute, and I hated myself for the fact that I couldn’t seem to let go. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself that I didn’t love Calum anymore, I seemed to fall more and more in love with him. I couldn’t decide if I hated Calum, or myself, more for that fact.

“You alright?” Chloe asked from beside me. I nodded, my eyes still shut.

“Are you?” I asked, opening my eyes and motioning to her ribs. She beamed at me.

“I’m great,” she said, popping a pringle into her mouth.

I glanced at my wristwatch and it read 11:45 AM.

It was like, nearly 9 PM in Sydney. I cursed myself for automatically thinking about Calum and what he was doing. It was none of my business! We were finished. He made it clear when he broke up with me, right?

“Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts as we are encountering some turbulence in the air,” spoke the drab voice of the air steward over the intercom.

If I was finished with Calum, why was I now 45 minutes into a 24 hour flight on my way to see him?

Nice one, Brooke.

🌺🌺

THEY ON THE PLANE THEY ON THE PLANE

lol sorry if this was really bad and i actually am SUPER sorry for how flipping long this took but what can i say i’m a busy bee

hope you all had a lovely summer and ily all lots and lots for reading this! Thank you for 11K reads! :D

xx