Online || c.h.

{sixteen}

Naomi's POV
"CALUM?! NAOMI?"
We instantly flicked our heads towards the staircase, where Kat was standing. Her face showed a mixture of anger, confusion, hurt and sadness. She blinked from Calum's face to mine, as if she were trying to unsee what she just saw.
"Um," Calum gulped, glancing at me. I shrugged at him. My face began to heat up and my palms had gone all sweaty against Calum's.
"We were just-" I began, but Kat stepped in.
"Calum! How could you do this? After what we just did?" She snapped, not even taking a second glance my way.
"I- er- I-" he stammered, tripping on all his words. I was confused as to why he was having such difficulty explaining what just happened; surely he had told Kat that he liked me.
"I bet you haven't even told her, have you?" She smirked, now making eye contact with me once more. I furrowed my eyebrows as I attempted to unscramble what was going on.
"She doesn't need to know," he whispered through gritted teeth. Kat strolled towards us, before leaning in to whisper in Calum's ear.
"You tell her, or else I will," she muttered. She smirked as she pulled away, leaving a long kiss on his cheek. Kat walked away, humming to herself happily.
"What was that all about?" I asked, stifling a laugh to lighten the situation. Calum didn't look up, or smile, or even mutter a sound to me for a solid 20 seconds. "Calum?" I whispered.
He kept his head down but let out a quiet sigh. "There's- there's something I ought to say..." He trailed off, glancing around the room at everything except my face. I tried to catch his line of vision, but he kept avoiding me.
"What? Calum, what did Kat mean?" I whispered, trying to stay calm. I didn't want to get into a fight, but he had clearly been keeping something from me, and I didn't like that.
"Kat and I... Oh god, I don't know where to start!" He exclaimed, stifling a laugh and throwing his hands above his head. I furrowed my eyebrows and encouraged him to continue. "Kat and I, I mean, in Australia, we, well, we sort of, I don't really know how to say it-"
"Calum spit it out." I said, looking him straight in the eye with a blank expression on my face.
"We hooked up."
I feel my whole body heat up with anger and embarrassment and sadness. The boy who just told me 'it's always been you' is now telling me 'it's always been you... Except I hooked up with your friend while you weren't around'. It was a lot to take in, and I didn't quite know what to say. So I didn't.
"Naomi?" Calum whispered, clearly worried about my reaction. Shit, even I was worried about my reaction. I wasn't sure if I'd open my mouth and begin to scream or if tears would simply flow out of my eyes like waterfalls. I tried to keep the blank expression I was wearing and slowly opened my mouth.
"Did- did you have sex?" I whispered. It was so inaudible that I'm surprised I even heard myself.
"Um," he began, shaking his head slightly, "it's not that straight forward."
As much as I didn't want to hear about their hook ups, part of me was desperate to know what actually happened between them.
"What happened? I mean," I choked on my words a little, "how did it all start?"
He took in a big breath and leaned back. "It was about 5 weeks ago, and we were at a party. We were both a little drunk, I guess, and it just sort of happened-"
"What happened?" I intercepted. "What exactly happened."
"Well, I found Kat, and we were both just dancing together, and at this point we were only a bit tipsy. Then we began grinding against each other, then one thing lead to another and I was kissing her." He paused, as if he were waiting for a reaction from me, but I continued staring out of the window. "I, um, I remember taking her hand and pulling her into another room. We didn't have sex, but I'm pretty sure she gave me a blowjob." He scratched the back of his neck, taking another breath. I tried to keep a straight expression, even though inside I was weeping heavily. I don't even know why I was getting so worked up; it's not like Calum and I have known each other for that long. We're not even dating, for crying out loud!
"It sort of carried on from there," he began again, "whenever we were at a party, we would hook up." he paused again, before dropping his voice and continuing. "But then it got a little more serious. I mean, she would come round mine or I would go round hers when we weren't even drunk, and we'd do all kind of things,"
"What things." I choked, holding back my tears. The more he spoke, the more comfortable he seemed talking about it, as if he were looking back on happy memories.
"Well, once we made out on the kitchen work surface at her house. Another time we showered together. This one time I went over to hers unexpected and we ended up hooking up when her parents were just below us."
I felt as though he hadn't finished, so I nodded as an encouragement for him to continue. He looked down at his hands as his once brighter expression fell.
"Then, this one night, about a week ago, she came round mine. My parents were out and I told her we could do anything she wanted. I wasn't a virgin, but I knew she was, and I didn't expect her to ask, but-"
"You had sex." I stated.
"We had sex," he confirmed, whispering. "It wasn't that bad, but something didn't feel quite right. I felt as though I was cheating, even though I wasn't dating anyone. I suddenly felt guilty about everything we had done." He said, still looking down at his hands. "The next day, I told her. I still remember exactly what I said as she opened the door: 'Kat, we can't see each other anymore, it's not right, and it's not fair on either of us.' She tried to say that if we dated it would be okay, but I didn't want to date her. I didn't want to go out with Kat, Naomi, because that's when I knew I liked you." I finally looked up at him, to see him looking down at me, tears welling in his eyes.
I wanted this not to be true. I kept hoping that he would suddenly say he was joking, or that it was a big misunderstanding and that he hardly knew Kat at all.
But instead he just stood there, looking at me with those huge brown eyes of his. I looked down, unable to meet his stare, and quietly mumbled. "I'm sorry."
"Why? No, oh god, Naomi you shouldn't be sorry! What are you talking abou-"
"No." I whispered. He immediately stopped and I felt the whole world come to a hault. "I can't be with you Calum."
The quietness was almost unbearable. There was no noise at all; I could hardly even make out Calum's breathing pattern due to the silence swallowing any sound like a black hole.
"Yes you can, Naomi, please, we can get through this. We care about each other." He moved towards me quickly and placed both hands on my shoulders. I simply shook my head lightly and replied with regret.
"But I don't care about you." And with that, he turned and walked out of the door.
Out of my life.

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THIS SUCKS BALLS AND IM SO SORRY I HAVENT UPDATED IN YEARS IVE HAD SO MUCH COURSEWORK AND CRAP TO CATCH UP ON IM SORRY
ily
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