reckless | mgc

sixteen

"So that was it?" Calum asked, laying on his back and staring up at Addy's bedroom ceiling. She had asked him to come over as they hadn't hung out in a while, and he showed up at her door not more than ten minutes later. They sat on her bed and talked for almost an hour about the events that had taken place earlier that week with Michael and Addy was just about all cried out and ready for a nap.

"Yeah, pretty much," Addy said, sitting up next to Calum and staring down at her phone screen. She was hoping for a call, a voicemail, a text, a tweet, anything from Michael that might fix things. But nothing ever came, and Addy had a feeling nothing ever would.

"Damn, I'm sorry," Calum offered an apology, knowing how hard this was for Addy. He'd never tell her "I told you so," but he couldn't help feeling a little guilty because he knew this was going to happen eventually. It wasn't his fault, but he felt partially responsible for not trying to stop things between them sooner. He was confused.

"Yeah," Addy started, her concentration fading in and out between the conversation and her phone. "Me too."

"Want me to kick his ass?" Addy would have laughed, but to be honest she wasn't really sure if Calum was joking or not.

"I'm not sure what I want anymore," she groaned, locking her phone and flopping down next to Calum on her bed and sighing heavily. She felt like she should be crying, sobbing, angry - wondering what the hell she had done to make Michael just drop everything like that. And she was angry, God, she was so angry, but she was confused and sad and didn't know how to channel any of her emotions out.

She wanted to call Michael to get even a sense of what had gone wrong, but she stopped herself before she could even find his contact in her phone. She always stopped herself.

"That's okay," Calum tried to comfort her, being a bit useless since it was usually the other way around. Calum would come to Addy, looking to party and get drunk and cry his heart out because of breakups. He was kind of embarrassing when he was drunk. "You don't have to know what you want. You're only seventeen. You have, like, a thousand years left to decide."

Addy knew Calum was right, but she also knew he was kind of wrong. She had already decided what she wanted and it had backed off. Addy was about to say something when her phone rang.

"Holy shit," she whispered, fumbling around with her phone and hoping for the slightest chance it could be him. Her whole body felt like a ticking bomb and suddenly all the things she had been holding in for the past few hours were coming out at the same time. It was like her insides were unraveling and she couldn't stop it. "You answer it!" she yelled, tossing her ringing phone to Calum. He rolled his eyes, not bothering to check the caller I.D. before pressing accept and answering.

"Hello?" he said into the phone, looking over at Addy who was biting down so hard on her bottom lip it could have busted open. Calum couldn't tell if she did or didn't want it to be Michael.

"Calum?" a voice asked from the other end. It was one Calum recognized.

"Luke?" Calum asked, and Addy's face fell. Calum knew why.

"Can I talk to Addy?" Luke asked, and Calum handed over the phone to her. She looked like she didn't want to talk but pressed the phone to her ear anyway, taking in a deep breath.

"Hi Luke," her voice was soft.

"Hey Addy," he said, trying almost too hard to sound casual. "Heard you and Permanent Bedhead had a little falling out. I just wanted to call to make sure you were okay." On any other day of the year Addy would have laughed out loud at Luke's joke, not bothering to tell him off for being rude. But today, she couldn't even listen to him try to lighten the mood without wanting to cry.

"Yeah, we did," she said softly, staring down and bringing her bottom lip between her teeth. "Wait, how did you know?" Addy was confused as to how Luke had found out, because there wasn't anyone else in the hall with them and she had only told Calum. On top of that she was pretty positive that Michael wouldn't touch Luke with a ten foot pole - especially when it came to things like this.

"Uh-um," Luke stuttered, trying to find a way to lie and sound believable. He was a terrible liar so he made up some bullshit story on the fly, knowing it wouldn't work anyway. "I think someone was walking by and heard you fighting? I'm not really sure how many people know, I heard it from some girl in my biology class."

"You're lying," Addy said simply, hearing the hint of uneasiness in his voice. Now she was twice as confused as to why he knew and wouldn't tell her the truth. They'd always told each other the truth.

"No I'm not," Luke trailed off, not even bothering to try to defend himself further. He'd been caught and he wasn't really surprised because Addy could see right through him. If he was completely honest, Luke had no idea how he'd kept the drug deals a secret from her for so long.

"Yes you are. I can tell. Now how did you find out?" Luke took in a deep breath on the other end of the phone. He was still going to lie to her, he just needed to be ready to sound like he was telling the truth. Luke didn't like lying, especially to Addy, but he had to do it for himself.

"I was coming around the corner and I thought I heard you yelling so I stayed back. I didn't know if it was you or not until you walked away and I saw Michael. I would have stepped in if I knew it was you, I'm sorry." It was partially true, he was standing around the corner when he heard the fight happen. The only difference was that he knew it was Addy and Michael, and he wasn't about to stop it.

Addy just took the phone away from her ear and hung up. She could tell Luke was hiding something from her and she wasn't in the mood to tell him to spill it. She just wondered what it had to do with Michael.

"What did he want?" Calum asked, rolling onto his side and propping his head up with his hand. Addy shook her head and set her phone down, laying next to Calum like she had a thousand times before.

"Nothing, he just asked about you know who." Calum only nodded, knowing Addy wasn't in any mood to talk about Michael. To be honest, neither was he. They hadn't really been able to hang out much since she started seeing Michael, which sort of pissed Calum off. He hated feeling like a second option- especially if it was Michael who was the first option. It didn't really matter anymore, though, because here he was laying in Addy's bed where Michael most definitely should have been instead.

"Hey, let's just do something to get your mind off it, yeah? I'll take you out to a party that's a few hours from now, let's go get ready." Calum stood up, reaching his hand out to help Addy off her bed too. She was hesitant at first, feeling like all she wanted to do was sleep off the sadness but decided she needed this more than she originally thought. She hadn't been to a party since the night she talked to Michael for the first time, (which was quite a long time ago) and she wasn't really sure if she was ready to go to another one.

An hour and twenty minutes later, though, she was stood in front of the bathroom mirror wearing a black dress and the least grungy pair of flats she could find in her closet. Every minute she stared into the mirror made her feel worlds away from the real one and she just didn't feel at all like herself.

"Ready to go?" Calum asked, walking up behind her in a white button down and black skinny jeans. He always looked so effortlessly good. Addy always told him it was unfair.

She took a deep breath, taking one last glance at her unfamiliar reflection in the mirror and turning to face him, breaking into a half fake - half excited smile. "Yeah."