This One's For You //cth

siete.

A/N;; this took me a day and a half to write and I really like this chapter okay enjoy it's kinda sad but it gets happy I swear

Fletch and I were both in shock.

“Let's ignore it for now?” He suggested.

Shaking my head, I frowned.

“I don't think I can. But we'll leave after we get our drinks. I don't think we should bother them, I don't need Alexa's bullshit.” I mumbled quietly and he agreed with me quickly, stepping up to the cashier to order.

We ordered our drinks and looked at Alexa and Michael briefly, shaking our heads.

After our silent walk back to campus, Fletch and I parted to go to our dorms. When I opened my door, I saw a crying Calum on my bed and it made my heart split.

“Calum, what's wrong?”

“She doesn't love me either.”

“Well, yeah, but-,”

“Alexa cheated,”

“I-,”

“With one of my best mates.” He finished, wiping his eyes.

“Can I speak now?” Calum nodded, mumbling a 'sorry' under his breath.

I sat down next to him on the bed, placing my hand on his sympathetically. I didn't quite know what to say so I didn't say anything. The silence wasn't awkward, but there was tension evident. I don't know if he noticed, but it felt really heavy to me. Maybe it was just because of my massive crush- could I even call it that?- on him. Breaking the silence, I decided to finally speak up.

“C-Cal?” I said, more like asked him to get his attention. He turned to me with big eyes and his cheeks puffy from crying, “I already knew that she cheated.”

As soon as I said that, I regretted it.

“You..” Calum's voice tightened and he grew tense, “you knew she cheated yet didn't tell me? How could you not? Are we not friends?” His jaw was painfully clenched and I swallowed, shaking my head softly.

“No, you don't understand-,”

“I understand perfectly,” He said coldly.

“Calum, let me fucking talk,” I snapped, “I found out today. Right before I came back to campus, and I was going to tell you the next time I saw you, but here you are.”

His eyes widened, wiping his face with the back of his hand, relaxing and then turning to look at me, “I'm sorry.. I-I'm an asshole and in a really bad state right now.”

I understood what he said, considering I had gone through the same phase.

Way too many times.

“Can I ask you a question?” I blurted out without even thinking about it. He shrugged in response, and I decided to go for it.

“You told me that you didn't love her, or like her. Why are you so broken up about this?” I asked carefully, like he was made of glass and if I said something wrong, he would shatter.

Calum's lips formed a straight line he seemed to be lost in thought for a few minutes before he answered me;

“I'm not entirely sure. It's like, when I found out she was cheating, I felt this aching emptiness. Maybe I did love her, or do, or maybe I've felt this way the whole time. I can't tell, but it's like I'm missing something. Is it okay to say that I'm incomplete?” He asked me softly, and I had never heard something so deep, so honest. I watched him closely, noticing little details about him. The slight part in his lips. How when he sniffs, his nose scrunches up. I realized that I never answered his question and shook myself back to reality.

“Yeah, I-, yes. It's okay if you're incomplete, Cal,” I answered him after some time, hoping he didn't notice my watching him.

Suddenly, his features displayed frustration and I looked at him with slight confusion, “But there's the problem, it doesn't feel like it's okay. I'm incomplete, and I don't know what I'm missing. Yet, I want to know, and I don't know if I ever will.”

“Calum, this is a world full of feelings that none of us have words for yet. You might be incomplete now, but it isn't something any of us can control. I know you will be complete, and I know that you know this feeling won't last forever,” I replied, watching his face go from frustration, to confusion, to neutrality, like he actually understood what I said, even if I barely did myself.

“I just don't know what to do now,” He sighed deeply, creases forming on his forehead.

“Maybe you should break up with her,” I suggested with a shrug, his eyes widening with- fear?

“N-no, no no, I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“She knows things, Elle, bad things about me. Alexa told me if I ever broke our deal, she would tell everybody.”

“Would you please explain, so I can understand, and maybe help you?”

Calum's teeth sunk into his bottom lip gently, I could see him debating on telling me or not. He turned to me suddenly, his hands taking mine and looking me directly in the eye.

“Back in high school, [[A/N;; we used to take it slow ;-)]] I was in a really bad place. My mom was abusive, and my dad was dead,” As he spoke, his gaze shifted to anywhere but mine, “and things were starting to go downhill much quicker than I thought after his death. My mom started.. beating me at the age of 14. In high school, I had Michael and Ashton. They were it. I wasn't really popular at all, in fact I was bullied a lot. I took up smoking, and I didn't stop there. As time went on, I was introduced to different things, drinking, drugs, basically anything I could get my hands on,” He stopped there, and didn't continue for a few minutes.

“Why did your mom do that?” I asked hesitantly, his thumb rubbing circles on my left hand.

“Mom started drinking. It was kinda weird, now that I think about it, the thing that caused her to hate me caused me to hate her and do the same thing.” It was easy to tell that he was holding back tears.

I didn't say anything, so he continued, “Besides Ash and Mikey, Alexa is the only person who knows. Alexa found me junior year and basically fixed me, and I fell for her. Senior year we were still in love, but by the first year of college it was pure friendship, there was no romance. We were the power couple though suddenly, and it sucked,” His voice shook, and I frowned deeply.

“So, she blackmailed you into staying with her so she'd remain the leading girl here?” I scoffed, some people could be so damn low.

He nodded solemnly, and my heart ached for him. I gave his hand a light squeeze, causing him to finally look up, his eyes meeting mine.

“I'm really, really sorry, Calum,” This was obviously a hard thing to talk about for him, yet he trusted me without even really knowing much about me.

“It's fine though, things are a lot better now,” The supposedly perfect hockey captain said with a small smile, but his voice cracked near the end of his sentence. There is no harder thing to hear than the crack of somebody's voice when they are about to cry. Seeing him so broken up about this made me want to cry. It also made me want to wrap my arms around him and just hold him. A few tears slipped down his face.

I pulled my hands away from his, tilting his chin up to look at me. I used the pads of my thumbs to wipe them away, smiling softly at him.

And then we were kissing, and it was like nothing else mattered. I felt so many different things, I didn't even know how I felt. Scared, maybe. Like Amelia Earhart, I was flying. I wasn't in my own body, it felt like. I was in a much happier place. And he was with me. Everything was okay.

His lips were soft, and I could taste a hint of salt from his tears. His hands reached up to cup my face, bringing me closer to him.

My heart was literally beating like that Fifth Harmony song, Sledgehammer.

Our noses accidentally bumped a bit, but we just laughed it off. I don't think either of us knew what we were doing, or why.

But in that moment, I had everything that I needed.