Push Me Away : Book 2 of the Teeth Series

13

Calum tried not to panic as he made the drive to Fallon's place. Rationally, he knew that she was probably fine and just trying to prove a point that he had hurt her feelings the week prior. However, he knew that her mental health lately hadn't been the best and so his brain was jumping to the worst conclusions it could come up with. Thus, his foot was pressing a little harder on the gas than he probably should have been as he raced across town and right to Fallon's door.

He considered knocking, they weren't on the best of terms after all but in the end he figured if she ditched therapy and her band she probably wasn't going to be exactly ecstatic over his presence. Fumbling, he dug around in his pants pocket until he palmed his keys, tugging them out and flipping through the assortment until he held the key to her apartment that he had never returned. Slipping it into the door he breathed a sigh of relief as the door slid open and revealed a perfectly fine Fallon, strewn across the couch, wrapped up in her favorite blanket.

"Oh, well just let yourself in, why don't you? Hi—I guess." She stated. Obvious sarcasm and surprise was in her words.

"Well, Fallon, believe it or not some people care about you and when you ditch out on therapy they get concerned and try to check on you at band practice since your excuse was work and when they find out you aren't there they trek through town and break into your apartment to make sure you're alright." He licked his lips. "Not sure you can really call it breaking in though. Since I've got a key and all."

"Well, here I am. Fine and dandy. You can go now."

"No, I can't." He stated firmly. His whole body tense as he stood, still framed in the doorway. "This isn't settled Fallon."

"What isn't settled about it Cal? We both said our piece, or at least you sure have. Until you sort your shit out and figure out if you can forgive me there isn't any reason to go on pretending that we stand a chance in hell."

"Tha—" Calum was stopped by Fallon's outstretched hand, her palm directly facing him.

"It doesn't matter if that's exactly what's going on, it's what is at the heart of the issue. I can't keep going to therapy every week and bearing my soul while you look at me like some traitorous human. It's tearing me up inside. Coupled with this back and forth bullshit and lack of clarity about who and what we are or could be to each other is only dragging me further down and I don't want to do that anymore. "

"Then what do you want?"

Calum didn't mean for his voice to be harsh or his words snippy but he was quickly losing patience with having this same fucking argment constantly. Couldn't Fallon see how much he loved her still? Or at least how much he wanted that to be true? Yes. Things were hard. They were as shitty as they had ever been but was she really giving up? She couldn't. TOgether they had endured too much, overcome too many obstacles to let a dent in her pride be the straw that broke the camel's back. This couldn't be the end of them. He wouldn't allow it.

"What if I say I forgive you?"

Her eyes quickly snapped up to meet his, brown meeting brown. The shock and unexpectedness of his question was as clear as day across Fallon's face.

"What?"

"Look, this whole thing has crushed me. Maybe I'll never understand why you did what you did but waking up every morning and living with this heartache is killing me. And—"

"Do you want to know?"

His words died off, his thoughts unfinished as he openly gaped at her. "What?"

"I think it might help you, might help us, if I told you everything."

"Yeah, but, won't that be really hard for you?"

She gave a humorless laugh. "Well yeah, but you finding out was hard. The world getting every gory detail from the fucking paparazzi and that doctor was hard. Living through a second breakup without you was hard. So yeah it will hurt to think about it. It always does. But I think it's time."

"If you're willing to tell me then I'm willing to listen." He promised, walking the three quick steps it took him to reach the couch and then filling the space beside her.

"So, I found out I was pregnant a few days before your birthday. At first I was really panicked. I mean, the band was just taking off really and I knew your schedule was really busy but I was so devastatingly in love with you that I figured we would find a way to make it all work. I don't know what I thought your initial reaction was going to be but when I told you the day after your party and you had no words and left I spiraled."

Fallon chanced a glance up to Calum and wasn't surprised to find his features set in a frown.

"I don't remember much from that morning. I remember you telling me and I freaked the fuck out and I just ran. I needed to clear my head."

"Right. And I know that now but in that moment I saw your panic as rejection of both myself and our baby. I was out of my mind scared and with every day that passed after that I became more and more sure that I wasn't ready to be a mother. So I made the appointment and had the procedure and then you..." A cracked sob broke through her story and she took a few breaths to be able to continue while Calum reached out, his hands rubbing gentle circles across her back. "You showed up the day after and you had this whole plan of how we could make it work.." She sniffled. "You said that you were sorry that you had bailed and that you just needed a minute and that now you were ready to be there for us. By then though it was too late, I had already gone through with it and I just couldn't bear to tell you what I had done when you seemed so excited about everything at that point so I lied. I told you I had miscarried thinking that a white lie like that would let us both put the pregnancy behind us and things would be fine."

"But they weren't." Calum said, clearing his throat.

"Right. You took it so hard and my guilt was eating me alive and we just weren't the people we had been before. Everything I did was to try and make sure that you and I were good but I just made mistake after mistake and you and I, our relationship is what paid the price."

Calum didn't know what to say. The sincerity in her voice left no doubt that what she was saying was true and now that she had dug the memory of those few days out of the recesses of his brain he could perfectly picture those moments. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty because as he thought through the encounters he couldn't believe that he had missed what had been so painfully obvious.

He and Fallon, the pair that had once so proudly boasted about the communication within their relationship, had let communication be their downfall.

An: I have 0 drafts and I cannot believe I got this done on time. I'm on vacay so y'all just bear with me on updates.

So the whole situation that led to Fallon's actions finally came out. What do we think?

What about Cal's offer of a clean slate?

What's next?

Ily,
Sav 🖤