pretty chapped lips : malum :

0.9

For Chloe, who listened to the roughest, shittiest, bare bones before editing and still thinking it was good x

Had this been a mystery of sorts, it would have been quite possible to say I now had a lead. Truth be told, I had never intended on finding anything out about the boy that seemed to haunt my mind, conscious or not isn't exactly the point. I was perfectly content with trying to convince myself he didn't exist as I found refuge in watching him ghost through life. 

Or at least, that's what I told myself. 

In truth: I had always wanted to know who he was. I had always wanted to know his name, where he came from and who he was. I would try to convince myself it didn't matter, that I should spend less time obsessing over someone I will never know and spend more time trying to doge my fathers drunken blows. But, it wasn't possible. It's impossible not to be curious about the person that haunts your every waking thought, slips in and out of your dreams like a phantom through stone. 

I often wondered his name. I often wondered of the life he lived. Was he a teenager? Did he come from this town? Had he fallen in love before? Were his family more than just fake smiles in a picture frame? So many questions would fill my mind as I thought about the boy that would dance down the streets, a smile on his lips with shadows clinging to his skin. But also the very same who would fall to his knees, and every time, I worried he may never get back up off of them. 

All I knew of the boy was how he could never seem to part with the cigarettes placed between his lips, and the boy he looked to love from two years above.  

I wanted to ask questions, I wanted to have a way of finding then out. I urged myself to move forward, to corner the curly haired boy with the oh so bright hazel eyes (as Luke corrected me with a huff) who was laughing with his friends and ask him all the questions I had been dying to know. But I couldn't do that. No, I could never do that. 

Instead I would just watch him from the corners of my eyes and dream of what he could know. I wanted to know obvious things, like his name; I wanted to know little things, like the way he took his tea, if he even liked it at all; I wanted to know big things, like why he runs out in front of the road when he thinks no one is there to know.

It hurt me to realise I may never know the boy that has such a tight hold on me as he may. He could know everything. With his oh so bright hazel eyes and his loudandinfectious laugh. He could know everything that makes him mad and everything that matters to him while I wonder every night the answers to such questions.  

Often as I stared, as I bored holes into the back of the seventeen year olds head, Luke with his oh so bright naive blue eyes would ask what I was doing. He would question if I was alright, ask what was wrong and if there was anyway to help. 

I could never answer him truthfully. 

I wasn't sure why, it made no sense to me really why I couldn't. But by now I was so used to being silent, keeping my thoughts, my foolish hopes and all to real fears to myself that I seem to have forgotten how to tell the truth when faced with these questions. 

It wouldn't take him long to forget what he was asking whenever the topic of Ashton Irwin with his oh so bright hazel eyes and loudandinfectious laugh would flow past my lips. His eyes would glaze and his smile would turn dreamy as he grazed at the boy I felt emotions towards that I couldn't seem to explain. (Anger? Sadness? Jealousy?) He'd begin to ramble as id fade away again, back to thoughts of tanned skin boys that smoke more than they seem to weigh. 

His words would pull me from my thoughts at some points, bits and pieces about the boy he loves as the one I long for finds his way into it. Luke would speak as he were in a dream, continuing to speak though Id ask him to repeat. Snapping fingers before his glazed over eyes until they're colour returned, with oh so bright blue eyes he'd stare in confusion as I asked him again. 

He would shrug his shoulder as if it were nothing. Plucking a grape from the little tub in front of him as he prattled on, speaking of the tanned boy I long for yet he has no clue of. 

"No, his name. What did you say it was?" Id ask him again, staring hard into childish blue eyes as the blond boy tilted his head as if me wondering that was absurd. 

But to him it was, and I see why. Rarely will I speak, rarely if ever I will notice people and never, never do I interrupt his ramblings about the boy he loves. But none the less as oh so bright blue eyes blinked, the words he spoke burned themselves into my mind. 

"Calum, Calum Hood."

-

A/N I'm so excited I'm bouncing, oh my god we'rE GETTING SOMEWHERE

#P.I.Clifford amirite? anyways, sorry for the extra day wait (if you've never checked my profile or haven't noticed, i update every five days) i was busy revising last night but here you are at long last.

anyways, thank you as always for reading and remember to vote and comment because i love it when you guys comment, you're so sweet really, and until next times beauties

p.s this is also like, the longest chapter ive ever written for pcl and this is my short fic so its odd but nice

-rachel x