calum
I wake up to the lyrics of All Time Low's Jasey Rae. Even in my exhausted state, I know that it's Mali calling- that's the ringtone I set for her.
My sister always seems to need me at the crack of dawn. She's always been an early riser- we're quite the opposite in that sense. Even as kids, I loved staying up late and then letting sleep take me into the next afternoon, whereas she was always awake early and making breakfast for the family.
Sometimes I wonder how we turned out so different despite being raised nearly the same.
I fumble for my phone in the dark and click the glowing green circle to answer the call. As I bring the phone to my ear, I see that it's actually past noon, despite my thinking it was the wee hours of the morning. My black curtains really do the trick.
"Hello?" I mumble into the phone, my eyes still closed. My sleep schedule has been off for literally the past six months. I'd fallen asleep around four this morning, and even that was an improvement.
Sometimes I didn't sleep for a night, or even a few days. This concerned me, somewhere in the back of my mind. I think you probably have to be a certain amount of fucked up to voluntarily stay up for 80 hours straight.
"Calum," my older sister says slowly, as if trying to brace me for something. Her tone tells me that it's important. I sit up slowly in my tired state and my back leaning against my headboard.
"Mali, what's wrong?" I demand, my heart rate picking up.
"It's... It's Alexis," she says and I'm suddenly wide awake. With just a few words, all of the stitches on my healed wounds rip open and the weight of guilt and regret suddenly slump my shoulders and weigh down my entire body.
"What? What about her?" I practically yell as fast as I can get the words out. If anything happened to Lex, I don't know what I would do. There would be nothing left to do, nothing left to live for.
"Calum, she's... she's gone," Mali tells me. My eyebrows furrow in confusion as my heart sinks and breathing picks up.
"What do you mean gone?" I interrogate my sister, sitting up all the way and swinging my legs over the side of my bed, and then planting my feet on the ground. I'm not sure why I stand though. It's not like I can do anything. She's not mine anymore. She isn't mine to save.
"Cal, she moved. Far away..." she tells me, dragging out her words. I could strangle Mali right now, if we weren't two states away. I swear she's trying to create suspense.
"Oh my fucking god, Mali where is Alexis? Do you know where she is?!" I swear at her, tears coming to my eyes. I never used to cry Before, or curse in front of my sister. Despite the fact that she's older than me, I liked to try to set a good example for her. But that was before I made the biggest mistake of my life and obliterated everything I'd ever done to try to be a good person or whatever.
"Cal, she's in LA," she tells me slowly, as if that speed will help tame my reaction. My eyes widen at her words and I drop the call, throwing my phone across the room. It hits the wall and makes a loud sound and probably shatters into a million fucking pieces of sharp glass. I don't care.
A month after I made the biggest mistake of my life, I left. I convinced my parents to let me live with my best friend, Luke, who'd moved to the LA area a few years back. We'd stayed extremely close, and because our parents were friends and the schools here were better, my parents let me leave.
YOU ARE READING
and then you left // cth
Fanfiction"you left me, cal. after everything you'd said, after every promise, you left me without even saying goodbye," my words knock the wind out of him. he doesn't know what to say, what to do. but even so, he stares into my eyes, reminding me of everythi...
