pretty chapped lips : malum :

3.1

I was a kid, and I think in that moment I realised that.

His arm was around my shoulder, with fingertips running along my arm; I wondered if it was because standing there by his side, waiting for the door to open, he felt me shaking like a leaf. I wanted to run away. Heart slamming against my chest everything tasted like panic and I couldn't seem to calm myself down when I saw his knuckles rap so casually against the flat door in the side of town my mum bitches about over the phone and my father warned me to stay from.

"Just tell me if you wanna go, okay?" I heard him whisper as footsteps became louder on the other side of the hollow wood. "Just try it."

Try what? The words were heavy on my tongue, unasked, to be unanswered.

That was, until the realisation hit along with the wave of smoke to my senses when the door opened.

It was a man standing on the other side, who grinned at the sight of Calum. Red rimmed eyes glittering but dull, lips curved into a smile that looked so spaced, out of it and dreamy. "Cal," he said, fingers drifting through the side streak of blonde in otherwise dark hair as he leaned against the wooden door frame, "you came."

And when his eyes rested on me, dazed brown and lips curved to a smirk: I felt my stomach drop to my feet.

"And you brought your little friend."

I could have ran. Followed that primal instinct within me that was screaming flight over fight. But I shoved my shaky hands into pockets of ripped jeans I only wore when I gave a damn and let the boy by my side guide me in. I should have ran, but I was helpless with his arm so loose around my shoulders and the heat rolling off his body pressed to my side.

The apartment was filled with haze. Smoke drifted around everyone's heads, only four or five others sitting around on the floor or the mismatch couches. Smoke bubbled past their lips with every breath, low music playing somewhere in the back that made them smile, heads tilted back with little rings floating over dazed heads.

The smell was intoxicating. And I hated it.

I felt small, young and helpless. Pressed to his side like there was something in the action that could hide me away, fingers curled around my shoulder with smoke pouring past his lips: I never spoke a word. But I listened. I listened to the low and static like music in the background, to every inhale and exhale, to every spoken word.

"This him then?"

He nodded, gripping my shoulder that bit tighter like the blunt pinched between his fingers he seemed to religiously press to his lips.

"First time?"

There was another now, messy brown hair, dark eyes that stared from where he sat with a smile on his lips, watching as I avoided his gaze.

"Another night."

I heard the shift in his voice, felt the tightening of his arm around my shoulders and I couldn't help myself when my hand reached his knee, just resting, without a thought.

He looked at me finally, eyes red rimmed with that glassy look I always wondered what from. He stared, no words passed his lips, not even when one asked my name. He just stared, and suddenly, everything felt unbalanced, unsteady - delicate.

"Michael."

I blinked, turning away as he lifted the blunt to his lips.

"My names Michael."

A/N three things.

one, i'm so close to the end and looking back the chapters have gotten significantly longer the more i write this.

two, my best friend and i are (( who are hella fucking gay )) are being trusted alone in her house for the weekend since her parents are gone - meaning its gonna be a 5soso party

three, ONE OF MY FAVOURITE AUTHORS ON HERE (( cancersurvivors who if you dont read you should check out like everything they've written as its literally perfection )) STARTED READING AND ADDED CHAPPED LIPS TO THEIR READING LIST AND IM SO???? IM EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE AND STILL CRYING BECAUSE THEYRE PERFECT LIKE WOW

anyways, til next time my lovelies.

-rachel x