Daylight (Calum Hood fanfic)

Chapter 38

Calum's POV:

I was in shock, staring at the door from which Cami had disappeared. She had forgotten to give me my heart back before leaving, apparently, or at least not all of it, because I had never felt a pain like this. I sat there dumbly and I didn't understand why blood didn't come gushing out of my chest because surely if it hurt so badly there had to be some sort of physical evidence of it. But no.

I couldn't wrap my head around this. I refused to understand it. Not only had Cami just broken up with me without explaining herself, but she'd done it right after I'd confessed my love for her. As if she'd been waiting for me to say that before leaving. As if the whole point of our relationship had been for me to fall in love with her. As if it had all been a lie just to break my heart. Betrayed didn't even begin to describe how I felt. But I wasn't exactly angry either. I was too tired to be angry, too caught up in the fact that I would never hold her again, never kiss her lips, never hear her sing, never make her giggle, never call her mine again. And it fucking hurt. It hurt so much that there was a hole in me, the one she'd filled with her stupid jokes and her stupid laugh and her stupid eyes, and that she had left a knife in. Had any of it even been real?

My mind reeling, I called Mike. It went straight to voicemail.

To Mike: I need you.

Fifteen minutes of blankly staring at the ground and fighting back tears later, my door bust open. I didn't even look up. Mike was on me within seconds, pulling me into a hug so tight it hurt, so tight I could almost forget my pain and concentrate on its comforting warmth. Almost.

"It's okay," he crooned in my ear. "It's gonna be okay."

And he held me as I cried.

When I had somewhat calmed down, I explained to Mike what had happened, watching his face darken in anger as he slowly put two and two together.

"She played you," he realized. "She played you from day one."

I remembered the first day, the not-so-subtle glances she'd sent me, and then the disinterest and cold shoulder of the following week. Everything to both grate on my nerves and interest me. And it had worked. I'd played into her hands like a fool, thinking I was weaving her in my own game, but she had always been a few steps ahead of me. I resisted the urge to go throw up and simply nodded.

"This is all Luke's work," Mike suddenly breathed. "It's the only way. Why else would she have wanted to do this to you? He wanted to get back at us for Rebecca, so he made her seduce you. Fuck, this is all my fault."

"Don't you dare blame yourself," I gritted out. "It's my fault for not realizing something was off. I let her get to me completely, and don't you dare say it's your fault that she won. Because I'm the one who believed her."

I couldn't help but rake my brain for small signs I should've picked up on. She'd been too perfect, I realized. The music taste, the love for bikes, the mix of sweetness and recklessness...I should've known. She'd wanted to make me pay for the hearts I'd broken and fuck, she'd done well. Because even now, I kept trying to hold on to some things that must have been real. You didn't randomly learn the lyrics to Follow you just because your fake boyfriend might know it. You didn't unconsciously trace the edges of his tattoo while kicking his ass on Mario Kart because you thought he might find it endearing. You didn't kiss with that much passion unless you felt something. Did you?

There was no sense in re-playing these memories, it only served to hurt me, but I couldn't help myself. Surely I couldn't be expected to so quickly let go of what had taken up the center stage of my life for the past month, could I? As if sensing my pain, Mike picked up my guitar from where I'd let it fall a few hours before. My heart clenched at the thought. That was before I'd found out that the angel reading on my lap was the devil in disguise. Mike strummed the chords expertly, and started humming.