Mirrors | Malum

20

Michael

Calum Thomas Hood is the kind of guy who's always full of surprises. He will leave you breathless each time you try to inhale the oxygen around you. He will make you feel weak in your knees because every time you see him, you forgot that walking is a legitimate thing. He will surprise you with gratitude and love and anger and shyness and a variety of emotions that cannot simply be expressed with words. He will delicately hold you and whisper hopeless melodies about how important it is not to smoke because he thinks your life is much more valuable than you do. He will surprise you in the most unexpected ways, and that includes something I wasn't ready for nor expecting.

"You shaved your hair."

He smiled awkwardly as he ran his long fingers through it, which made me smile on return because I could see that his nails were freshly painted black and not chapped off and I still had the familiar feeling of hope that one day he'd let me paint them for him.

"Yeah, it's really hot and I didn't feel like dealing with it."

"Do you like the way it looks on you?"

I noticed how Calum's body went stiff and how his eyes went from maintaining subtle eye contact with me, to almost completely avoiding my face and looking straight ahead, which looked to be the train where his sister would be getting off any minute.

"Uh, yeah," he choked up and I almost felt sorry for him. It was as if he was having second thoughts or regrets about shaving his hair and I didn't like it. I wanted, no, needed him to feel confident with himself because as much as I adore the beautiful boy standing in front of me, its hard trying to take away his insecurities when I've grown to love all of mine.

"Hey, if it makes any difference, you look great."

"Thanks."

I also didn't expect to be dragged along with Calum and his sister, unplanned, because apparently he told Mali that I was going to join with him and truthfully, I didn't want to but I was willing to sacrifice what I didn't want to do for Calum. I was the one who got him into this mess, so I have to be the one to suffer the consequences.

"So Michael, what made you decide to join the department?"

I glanced over at Calum who was staring at me with heart eyes and I practically felt myself melting but I tried my absolute best to control myself because well, his sister was asking me a question and I needed to be respectful about it.

"I play guitar."

"You do?" Calum asked with a hint of confusion in his voice. It was as though it came out as more of a shock to him than a why didn't you tell me sooner kind of thing. I didn't want to tell him because I didn't want to be one of those sappy hopeless romantic guys who brings someone to their room to play a tune on their guitar, and then all of the romance goes down the drain because all they really wanted to do was get in the persons pants.

I'd never betray Calum like that though, because he deserves to be looked at as so much more than just another excuse to have sex. He was beautiful, like the dolphins that dive into the crystal water that glistens under the blue moonlight and he was beautiful like the sound of a baby crying for the very first time and being held by the mother, because they were brought into this world for the same reason Calum was, for the same reason I was, which was to discover what it really means to be alive. It can be hard sometimes trying to figure out the true definition of that word, since sometimes I rely on a short smoke that I could quickly do in an alley or a parking lot. But Calum, he is what gave that word a definition.