"breaking up never felt so cruel, and now i'm tired and now i'm dead to me." —the old gospel choir by modern baseball
calum's problem was that there was too much space. when he went outside and saw the sights of rome, ate the food, met the fans, he could squish down the space where emily should be, the place in his heart where she still remained. he could fold it up into a tiny square and keep it inside him, going on with his life. sure, the square's edges would poke him incessantly and remind him of its presence, but the point was he was able to keep it locked away. but when calum was alone in bed, in his hotel room, or even with his friends, he couldn't control it. the little square is would unfold again and again until it was its original size, and then it would keep going. expanding and growing and filling all the space where emily was supposed to be, but wasn't. there was too much space, and calum wanted to go home.
the other problem was which home he wanted to go to. did he want to go back to australia and visit his parents? or did he want to go to america and see mali koa or emily?
that's where he stopped short. he couldn't go see emily. they were broken up, and calum was sure they wouldn't remain friends either, no matter how hard either of them tried. when he thought about going to see mali, he remembered how busy she was with her music. he couldn't just drop in unannounced and uninvited; what could he expect mali to do for him or with him when she had her own life? the same conflict arose with his parents. calum knew that him being home made it harder for his parents; the fans would come to the airport and some of the crazier ones would probably have a go (and possibly succeed) at finding the house. and what were they supposed to do with him while he was there? calum didn't know.
by now, luke, ashton, and michael had all figured out what had happened during the phone call. they offered their sympathies and traded off shifts of hanging out with calum so he wouldn't feel to lonely. he was grateful that they tried, but it didn't help. only one person could make him feel better, and she was on the other side of the world, not concerned with him at all.
it hurt, and calum was tired of hurting. he was tired of being sad, but he didn't know what to do for fun. if he drank, he'd just feel sad. if he smoked, he would feel worse about himself. so, he slept. a lot.
one morning, with a week left in the break, calum was woken up by michael, who said, "rise and shine bud, we're leaving for amsterdam in a few hours."
calum had forgotten. they were all going to amsterdam, and they were meeting luke's girlfriend there. they would have been meeting emily too, had calum not cancelled the tickets and had emily not broken up with him.
calum rolled over and went to back sleep, annoyed that michael had woken him up (despite it being out of necessity). he liked it here in rome. sure, his heart had been broken in the hotel room across the hall, but he still loved the sights, the food, the architecture, and all of the other experiences.
calum had barely been asleep for five minutes when he was awoken again, this time by ashton. he was less nice than michael had been about it, ripping the covers off and forcing calum to curl into a tiny ball to conserve body heat. one loses quite a lot of body heat by sleeping only in boxers.
"get up," ashton snapped. "i know you're sad and shit but we don't have time for that. we have to be at the airport, checked in for our flight, in forty-five minutes."
"michael said we still had a few hours!"
"yeah, till our plane leaves. you know how early we have to get there."
calum sighed and sat up. sometimes he felt a sliver of resentment for what his life had become; they had to leave so much earlier for everything and be very secretive while still constantly having their privacy invaded. but then he remembered that he got to do what he loved with his best friends, and he got to do it for his fans, whom he also loved.
an astounding twenty minutes later, calum was all packed and ready to go. ashton let up a little bit, thanking him for moving quickly and keeping them on time. calum just nodded gruffly in response; he was still pissed about their earlier encounter.
calum slouched downstairs with ashton, where they met michael and luke. they were going to leave through a backdoor to avoid fans, and calum was grateful for this decision. while he loved the fans and they made him smile, he was in such a foul mood right now that he didn't trust himself to be around them and be civil. he made a mental note to later tweet a reminder to the fans telling them how much he loved them. he'd have to specify it was the fans, of course, or they'd suspect he was talking about emily and then things would get blown out of proportion and she'd inevitably call him, angry that he was stirring things up.
once they reached the car, calum climbed in and put his headphones on right away. he scrolled through his spotify before selecting the story so far. it was not a time for happy music right now. he settled in as the intense bass of "things i can't change" resonated through his headphones. he'd always wanted to learn the bass part of the song; it was quite intricate. within minutes, he was asleep.
•••••
heyyy what a nice anticlimactic ending
