Amnesia • Calum Hood

•Chapter Twenty-Eight•

Because I love you.

He'd only said the words once, but I heard them a hundred more times. 

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Again and again, over and over they resonated throughout my body.  They sank deep into my skin first, soaking past the veins until they reached my muscles.  Pinpricks of warmth could be felt as they traveled down my bloodstream, flooding right into my heart where they cascaded into a beautiful waterfall of gold.

If gold was a feeling, that was how I would describe this moment.

Gold was everywhere, in my blood, my skin, my mind.  It saturated my face and glimmered up out of my soul, casting a light onto the dark sidewalk where we stood.  Gold reverberated through my spine and leaped across my back, causing chills which felt like blooming flowers.

There was gold in Calum's eyes, flashing at me.  It was paper-thin gold, easily destroyable.  But it sparkled beautifully nonetheless, just as breathtaking as the gold rushing through my being.  Flakes of paper sunlight whirled on the wind between us, surrounding us in a quiet tornado, like autumn leaves carried on the breeze.  It never touched the ground, was never tampered by any outside force.  This gold was indestructible, and it was brighter than any sun the universe could conjure up.

I felt golden.

Calum's eyes were pooling with gold as he looked down at me, the brown orbs seeking every emotion he could find in my hazel ones.  My breath washed out across his face, causing his lashes to flutter at the feeling.  His fingers rubbed across the back of my head, igniting the skin and causing me to lean forward.

Our heads were close.  His every thought could be heard, every fear and every hope magnified into a chaotic roar.  I heard every single thing.

One, shaky hand raised from my side.  It trembled as it passed through the air, reaching up to press lightly against his cheek.  I felt the warmth there, the strength flowing beneath the skin.  He was humming with life, and with one small touch some of it was transferred into my cold body, giving it the long-awaited heat I'd been yearning for.

Brown eyes begged me to say something, and the plea did not fall upon deaf ears.

But I didn't want to say anything.  One word would shatter the beautiful golden bubble we were floating in, destroy the sun-colored fragments until there was nothing left but dust.  So I stayed quiet, held back my words, kept them safe for another time.

The words were not really needed, after all.  Calum could feel the gold too.

His mouth opened, ready to release the words again which would evaporate the gold.  To prevent them from escaping, and because my whole body was screaming to, I leaned forward ever so slightly and kissed him.

It was a light kiss.  There were only a few heartbeats of connection, but within these short seconds was an explosion.  Every nerve was set on fire when his lips touched mine, awakening the fireworks that had been dormant for so long.  They flew off into the sky, the world holding it's breath to see what would happen next.

I rubbed my nose along Calum's, along his smooth and soft skin.  I kept my eyes closed as I breathed in his scent, letting it fill every crevice inside of me with its sweetness.  His hand was clutching my head still, and I slowly brought the hand on his cheek to touch his.  I heard him inhale, and finally opened my eyes to look right into his, electrifying us into place. 

"Calum," I whispered, careful not to let the gold shatter.

There was a beat of silence.

"I love you too."