Fading (A Calum Hood Fan Fiction; Sequel to Pretending)

Chapter 48: Him

6 months later

The loudness of screams and roars of the crowd we've had tonight was nothing compared to the deafening noise I have inside my head. I'm trying as much as I could to fight it by trying to keep myself busy with music and stuff. But when the night time comes and I am back to being alone, the fight gets harder and I couldn't do anything to contain my emotions.

I honestly never thought I would be able to perform again. 5 Seconds of Summer was chosen to perform at an award show tonight here in Los Angeles and we were still lucky enough to have done it even without new music or anything for almost a year now. With all that has happened, the past six months have been really rough and I never thought I would still be able to survive everything. But who am I to give up? She's been in there for god knows how long, fighting for her life with all of her might and still hasn't given up her own battle. Even with that condition, she's still and will always be that one person that will serve as my one light especially at times where I feel like darkness has taken up all of me.

Letting out a deep sigh, I stood up and walked to my kitchen, grabbing a cold bottle of beer on the fridge. I know I was already told that drinking would not help me get better at all after being diagnosed with depression four months ago. But at times like this, when everything seems to bottle up again and I feel like I have no one else to run up to, this has been my only escape— the habit I can't seem to just get rid of.

I sat down on my recliner chair with a bottle of beer in my right hand a cigarette on the other. Being almost fifty meters high up in this building, I made sure that I would have the best view of the city night lights. I was then brought by my own thoughts back to the days where everything wasn't complicated as it is right now and life was just as simple as I have always wanted it to be. Taking a chug down on my cold beer, I remember being that seventeen year old boy with all of who I am right now were just dust of dreams in the palms of my hands. I remember waking up at six in the morning for school and complain shit about home works when all I ever did in class was stare outside the window. I remember all the I times I made a mess inside the cafeteria, the times I ditched classes to write songs, the unnecessary noises I made during classes, all the books that I didn't even use and the pens that mysteriously appeared and disappeared inside my bag. Those were all shitty memories but have always been worth remembering to me.

But mostly, I can still remember the day when I didn't even know that I would meet the person who would change my entirety. It's ridiculous to think that I could forget the lyrics to my own song and my car keys inside my flat but not the every details of her face and even the sound of her laugh. I remember how her eyebrows would furrow every single time she would disagree in anything I say. I remember how her eyes would lit up at the sight of coffee, how she would stop her lips from smiling whenever I tell her she's beautiful and how her tiny little hands can warm me up for a second. I felt as if life has been so fucking cruel to me that in even in my dreams, I would see her and her everything. I miss her so much that it's starting to even hurt me physically. There's not a minute that I couldn't get her out of my head. Memories of her and me will always come through and it will always begin with how happy she made me until it would come crashing down to my last and latest memory of her, almost lifeless and helpless.

There's not a day that I don't blame myself about everything that happened. To her, to me, to us. Maybe if I wasn't so fucked up and so caught up with everything, we would be together right now. Maybe if I only loved her right even from the beginning, none of us would be suffering right now. And maybe if I didn't let her slip away from me again that time, none of these things would have happened. I keep telling myself that if only I could only turn back the time, I would. But I couldn't. I couldn't even do anything to wake her up. I couldn't help feeling nothing but a useless piece of shit no matter how much I try to get better.