the boxer // lrh au

thirty four ; liz hemmings

i follow michael to my room to console him.

the thing about michael is that he was very sensitive, especially when it came to stuff that tyler says. for some reason, since the beginning of time, tyler has been like a brother to michael and it was evident that he took the stuff that he said very seriously.

"you know he was just joking." i say to michael through the door of my own room. michael locked himself in my room and refused to open it.

"why does he hate me?" he asks through the door.

my heart aches for michael as i know how much tyler's opinion means to him.

"he doesn't! i promise it. you know he jokes like that."

i hear michael creating some type of noise in my room and i furrow my eyebrows as to what he was doing in the room.

"come in." i hear michael's muffled voice say through the door a few seconds after i hear the door unlock.

great, thank you for granting me permission into my own room.

when i walk in, i expect to see him on my bed but when i glance through the room, i see michael sitting on my bean bag and holding onto a stuffed animal he gave me years ago.

his name was southy. michael won him for me at the fair two years ago and every time he was sad or i was sad, we would hold onto him. when i held him, it was mainly for michael to understand that i was truly upset by something, but when michael held him, i knew it meant that he had to tell me something.

the first time michael clifford help onto southy, it was him telling me that his dad was trying to contact him again after several years of not being there for michael's life. though southy has seen some terrible things, michael also held onto him when he told me that he got me one direction tickets for my birthday and when he told me that tyler was taking us on a roadtrip to a cabin a few hours away with calum.

"what's really wrong michael?" i ask, sitting down on the bedside closest to him.

"i have something to tell you." michael was no longer making eye contact with me and that's when i knew it was serious. michael clifford was an advocate for eye contact. he hated it when i didn't look at him when he was speaking.

"you know i won't judge you mikey." i reach across to him and lightly place my hand on top of his.

"i-" when michael begins to say what he wants to say, he gets interrupted by someone coming into my room.

we both turn our heads to see a very frantic calum standing at my door.

"i need to talk to you bella." calum walks over without answering to me and grabs onto my hand and drags me out of the room.

"i was talking to michael." i say, furrowing my eyebrows.

"ok well, i think mine is more urgent." calum says, taking me out of the apartment completely. tyler was no longer in the living room and i was utterly confused as to what was happening.

"what are you doing?" i finally ask once we were on the stairs of our apartment complex. i had absolutely no idea where we were going.

"well, i'm driving, and i'll explain what i'm doing in the car while we're on our way there. meanwhile, you can tell me what happened during your last interaction with luke hemmings."

as soon as luke's name comes out of his mouth, i knew that something odd was happening.

"how do you know about that?" i ask, digging myself in a bigger hole than i already was.

stupid bella, you should have just answered the question dumbass.

"i'll explain that later. just tell me word for word what you said to him and what he said to you." calum says, getting into his car.

i was going to circle around the truth but calum always knew when i lied. if calum had a superpower, it would be knowing when other people were lying.

i sit down in the passenger seat and begin recalling what happened last night.

"well you two were out and i was about to go to sleep when i heard someone throwing rocks at my window. thinking that it was michael, i went over and found that it was actually luke. he asked if he could come up and i was going to say no, i promise." i say, looking at calum.

calum was shaking his head while rolling his eyes.

"sure you were." he says, taking a right out of our apartment complex. i didn't recognize where he was driving to but decided to go on with my story.

"so when he came up, we were regularly conversing and then luke said some weird stuff and left." i didn't feel like explaining to calum how luke indirectly admitted that he had some sort of feelings for me and then bailed on me. not to mention, i couldn't even pay attention to my words due to the throbbing in my thigh. i wore sweatpants so calum couldn't see the cut but i felt it pulsing. it must be due to how quickly calum and i walked to his car.

"like what? i need you to tell me what he said." calum questions, seriously.

"i don't remember exactly what he said but i think he said something like 'you make me feel things that i never have before,' i don't know." i shrug and turn to calum to look for a response.

"so that's what he was on about." calum says, rolling his eyes.

"what?" i ask, confused.

calum slowly comes to a stop and i see that we're parked outside of a random house that i have never seen before.

"bella, meet luke hemmings' mom's house, where luke is currently very drunk and very angry and very much, for some reason that is unclear to liz and i both, asking for you."

a/n

i've had like three chapters ready to go but i never posted them??? tea

but uh hello, i have no idea where this fanfic is going but!