and then you left // cth

chapter 39: sick in the head

alexis
Something is different about today. Something is so subtly different and I don't know what it is. The air has changed, or the energy, but I didn't think I believed in that type of shit. Calum used to try to read me my horoscope when we were together. I am a scorpio, born on November 10th. And he is an Aquarius, born on January 25. I'd always brushed him off when he tried to teach me about the zodiac signs, but for a reason I never had the heart to tell him. While doing my own research, I'd discovered that our signs weren't compatible as lovers. Maybe this was one of the first warning signs, but it was one that came much too early on to detect any truth in it. Of course, I was still invested in our relationship. I mean, how could the stars tell me what I was going to do today, much less who I was going to fall in love with. As much as I wanted to believe the stars have a plan for me, I couldn't.

Nevertheless, something was different.

I couldn't stop thinking about the way I left Calum's house, only two days ago. The way he looked at me with a crushing sense of disappointment when I said I had to leave, the way he held my hand tightly for as long as I would let him. The way our hands still fit perfectly together was circling in my mind, but yet something had changed and I didn't feel as good as I used to in his embrace. I haven't hugged him since we sat on the floor in that goddamn bathroom together, when I held him tighter than I ever held him when he was mine.

I love him.

He was trying to repair things, and I wouldn't let him. Maybe a part of me wanted things to stay broken between us, so that we could never move on. Because what if we fix things, and then suddenly we are no longer as interesting to each other? That would be heartbreaking.

I love him.

All of these thoughts flood my mind as I stand in the shower, feeling the hot water run down my back as I wash my hair. The water is burning my skin but I let it because the feeling reminds me that I am still alive. Steam fills the shower and surrounds me and reminds me of how alone I am in this world. The warm fog clears my mind, for once.

I scrub my body with a soap Calum said he liked once, and wash my hair with a shampoo that Calum uses to use when he would spend the night. Even if I could ever get over him, I never really could escape the memories. Everything comes back to him, every single little damn thing. And I hate him for it.

And it is after my shower, when I am sitting in my bed, with my damp hair resting on my shoulders, that I hear the knock at my door. This is not a knock that I recognize, and so I don't even for a second think that it is Calum- I know it's not. And Gram is upstairs asleep, and with a glance out my window I see that Luke isn't home so it's probably not him either.

He hasn't talked to me in a while, and I'm torn between missing him and being grateful he finally got the message that he is not the one that I love.

I walk to the front door as quietly as I can so that I don't wake Gram. It seems half of this summer has been spent sneaking around her, careful not to cause suspicion. It kills me inside, but I also don't understand how somebody that I live with can have such a looming lack of knowledge about my life.

I don't bother looking through the peephole because I simply do not care who is at the door if it is not Calum. Nothing matters if it doesn't relate to him, it's that simple. And so I open the door swiftly, preparing to tell the person standing there to go away. But the person is the last one that I would expect to be here.