A Heart Doesn't Forget (Fanfiction)

Chapter 27: Was it him?

Third person's P.O.V.

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(Two months later...)

Michael's phone rings, and he exits the room to go answer it. He leaves Calum alone as he walks out the back door into Calum's backyard. Ashley follows him out, and sniffs around the yard as he sits down on the deck, putting the phone up to his ear.

"Hey." He says into the phone.

"...hi." There was a slight pause before the other person responded.

"Go on, then." Michael says bluntly, without emotion. He already knew what the other boy was going to say next.

"Is um....is he okay? Is he..."

"Yes, he's still the same, if that's what you're asking. And if by 'okay', you mean alive, then yes, he's alive." Michael kept his tone monotonous.

There was a pause, a longer one than all the others, on the other side of the line. "Are you...are you still mad....at me?"

"Not as much." Michael shrugs, as if it were nothing, and as if the other boy could see him. "A little bit, but not for the same reasons anymore. You're still there, after all that's happened, and you keep complaining and asking about him, yet you're still there. That's what angers me the most." Michael sighed, some of his anger bleeding through his emotionless mask.

A sigh was heard on the other end of the line, and he was about to say something, before Michael cut him off.

"I get it. You're still scared. And to you, that's a perfectly good reason to keep hiding from your fears forever. I know, you keep saying it'll get better, and it'll pass, and it's better this way. Well guess fucking what, Ashton? It hasn't gotten any better! Everything's gotten worse! It's all gone downhill ever since you left, and guess what? You still won't come back! You need to get that unrealistic fantasy out of your head, that you being gone will save everything! It won't! It hasn't, and it never will!"

"I'm sorry." Ashton whispered faintly.

"Sure you are." Michael said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Saying 'sorry' definitely proves to me how much you really are sorry. You say you're 'sorry', yet you don't even try to do anything to make it better. You just stay there, trying to protect yourself because you think you're so fragile and sensitive and need protecting. You call me, and I tell you everything that's gone wrong since you left, and yet you still stay there just to pity yourself because you are just oh so fragile and broken and can't do anything about it. Well guess what? There is something you could do! Or could've done. You could've come back! You could've just fucking came back, and we wouldn't be in this mess, but no. You just had to convince yourself that running away was the best way to go. You had the option to fight, or take flight, and you chose to flee. Now you're acting like a coward hiding behind your excuses, and your fucking self-pity. So, you know what? Next time you want to call and ask how he is, you're going to have to come and ask him yourself, because I am done with your stupid fucking pathetic phone calls."

Michael hung up, stabbing the end call button with his finger, and huffing in annoyance. He walks back into the house, this time leaving his phone in the kitchen as he walked back to Calum.

"Was it him?" Calum asked, showing the same emotionless mask as Michael.

"Yeah," Michael said, putting his arm around Calum. "It's the last time, though. I'm not answering next time. Ever again."

"Just because I stopped talking to him doesn't mean you have to." Calum told him.

"I know. I'm just done putting up with his shit."