Drought :: C.H

1

Calum didn't know how many things he had knocked over in his rush out of Starbucks, but frankly, he was past the point of caring. His body had gone into flight mode. He needed to get out of there before he allowed anything else to happen.

Calum ran out of the store and into the unforgiving January air, hardly being able to notice the immediate goosebumps popping onto his skin, or his breath materializing into rapid white puffs in front of his face. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't see straight. He only knew he needed to get as far away from her as he could.

It was so cliche really, and that fact alone made all of this even worse. He had bumped into her because his nose was buried in his phone, scrolling through his meaningless twitter feed, and when he looked up, he immediately recognized the sparkling eyes and the bad posture that was Ryder Forance. She was surprised too, obviously neither of them expected the other to be there. And while Calum couldn't find it anywhere in his body to speak, words poured out of her mouth. Like usual.

"Calum, oh my god," she breathed, "Shit," she swore under her breath like she always used to when she wasn't ready for something.

"How - um, I mean, you - your shirt?" She asked in a rush, pointing to the coffee dripping down the front of Calum's Nirvana tee. He hadn't even noticed.

It was a stuttered, fluttery mess of unprepared words, the first ones he had heard come out of her mouth in over twelve months. 365 days. 525,949 minutes. Not like Calum was counting.

He stood there like an idiot. What felt like hours, but was really only a few seconds passed, before Calum finally connected his screaming brain to his legs. He turned and practically ran out of the store without saying a single word.

Calum didn't know where he was going. New York City streets were always crowded and Calum was now more disoriented than usual.

After pushing through endless crowds of people in heavy coats and bowed heads, he finally got to the edge of the sidewalk and hailed a cab. He fell into the backseat, chest heaving, hands shaking.

"You alright bud?" The old cab driver asked.
Calum shook his head no, but the driver didn't seem to take any concern in Calum's state.

"Where to?" He asked, looking at Calum through the rear view mirror.

Calum told him the address of his apartment in a shaky voice and laid his head back against the headrest as the cab jerkily took off.

It had been a year, a whole fucking year of radio silence and he literally runs into her at Starbucks. His girl. His Ryder. Their whole thirty second encounter felt like a blur, but at the same time, Calum could remember every detail of those damn thirty seconds. And as he thought about those thirty seconds, where her eyes were wide, and her light creamy skin was flushed pink, he got to remembering
everything else. Like a tsunami of memories and feelings that he had fought so hard to throw away, crashing into him and knocking him over, and Calum found himself glad he was sitting down, for if he wasn't at this time, he probably would've just collapsed.

Calum didn't realize that the cab had stopped in front of his apartment building until the driver cleared his throat loudly and pointed to the meter that told Calum how much he owed him. Calum quickly threw some bills at the man, not bothering to count, and got out of the cab, unsteady on his own two feet. He made his way into the building, taking refuge in the warmth of the lobby, and walked into the elevator.

When Calum finally arrived at his door, he could hardly put the key in the lock because his hands were shaking so badly, but once he finally got into the safety of his apartment, put his keys on the counter, and kicked his shoes off, he sank down, back against the door, head in his hands.

She shouldn't affect him like this. Not a single person should be able to affect another human being like this. Especially after a whole goddamn year. But Ryder had always had a sort of effect on Calum that he was never able to explain.

Ryder Elizabeth Forance was Calum's first, and only love to date. They had known each other their whole lives. Always acquaintances, but never really friends. It wasn't until their senior year of high school and they got paired up for a physics project that neither of them knew how to do, when things started happening between them.

Their love was fast, and hard, and beautiful. No one on the outside was able to understand how the confident, athletic Calum, was able to fall in love with the quiet and introverted Ryder. But the two of them knew it, and that was all that really mattered. Simply put, they were what the other needed.

Their live-fast romance was amazing. They used talked about their futures together; getting married, having kids, more than a few times. And after they graduated, they bought the apartment Calum was currently still living in.

That summer, they were free. Free to do whatever they wanted with each other, and it was great. There was nothing stopping them. No parents, no school, nothing except their menial nine to five jobs they both worked to pay rent. But summer only lasted so long, and as the nights got longer and the flowers outside their building started to die, so did their romance.

But Calum would never admit that.

Calum was still sat against the door, with his head down and his hands raking through his hair, in a desperate attempt to not hyperventilate and freak out. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and opened his contacts. He had never deleted her number, just in case.

When Ryder first left a year ago, Calum called her everyday for a month. He called her when he woke up in the mornings, when he was on his work break. He called her when he was eating dinner, and he called her when he was brushing his teeth at night. It took a lot of convincing from Calum's friends that she wasn't coming back and he needed to stop calling her. That there was a reason she had never answered a single one of his calls.

Calum stared at his phone screen. Her name and the numbers below it taunting him, almost begging him to press the button.

But even after all this time, Calum knew Ryder Forance better than anyone. He knew that if he called her, it wouldn't be any different from the rest. All he would get was that voicemail recording he had memorized because it was the only way he was able to hear her voice.

Well Calum couldn't do that again. Not tonight anyway.

::
Thank you so much for reading I know it's early still but I hope you're enjoying this story so far. Everything is just getting started! Please vote and comment it would mean the world. Chapter 2 will be up tomorrow!

Lots of love - katie