Michael POV
*One week later*
"Come on, Calum," I begged, standing on the outside of his room. "Please open the door." I have been standing in this narrow hallway for about 20 minutes, and I was beginning to grow impatient.
"Michael, I already told you, I'm not going to go see a movie with you. Thanks for the offer. Please leave."
Rolling my eyes, I kicked the door that was separating the two of us.
"I thought you said you were fine," I groaned, and leaned my head against the cold door frame.
"I am fine."
"Then why are you never around?" I almost shouted. I just wanted my best friend back. But I guess I was lucky he was even talking to me. He sort of shut down yesterday, and stopped answering all of our texts and calls.
"Please just leave, Michael."
"Fine, but listen to me, first. Sitting in your hotel room isn't going to do anything for you. I know you feel like this is your fault, but it's not. And sitting in this room, feeling sorry for yourself, wont make Ava remember. I know this is hard on you, Calum. It's hard on all of us. But it makes it even harder on us, because we already lost Ava, and now we're losing you." When I didn't get a response, I continued. "Don't do this to us, Calum... don't do this to yourself. We miss you."
For the first time in almost 2 weeks, Calum opened his door. My eyes grew wide, when I saw him. His hair was messy and sticking up everywhere. He had a red nose, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he had just crawled out of a grave. After I was done taking in his appearance, I tried to make eye contact, but the distant look in his eyes prevented me from doing so.
"I don't-" he swallowed hard, and blinked a few times. "I don't know how to act."
"What do you mean?" A confused look found its way to my pale face.
"Her friends-" his eyes filled with tears, and he had to stop for a moment, so that he didn't start to cry. "They, uhm, said that she's doing fine." You could literally feel the awkwardness between us.
"You talked to her friends? How do you even know them?"
"Yeah. I-" he cleared his throat, and blinked away more tears. "I found them on, uh, on Twitter."
"Why?" I lowly asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
"Because, uhm, because-" He didn't even try to hold his tears in this time. "I had to know. I had to know that he wasn't hitting her," He choked out between sobs. Then, he did the unexpected. He threw his arms around me, and sobbed into my shoulder. I got a few sympathetic looks from some hotel workers walking past us.
"She'll be okay," I reassured him, even though I wasn't sure myself.
"How do you know?" He was still hugging me, but his crying let up.
"She will be."
"But how do you know?" He let go of me, and looked into my eyes, for the first time tonight.
"If it will make you happy, I can go visit her." I really didn't want to visit her in the hospital, because I was positive I wouldn't be able to keep myself together.
"Please do." The desperation in his voice was so heavily prominent, that even when he was done speaking, it was still draped over the both of us like a heavy wool blanket.
*
"Ava!" Jack, I think, screamed over his shoulder.
"What?" I heard her softly call back.
"There's a strange man here to see you."
Guess I'm strange, I thought, before I saw Ava coming towards the door.
"Oh, um, hi," she awkwardly mumbled. I wanted to drop to my knees, when I saw her. I missed her so much. I wanted to pull her into a hug and never let go. I wanted to take her back to Calum, and never ever let Jack talk to her again.
"Hey," I whispered, scared that if my voice was too loud it would break her. I looked into her eyes, before noticing they were puffy and wet, like she been crying. "Woah. Are you okay?"
"She's fine," Jack said in a firm voice. He hasn't left, since he answered the door, and he was watching me like a hawk. His intense glaring made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
"I asked her," I said turning to Ava again. "Are you okay?" I knew my facial expression displayed the desperation I was feeling, while my eyes practically begged her to tell me what I already knew- she's not okay.
"Well, actually-" she was cut short, when Jack roughly grabbed her, and made her face him.
"Shut up, Ava. Nobody likes hearing you talk. Nobody cares if you're okay, or not, so just shut up. And go back inside." She nodded her head quickly, before turning around, and going back inside. She didn't even turn to give me an other look, before she was out of sight, leaving me speechless at what had just happened. Jack looked back at me, a scowl on his face.
"I suggest you don't come around here anymore." And with that, he slammed the door closed.
"Alright," I mumbled, because the whole situation still was processing in my brain.
As it finally dawned on me what had happened, I realized she doesn't have anyone to save her this time. Calum told me about Jack abusing her, but she got away from it, because she moved to Australia. She doesn't have anywhere to move to this time.
The thought of him talking to her like that made me sick. I know I should tell Calum, but I don't want it to make him even more upset.
Realizing I was still standing at their front door, I turned around and walked back to the car.
Calum has to be the one to save her.
