Michael POV
I felt her body tense underneath my arms, that were wrapped tightly around her small frame.
"Mike, no. I- no. I can't-"
"Sh. It's okay." I started rubbing her back, trying to calm her down, but she wiggled out of my arms.
"Don't tell me it's okay, Michael! This is not okay. I- did you not hear what I said? Jack is going to kill Calum, if I don't break up with him. So don't say this is okay."
"Ava, do you love Calum?"
"Obviously." She rolled her teary eyes.
"Then why are you trying to leave him? You know how much security we have around us all the time. You know it is practically impossible to even touch Calum." I know that she knew this. "Jack isn't the reason you're leaving, right?"
She let out a long, strained sigh and sat on the cool pavement. It doesn't take an Einstein to know she's had a lot on her mind these past couple of days. She's looked exhausted for the past three days, and she barely eats anymore. She's had dark circles under her eyes that were becoming more and more prominent, as the days passed. I'm surprised Calum hasn't noticed how warn out she is.
"I'm not good for him," she finally spoke after several minutes of pure silence. Her voice was so quiet, that I had to actually consider if she really said it, or if it was just my imagination.
"What are you taking about, Ava?" I sat down close to her, trying to hear her better.
"I'm holding him back."
"Are you on crack? You're the reason Calum is in this band."
"Okay, but still. He's too focused on me, and not the band anymore. Before we left for New York, he was constantly talking about the band. Now he's skipping sound check, just to spend more time with me. I'm too distracting. All I am doing is holding him back. I feel like you guys could have already had an album out, but Calum is too busy spending time with me, that he's not showing up to record. I'm going to get him fired, or something. I'm just holding the whole band back. I'm not good for him."
"Ava, that's a load of sh-"
"Don't swear at me," she whispered, and I felt like I was talking to a child, not in a bad way. It just made me feel bad for her. She's clearly going through a hard time right now.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, as she layed her head on my shoulder. "But do you know how you sound, right now? You sound like you're looking for an excuse to leave. What are you not telling me? Ava, you know you can tell me anything. We're mates, remember?" I chuckled at the memory of the day Ava went around, telling anything that had ears that I was her 'mate', because no one had ever called her that before, and she was so excited, when I called her my mate.
"Okay," she let out a deep, shaky breath. "You know those movies, where there is this character that is just so good, and they're their parents favorite child, and their life is so perfect, and they actually have a plan for their life?" I was confused where she was going with this, but I nodded my head.
"Yes?"
"And then there is this other character that comes from a screwed up past, and a broken family, and they are just so messed up, and are probably from the slums, and everybody thinks that character is such a punk, and nobody likes that character?"
"Yeah," I confirmed, again.
"And then one day those two characters fall in love, and everyone thinks that the first character is so stupid, because they could do so much better. But for some unknown reason, that character always stays with the punk, and the good character tries to fix the second character, but the second character is holding them back from whatever they want to achieve."
