and then you left // cth

chapter 1: white walls

"Yeah?" My voice was shaky and unsure. She nodded and took this as a confirmation of my identity, reaching for my suitcase.

"Your grandmother instructed me to take you to meet her personally, to ensure you didn't get lost or anything. LAX is a big airport," She informed me and began guiding me away from the gate. I'd turned around and looked back, but the flight attendant who served me a drink on the plane was shutting the door. There was no going back.

Now, Gram reaches for the zipper of that same suitcase, but I slap her hand away.

"Don't go in there," I shoot her a frantic look. "Please," It even wasn't that there was anything in there that I didn't want her to find, it was more that I didn't want to let her in.

She nods once and steps away, placing her hands on her hips and looking at me with crystal blue eyes. I was thankful that she didn't try and pry. That, she earns points for.

"Dinner will be ready around seven." And with that and a slight breeze, I'm left alone.

...

I don't remember falling asleep but I guess I did. I wake up in a ball on the floor, near the door. My sweatshirt is all wrinkled from my awkward position, my knees sore. I slowly stand and was just about to open my door when I hear a voice I hadn't heard in exactly 174 days. A voice that I had prayed to hear for so long. A voice that used to tell me he loved me. A voice I used to trust.

"Lex, I'm so sorry!" I turn around and see him. Calum. He's staring at me, and standing in front of a desk I hadn't noticed before. The top of it looks too bare like it's missing a shiny laptop, or a mug full of pens.

He is wearing the same thing as the last time I saw him: black ripped jeans and a white muscle tee. I stare at him, trying to comprehend the situation.

Why is he here? How did he even find me?

Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as panicked as I thought I would be if I ever saw him again. But I can't seem to close my mouth from the shock, and my heart feels as if it's going to pound out of my chest.

He takes a step toward me. His looks tired, empty, and his dark circles add ten years to his face. But he is still beautiful, his brown, almost black eyes staring into my own. We used to joke that if we ever had a kid, it would have one brown eye, and one green, the color of mine.

Maybe it never was a joke.

I take a forceful step back, my back pressing against the door. I'd imagined this moment for half a year now, and it wasn't supposed to happen like this. And as much as I'd missed him, prayed for him to come back, what he did to me would haunt me forever. He ruined my life. My chance at love and at anything, really.

His shirt slides down his chest a little, just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his tattoo, the Roman Numerals for the year 2012: the year he moved away and met me. Before he got the tattoo, which I'd protested, he'd told me it was to represent his fresh start and how important of a role it had played in his life. I now found this conversation funny, almost. Becuase here I was on the brink of a fresh start of my own, and yet here he was, preventing me from doing so.

"Look, I know what I did was wrong. So wrong. and believe me, I have spent the last six months regretting it every second of every day. But please babe, just listen to me."

"Don't call me that," I say suddenly, my voice sharper than I'd expected. I sound confident, the exact opposite of how I felt. "Don't call me babe."

"I am trying to apologize babe, and you're making it very difficult!" His voice raises, and his face distorts with anger. He takes another step toward me. I can't escape him. I'm almost backed up against the door now, out of room to breathe.

"I swear to God, Calum. If you take another step toward me I will scream." I tell him, my voice shaking. By now I was scared. Scared of this boy I used to love. He smirks and lifts his foot. "Calum...", I beg. But then he plants his foot forward, and I open my mouth and let out the most glass-shattering scream I could muster.

And then he's gone. I'm still on the floor behind the door, but it was a dream. He isn't here, and I'm alone. Completely and utterly alone.

"It was just a dream," I mutter over and over again to myself, trying to make myself believe the words, but they might as well be in another language. I hear Gram yelling for me. I probably scared her, since I actually did scream quite loud. I have to go tell her I'm okay or she'll call them and they'll take me away again. She didn't know how bad it really was. But no one knew what happened to me. Why I'd suddenly retreated into a little cocoon of nothing. Why I ignored all my friends and failed my classes, and stopped caring about literally everything.

Calum was why. And something deep down inside me told me it wasn't just a dream. Some part of it was real. I don't know why, or how I know. But it felt all too real.

It felt like he was really coming back.
...
here's the first chapter uhh i hope you liked it