and then you left // cth

chapter 34: lost time

I stare at the lights of downtown as we drive past, noticing the way each building is a different height. The moon is rising, the city is slowing down as the night reins on. As the night rises, people are going back to their homes for the evening. But for people like Calum and I, the night is just beginning.

The clock on Calum's dash reads 1:33am. Where has time gone?

The elevator ride up to Calum's apartment is awkward at best. I'm torn between reminiscing the past and fearing the future as I feel the sparks between us begin to fade away. Calum looks at the ground for the entirety of the ride, and I hope he is questioning why we're here.

We get off on the top floor.

I follow him because I don't know which apartment is his. He leads me to a doorway somewhere in the middle of the hallway, marked with a number "603". He always used to say he hated odd numbers, that he didn't like that they weren't divisible by two. I wonder if he still gives a shit about little things like that anymore.

The mood between us has shifted. In the tree I was angry, in the bathroom I missed him. And now I am somewhere in the middle, numbed to all emotion.

He unlocks the door and opens it wide for me to enter first. As I step inside I am suddenly surrounded by his old bedroom in apartment form, and an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia swept over my mind. He closes the door, and the second he does , the numbness turns to a stinging sense of nostalgia.

His apartment is different than I expected. His room at home was kept mostly clean, with the occasional shirt thrown on the floor. But here there are empty take out boxes, blankets on the floor, laundry scattered about. Some of his kitchen drawers are left halfway open, and his kitchen table looks like it's never been used for anything other than a place to throw things.

I wonder if it's always like this.

It's decently small, but if it weren't for the mess it wouldn't feel so chlostrophobic .

There's a black couch in one corner, with a TV across from it. A red desk sits in another area of the room, overflowing with random papers that were thrown on there. There's a small kitchen that's raised up on a step, with a huge speaker on one of the counters. A short hallway of darkness is between the kitchen and the living area, and I assume it leads to Calum's bedroom and a bathroom.

"You finally got your own place," I say dryly. He always talked about how he couldn't wait to move out.
Now that I think about it, the plan was that we'd live together.

"Yeah," he responds to my half attempt at conversation. "I worked at Starbucks at first just to make a little money but now I work at a music store downtown."

"That's cool," I say without much emotion. The last album I've bought was almost a month ago, before I left. I had took Mom's car to a record store, trying to savor my last day in Seattle. Accidentally, I spent all day in the basement there, thumbing through old records. At that point, I was still in shock that I was leaving for the whole summer the next day, and I was choosing to ignore reality. I walked out with two records and an open mind.

I walk over to the couch and sit down on it, though my body is tense. He still won't look at anything but the ground, and I wonder if he'll ever look at me again. It should be that I can't look at him, being he's the one who broke my heart and all.

He doesn't follow me, he just stands there by the front door with his hands in his pockets, looking lost. He didn't even bother to turn on the lights, so the only light is from a small lamp in the corner of the room. I'll bet he never turns on the lights.

"Look at me." The words fall from my mouth unexpectedly, but I don't regret them for a second. He tears his gaze from the floor to my face, and I realize how sad he looks.

"What're we doing, Calum?" I ask him, my eyes glassy and my voice breaking. My cracking tone makes him widen his eyes, and I watch his chest fall as exhales.

"I don't know, Lex." He admits and just looks at me from across the room. It seems there's a thousand miles between us, and he realizes this. And then he breaks the distance, slowly making his way over to me. He plops down on the couch directly next to me, though he could have chosen to sit at the other side. He puts his arm across my shoulders, and out of habit, I lean into him. "I don't know," he repeats softly.
...
this chapter also took me like ten years to edit!! love that for me!!

i wanted to make the bathroom part and the drive to his house cloudy for alexis, if that makes sense. like she was out of it and her brain was trying to protect her.

thank you so much for reading.

i see 5sos for the fourth time in nine days <3