Walls||CTH AU||

Chapter 23 - Helping

Luke was propped up against a pile of pillows in bed, coughing violently every couple of minutes. Calum sat at the end of his bed, with his head leaning against the wall staring blankly around the room.

"You've been really quiet today." Luke stated after a short coughing fit. "You've usually got so much to say."

"Not today." Calum sighed sadly. "You get a day off."

"What's wrong Cal?" Luke asked frowning, noting the sadness in his friends voice.

"It's..it's hard to explain. Maybe I'm being stupid, I don't know. Every way I've tried to word it has sounded pathetic and whiny in my head.  I'm getting far too worked up over this."

"Slow down, I can't hear a word you are saying."

"It's not important Luke," Calum shrugged, "I'm being a silly. I rely too much in her happiness-"

"Her? You mean Bailey right?" Luke interrupted, "Dude you've got to stop letting her get to you like this. She's always bringing you down."

"No she isn't." Calum argued. "It's not even that big of a deal. It's not like I wasn't expecting her to do it again.."

"Do what? Calum, if you are going to be in a weird mood, can you at least explain the reason why properly." Luke spluttered, trying to hold back a coughing fit. Calum swallowed, trying to think of a way to word it so he didn't sound pathetic.

"She pushed me away again, shut me out, yelled at me and told me to piss off, however you want to say it. I was honestly expecting it, a girl like her isn't going trust me completely right away but it doesn't make it any better."

"Calum, she is not good for you. As your best friend I would like to tell you that I'm worried about you. Every time she pushed you away, you drift away from everyone else as well, and you always end up sad. She can't keep dropping you like a child with an unwanted toy."

"I can't just abandon her, not in the mental state she's in." Calum stated, turning to face Luke. "She needs someone to be there for her, and I'm willing to help."

"But she keeps hurting you." Luke argued. "She keeps messing with your feelings and dropping when it suits her because she knows you'll still be there when she gets back. It's honestly like a child and a toy."

"When you're helping a broken person, you must remember that you might get cut on the sharp edges."

"That's fair enough Calum, but you're already hurt. These 'sharp edges' could cut you too deep, deeper than you can cope with. I get that you want to be a good person, but you have to look out for yourself as well, there are only so many times you can fall before you can't get back up again." Luke said sternly, staring at his best friend, who was frowning back at him.

"I am looking out for myself. I'm fine Luke. Bailey needs someone to look out for her, like how you are looking out for me. She doesn't have anyone like you and your family to support her, so I want to offer her that. I know how much it sucks having a shit parent, and I also know that it must be 10x worse dealing with it alone. So if I can help her half as much as you've helped me, I'm going to do it."

Calum was on his feet now, pacing up and down Luke's bedroom. Luke glanced up at his best friend and sighed, knowing that he was never going to win the argument.

"She doesn't deserve your kindness Cal. She doesn't appreciate what a kind and selfless person you are." He said softly, coughing a little.

"I think she does Luke," Calum replied, stopping in front of Luke. "I thinks she knows exactly what I'm trying to do and that scares her, because she's been crying out for help for years, and I'm the first person who could hear it."

With that Calum turned on his heel and walked out of Luke's room, leaving the blonde boy sitting in his bed, blinking confused at the spot where Calum had just been.
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Calum sat at the desk in his room, with his laptop open, chewing the end of the pen in his hand. He wasn't sure whether he should do what he was planning, or if Bailey would appreciate it.

"Probably not." He muttered, imagining what she would say in his head. "She would not appreciate that."

What have you done that has she appreciated through? He thought. There was only a couple of things, such as saving her from Blair and beating Blair up. The other things he had done for her maybe hadn't been appreciated, but they had definitely helped her. He had made her happy for several minutes that one lunchtime they were together, he had stopped her from getting lost on the first day, he had kept her company when she was lonely and he didn't make her do the icebreaker tasks in her second day. Each one of them was an underrated act of kindness in their own way, in Calum's opinion at least.

"Oh fuck it," Calum muttered, throwing his pen to the ground. He spun the desk chair around and started typing his search into Google. It didn't take him very long to find a page with accurate information about what he needed to know on it.

Grabbing the pen off the floor and a scrap of paper out of his school bag, which was probably a note he should have handed in weeks ago and jotted down some of main points of the article. He read over the sheet with pure delight in his face before shoving it in his bag.

Maybe it wouldn't be appreciated but it would be extremely helpful. Now all he needed to do was get Bailey to speak to him again, or at least listen.