Exist | Malum

9

"You'd think that taking a walk through the meadows would calm you down, but then you feel the breeze shatter your skin like glass, and you're crawling through shadows and caves that don't exist in any part of the world aside from your mind, and people call you crazy, because that's exactly what you are, but you just don't care enough to change it. . ."

Calum

Cheyenne was really starting to push it by sending me to four therapy sessions a week, and today just so happened to be another one of those days. All I could think about was those spring eyes and how they changed color, just like the seasons, and I didn't want to collapse on the floor anymore and lay there just like the cartons of milk that were scattered all over the place. I wanted to dream, and dance on the cotton clouds that I imagined as baby blue and purple and mosquito black, but they were just grey, like my eyes, and my skin, and the dull world around me.

"What's on your mind?"

"This is stupid," I baffled, plunging my thumbs into the surface of the sofa, loving the way my chest sank in as the wind hit it, "I don't have to tell you anything."

"You're right, but I'm here to help you, Calum."

"Don't call me that," I practically yelled, feeling all of the nerves inside of my body build up, "I'm not your friend, so you don't get to properly address me as one."

"Then what would you like me to call you?"

"Nothing," I smiled, thinking of those damn recycle bins and forty miles per hour signs. He dyed his hair again. "Just call me nothing."

"Figuratively, or literally?"

"The choice is yours."

And then therapy was over, and my chest felt tight, and Cheyenne was blabbering in the car about a trip that we were taking down to Santa Cruz in three years, and I couldn't think straight, or focus as her hands on the steering wheel dropped to her thighs so she could look at me. "I'm giving you permission to miss school for our little vacation. I think it's needed."

"I was digging myself a hole deep enough to see stars during the day, and I knew that wasn't something that existed, but I wanted it to. I wanted to see something beautiful in this world, even if those orange pebbled rocks and stranded pink roses were the only thing on my mind. . ."

"That's nice," I pursed, lips in a thin line, back aching, chest rising and falling like a gravitational pull against the Moon and the Sun, and of course I started thinking about them again, and how much they loved going on trips and adventures because it gave them time to think. I hate thinking. "And I would like you to bring a friend with you."

I didn't have any friends.

I didn't want to, mainly because having friends meant existing.

And everyone knows how much I hate the fact that I exist.

"A friend?" I scoffed, crossing my arms as the seatbelt burnt itself through my skin. "I don't have any, Cheyenne. You know this."

"Maybe you would if you stopped doing drugs," Cheyenne rolled her eyes, and I knew she was talking about pepto-bismal hair and buttermilk skin that wasn't as pretty as him. "Winnie told me you're seeing somebody."

"I'm not," I reiterated, feeling burgundy blood rush to the plane of my cheeks, "it's all in her head. . ."

"Your therapist told me you talk about him all the time, and describe him as, ah, what was it?" Cheyenne questioned, tapping her chin as she wrenched the car in front of a red light. "Ribbons of amaranthine. I didn't know you had such a large vocabulary."

That's classified information! "There's a lot of things you don't know about me," I pushed, circulating all of the energy out of the car and washing away the pain like rain in a well deserved dry desert. I didn't care anymore.

"Just," Cheyenne paused, tasting strawberries on her tongue like it was liquor. "Just ask him to come with us on this trip, will you?"

I could only do so much.

"I guess. . ."

I didn't want him to come on this trip.

That would mean he exists.

That I exist.

And that's my biggest nightmare of all.

-

A/N;

So, thoughts?

I'm sorry this took so long to update. I just wasn't feeling it. But I have ideas now. So there you go.

Next chapter takes place three years from now. Be prepared.

Please leave feedback. It's much appreciated. And just know I love you all very, very much.