Dedicated to Florence - thanks for supporting this so much.
'Woke up this morning with a grudge the size of a short story. I feel - I feel so low."
***
I was moving out. I was leaving the nest. I was breaking away from my parents for good; not because I hated them. I loved them and they knew so. There just wasn't anything in that house that made me feel free. And so instead of waiting around feeling sorry for myself and wasting time, I'd found a cute apartment twenty minutes from my parents' place and was diving head first into it.
It wasn't the same as Room 20 at the Hollowed-Inn. Nothing would ever be the same as that and I'd done my best while apartment-hunting not to compare every single place I'd come across to my gorgeous LA home. I needed something cosy and cute; something that felt like Mali. But also something that wouldn't remind me of certain people every second of the day. How many times did I need to start over before my life would begin for real?
It was only 3 days after I'd chosen an apartment that I was moving into it. It was a Monday and the skies were dark, rain threatening to pour down on me as I heaved cardboard boxes from the moving van, hauling them upstairs to my new haven.
It had taken me all of three hours of easy deliberating to choose what I'd wanted to take with me. It should have taken me three weeks; I was moving my entire 21 years of life from one house to another. I should want to take everything; I should have boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff ready to move into my new place. I should. But I didn't. Instead, I had hired a moving van to transport my bed and chest of drawers and the three boxes I'd stuffed a bunch of clothes and shoes in. I took what I'd needed. Nothing more. Just like LA.
Only this wasn't LA. And I wasn't Mali anymore.
God, Charlotte. Lighten the fuck up.
Right, let's count blessings. I had great parents. I had a great new apartment. I had a job. And I had – well, that's all I had for now.
But hey, I was twenty-one. Heaps of time to make friends, right? And stacks of time to find a life purpose, yeah?
I hoped so. Because things were seeming a little hazy and whilst I was busy putting myself out there, there was still this murky pool of uncertainty resting at the bottom of my stomach that I couldn't get rid of. It was like wading through the shallows of the ocean knowing that the water could pull you out at any given second; the worst part is that it was out of my human control. Life was out of my human control. Right? We can build skyscrapers thousands of feet into the air. We can design armies that can wipe out entire towns in seconds. We can rally together thousands of people for protests to demonstrate power.
But humans are powerless against the ocean. And I was powerless against life.
"You gonna show me where your bedroom is?" An unfamiliar voice asked.
I turned my head to see one of the removalist guys standing in the doorway to my new, pale green kitchen. He was a younger guy, big, muscular arms for lugging heavy items and bright blue eyes that were so beautiful I could have sworn they were crystal.
He'd been a nice companion the whole morning, whistling while he opened the back doors to his truck for me and passed me my boxes. We hadn't spoken until now though, aside from greetings and polite pleasantries.
You gonna show me where your bedroom is?
He was holding my bedframe and my heart slowed.
"Oh, yeah," I managed, shaking my head. "Sorry, I tuned out; this way."
I led him down the mega short hallway to where my lime-walled bedroom was. My new space was bigger than my room in LA and the windows let in streams of light that my LA room didn't offer. It had an inbuilt wardrobe with a mirrored door and I was happy that the carpet was black and in turn, stainless.
"Just dump it wherever, I'll put it together later," I told the removalist guy.
I stood just inside my bedroom and he stopped at the doorway.
He raised a brow. "I can help you put it together now, it'll only take a minute."
I liked the tannedness of his skin. But couldn't stop myself from wishing he was paler. And didn't have brown hair.
"What's your name?" I blurted out, rushing into something in order to pull my thoughts away from Michael.
He seemed confused but his mouth pulled up in a half-grin that I'm sure was undeniably attractive to nearly every other girl on the planet. "James."
James. Simple and un-complicated. Ordinary guy James. Removalist guy James. Charming smile, charming body, charming energy. Charismatic. Confident. James.
I wanted to introduce myself to him but knew it would have been on his paperwork when he'd come to do my job today. My job – right, he was my removalist. What the hell was I doing?
"Um no, it's okay, I can put it together later," I said quickly, offering what I hoped seemed like a lazy smile but probably looked more like I was on drugs.
He took a couple steps inside and placed the head frame on the floor, leaning it against one of the walls.
"I'm going to get the other parts and we're going to get it done now," he told me, already walking away down the hall and calling back to me. "Not taking 'no' for an answer."
I opened my mouth to protest but realised that it might actually nice to have someone's company other than my parents and bitchy co-workers. Not to mention he was probably better at assembling a bed than I was. Let's be honest, I was hopeless with that kind of thing.
I wondered where my friends were. I wondered what they were doing. I wondered if they missed me. And then I reminded myself not to think about them because they were gone.
James returned, the other two pieces of my bed hanging off his shoulder, his hand holding them to his body. He wore a loose white singlet and I could imagine Melissa dying.
"So, you liked green so much that you bought a frog-coloured apartment?" James asked, both of us already kneeling on the carpet.
I held the frame up in a standing position while he used a screwdriver of his to screw the parts together. He made it look easy and I was grateful after all that he'd offered his help.
I smiled. "I don't mind the green," I told him. "I guess I didn't really think about the colours too much when choosing this place."
He looked at me for a split second, his ocean eyes dancing with amusement. "I'm surprised; aren't girls usually really into interior design and shit like that?"
I mean, I guess I did care about the interior of the place but I was really just searching for something that screamed 'home'. Something that screamed 'Mali'.
He probably didn't want to hear that long story.
So I shrugged. "I really wanted to move out and this place just came up."
We chatted and he told me about his own apartment. He lived near the city and worked his own hours. His dad ran the removalist company that he worked for and the jobs he got called to were relaxed, him being able to pretty much choose his own shifts. I told him my parents were business people and I was a loose end with no real plans. He told me he had a dog; golden retriever called Daze. I asked if I could meet Daze and he said yes. I told him that I'd recently come home from LA. He wanted to hear about it. I told him maybe some other time.
"Hey, do you maybe wanna-"
A loud and rather wonderful sound cut off whatever James was about to say, my jeans pocket vibrating vigorously against my leg to the tune of 'Wrapped Around Your Finger'. I needed to change to a new tone. One that didn't hold so many memories. Maybe a classic Apple ringtone that sounded bland and monotone. Yes, that would be better.
"Sorry," I apologised, peering down at my screen.
Unknown Caller ID.
Weird.
"Do you mind if I take this?" I asked him.
He stood from his position on the floor in one swift movement and shook his head, big smile on his face. "Course."
I heaved myself into a standing position and slid my finger across the screen to answer, pressing the device to my ear. "Hello?"
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And then I heard breathing. Quiet, deep, stuttered breathing.
"Hello?" I asked again.
The faintest sound of a sniffle. "Mali?"
Mali.
I froze, body halting in the middle of my new room next to my newly assembled bed frame. My heart thudding madly in my chest was the only thing I could focus on aside from the fact that I wasn't sure I remembered how to breathe.
"God, Mali? Charlotte?"
Luke. Hemmings. Luke Hemmings.
"Oh my god," I whispered. "Luke?"
He exhaled heavily, the sound echoing through the line like static. Was this real?
My eyes connected with James' blue ones. I sent him an apologetic smile while my internal organs screamed.
I took my phone from my ear and pressed it to my chest. "I'm so sorry, this might take a little while."
He nodded. "I'll leave your bill on the counter on my way out - and my number."
"Thanks, James – for all your help. I seriously appreciate it."
"Don't even worry about it," he told me. "See you?"
I nodded and shot him a smile while my legs shook. "Definitely."
My eyes watched his back as he left, his shoes sounding as he left down the hall again. I didn't press my phone back to my ear until I heard my front door close on his way out.
My smile dropped.
I took a deep breath.
"Luke, what are you doing? Why're you calling?"
He didn't speak for a couple seconds, and I briefly panicked at the thought that he'd hung up.
"Mali, you can't just disappear," he said and his voice was high and wobbly. Not Luke. "What if I'd never been able to get into contact with you?"
What the hell? "How did you get my number?"
"You, you left your Australian ID at Olivia's place with all your stuff – I used your name to find your parents and they gave me your cell."
Trust my parents to just give out my number without a second thought. It was so like them to go handing around my personal contact details like the flu.
"You went through my stuff-" I paused. "Hang on, why were you back at Liv's? Tour's not meant to be over for at least another month or so?"
He didn't say anything. Instead, his breathing grew louder and I swear I heard a sob escape him amidst the unsteady breaths he was taking.
The colour drained from my face and left my cheeks feeling cold, my hand growing chillingly clammy around my phone.
Something was wrong. Something was very fucking wrong.
"Luke?" I asked and I could hear the alarm in my own voice. "Luke, what's wrong? What's going on?"
I definitely heard a sob this time. "Oh fuck, Charlie."
Tears were already pricking my eyes as every awful scenario raced through my head. Was someone hurt? Had I really upset them that much by lying and leaving? Was he homesick? Did someone leave the band?
But no. Something much worse.
"Ashton," he said, breathing slowly as though he was trying to calm himself. "He got in a really bad way, Mals."
I slowly lowered myself to the floor of my new bedroom, my legs so shaky that I wasn't sure they'd hold me up much longer. A tear slid slowly, mockingly, down my cheek - my whole body feeling tense and shaky. He got in a bad way. Got. Past fucking tense.
"Luke," I warned, voice breaking.
His tone cracked as he spoke. "He's gone, Mals. Overdosed. Died. Shit."
I saw stars. I saw black stars dancing across my vision and my skin felt too tight for me to breathe, like it was smothering my organs and squeezing the life out of them.
Dropping my phone to the carpet I launched myself up off the floor, throwing myself out the door and around the corner, into the bathroom.
But unlike that time all those months ago in the 5SOS apartment, I didn't even make it to the toilet bowl. My stomach threw itself onto the white tiles of my new bathroom, tainting the floor like each passing second was tainting my rotting heart.
Pain. I was in So. Much Pain. My chest was weighed down by concrete bricks that didn't want me to breathe, crushing my ribs like they were twigs. I couldn't feel my fingers. Couldn't feel anything other than this overwhelming sadness that sent tears streaming down my cheeks in a constant waterfall flow. My breaths were loud gasps mixed in with muffled cries that I didn't recognise as my own voice.
I couldn't see anything other than Ashton's face. I couldn't hear anything other than my body falling apart and crumpling onto the tiles, the ones that weren't covered in puke.
Everything was hurting.
Everything was wrong.
Everything was bad.
Ashton Irwin was gone. Dead.
Ashton Irwin wasn't allowed to fucking die. He wasn't supposed to die.
Oh my god. Olivia.
If I was hurt to the point of blindness, was Olivia still even functioning?
And Michael. The weed and then the cocaine. He would blame himself. He would feel guilty. He would be broken into fragments too small and too shattered to repair.
They all would be.
Suddenly my own grief didn't seem so important. Suddenly, I couldn't see anything other than my group of friends huddled together and united by a pain so severe I couldn't stand it.
My tears slowed and my heart started beating. Gradually, my body went into shock and I sat silently on the cold tiles, staring blankly at the pale green wall beside me. The paint was chipped and my fingers itched to set it on fire. I wanted to burn the fucking place down. I wanted to cut off all my stupid brown hair. I wanted to rip this stupid heart out of this stupid chest and flush it.
I could not handle feeling so much. I could not deal with Ashton being gone. I could not cope with being so far away from people I loved who were in excruciating agony. I couldn't stand any of it.
I hated every inch of the earth. I hated all the people. I hated the planet. And I hated Ashton for leaving everyone behind.
I missed him.
And hoped, despite the storm washing over my body, that he'd found peace wherever he'd gone while leaving the rest of us to pick up our own pieces. While leaving me to spend my first night in my new apartment crying into my hands and listening to 5SOS songs alone.
a/n: yo i love you, that's all