Confused, Michael is confused. Michael had just woke up. He was lying on a bed, Calum's bed. And even though he tries to remember how he got there it's useless.
The small blond sits up letting out grumble as he feels pain from his upper stomach. Looking at the root of the problem he finds a throbbing bruise. That's when he remembers, images of his crush hitting him violently brings tears to his eyes.
But what Michael doesn't know is that while he softly sobs on the upstairs room his friends have a heated argument downstairs.
It all started with Calum fanatically screaming at nobody in specific, mad at Luke for beating up his best friend. He then looked at Ashton confused. The boy has not said a word since they left school; he was looking blankly at the wall in front of him with a shocked expression.
Calum made sure the boy was looking at him and then proceeded to ask what was wrong. He looked away, played with his fingers, doubtful of what he should say.
"Calum, there's something I should tell you. Please, promise me you won't get mad?" This caught the darker skin boy's attention, he promised not to get mad and waited impatiently for the boy to continue.
"Luke was my boyfriend."
They stared at each other without saying a word. The silence was long enough to hear soft crying, knowing it was from Michael since the three of them were the only ones home. And even though Calum didn't quite understand the confession he was disappointed.
He tried getting away so he wouldn't snap; telling him he was going to check on Michael as an excuse but Ashton grabbed him before he could go upstairs. He pinned him down on the couch as the boy asked, screamed for him to let go.
The older one waited for the angry teenager to calm down and started to explain himself. He didn't let go of his grip just yet.
"We broke up two months before school." Calum stayed silent and looked at anything but the face in front of him. "He wasn't expelled, he made that up. We were outed at our old town, we were bullied every day for it. He cared too much about what people thought of him."
Both guys started to sit down on the couch. They looked at the floor as Ashton continued.
"So when he told me we should run away to a new place where nobody knew us, I agreed. Ever since we left that place we started to argue a lot. He didn't want people to see us together."
He took a deep breath and Calum was finally looking at him with empathy. "When I finally confronted him about it we end up breaking up. He wanted to play straight and have me as his secret. He moved out of our flat and started to act like a whole different person."