a/n - im really in love with how this turned out :-))
this is the last of cara and cal for now, but dont leave yet okay omh keep an eye out for my authors note bc i have some things to address and a possible sequel 8-)
i love you guys, thank you for everything.
stay happy,
x bri.
-
[ cara - a year later, december 25th of 2017. ]
"She's missing, it's happening again!"
I pressed my foot down harshly and abruptly on the brakes of the car, my entire body swerving forward. I flinched at the simultaneous honks of all the cars in the lanes surrounding me, but to be fair, it was the most minor factor as to why my blood pressure was spiking at the moment, "She's what?!"
"She's missing, okay!" Emma screamed into the phone. You could almost hear the panic in the labored breaths she was taking, and if I wasn't feeling as terrified as I was in that moment, I probably would have laughed. "I-I don't know what to do! We've looked everywhere! She's not in her room or in the bathroom or in the kitchen or basement or garage or-"
I groaned loudly and slammed my hand against the steering wheel as Emma proceeded to list off all of the places she'd already checked, thankful that I was situated at a red light so that I had some time to recompose myself, or at least reorganize my thoughts. How was this happening again? On Christmas day?!
The recognizable feeling of panic, that I'd so damn successfully gone a pretty long time without up until today, was beginning to stir in my gut until I felt physically sick - I was supposed to be picking Calum up from the airport, how the hell was I supposed to deal with this right now?
"C-Check again, she can't be gone, Emma, check everywhere." I choked out, stepping down on the gas forcefully once the stoplight flickered from a red glow to a green.
"Cara, I would be an idiot to have not looked everywhere by now, alright, I'm telling you, she's missing!"
"Well did you think to tell your parents? My parents? Did you guys even call the police?!"
"They're still looking even though there's literally nowhere else to look! We've legitimately turned this entire house upside down and we cannot find her and I'm about to-"
A couple second sof silence took over the line as I made an turn on the intersect leading to the airport, and then a long, unsurprising, thread of profanities. I knit both of my eyebrows together, "Em? You good?"
"We found her."
"What?"
"We. Found. Her." Emma repeated, each word coming out slowly and each syllable dripping with aggravation.
"Well where the hell was she?!"
"She was outside. Feeding birds."
I locked my jaw in irritation and groaned loudly at how badly my heart rate had just surged all for a false alarm. I pulled into a thankfully empty space in the airport parking lot, grabbed ahold of my bag from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car, still clutching the phone tightly in my fist out of aggravation and still-in-the-process-of-dying-panic. "Put her on the phone. Now."
There was the sound of shuffling on the other end of the line until eventually my ears were eventually met with the familiar, tiny, pubescent voice, "Auntie Car?"
"Paisley," I seethed through my teeth that I'd gritted tightly together. I'd woken up this morning with a terrifying amount of things crowding the lines on my to-do-list, of which I still haven't even completed half of yet, and here I was, piling more and more stress onto my shoulders by nearly having a stroke all because of a little three year old who'd decided to go outside to feet some pigeons. Arrest me for being annoyed. "I've told you probably over six times that if you're going to go outside, you need to tell Auntie Em first. You can't just go outside alone, Pais, you aren't big enough for that yet!"
Paisley whined from the other end, and although I couldn't see one inch of her face from here, it kind of felt like instinct to assume that she had her bottom lip stuck out and her eyes wide open and doey. "I was feeding the birdies! It's Christmas, and they looked hungry."
Inevitably, I felt the building grin start to lift the edges of my lips and I shook my head at the fact that I could never actually stay mad at the little girl, or any little kid for the matter. "I know it's Christmas, babe, and it's really nice that you went to feed the birds, but you need to stop going outside alone, okay? You scare us each time."
"Sorry, Auntie Car." Paisley's voice was quiet and bashful and muffled and embarrassed and I could practically envision the baby blonde rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet with her cheeks puffed out. I was cooing all the way from the other end of the line.
Heather's Mom must've taken her daughter getting sent to rehab as a blessing or stroke of luck, considering the exact day Heather was sent away, her Mom fled out of Sacramento, leaving Paisley behind. Nobody exactly knew where the woman went, and nobody really attempted to track her down, either. First of all, Heather was Paisley's legal guardian, not Heather's Mom - technically, if she really wanted to, Heather's Mom could easily, simply cut herself out of Paisley's life and not have to worry about it. Overall, she wasn't required to come back to hospitalize Paisley. Which sucked, but also didn't suck.
Heather had told us that her Mom had also probably left the city in fear that she wouldn't be able to raise a little girl and buy her clothes and food and pay for her college tuition years later by herself, so the Graylings offered to take her in. With no Dad, a Mom in a mental institution, and a Grandma who left her to save money - I think it was dangerously generous of Emma's family, to be honest. Paisley seems happy with Em and her parents, too.
I only got worried knowing that at the end of the day, Em has zero patience even for me, let alone a little kid - if she for some reason felt the need to throw Paisley into the damn dish-washer and turn it on, she'd do it.
"It's fine, Pais, just ask next time alright? We just don't want anything happening to you." The small heels on the soles of my combat boots were clicking against the pavement as I walked across the street to the front portion of the airport, where families were hugging, couples had their faces glued to one another, and people were loading luggages into the backs of taxis and cars. All of the sounds and things happening around me nearly distracted me from Paisley, who was still waiting on the other end of the phone. "I have to hang up and call Uncle Cal now, but I'll see you later at dinner, okay? Are you dressed already?
Paisley seemed to have come back to life after hearing that, completely ignoring my question on her red and green elf-outfit we'd arranged for her to wear to dinner later. "Uncle Calum's home?!"
"He is," I nodded even though I was aware the little blonde couldn't see me. Once I'd made it inside the airport, I shrugged my cardigan off of my shoulders and leaned against the wall patiently. It was 4:56 in the afternoon, at the moment - Cal's plane should have landed about ten minutes ago. At this point, it was just a matter of waiting a few minutes to see him. It'd suddenly gone from having to wait a full year, to mere minutes, to see Calum standing directly in front of me, where for the first time in twelve months, I'd actually be able to be with him, and not on the other side of the globe through a pixelated screen. I grinned at the thought. "so is Uncle Luke, Uncle Ashton and Uncle Mikey."
I ended the call after repeatedly promising to call Paisley back once Calum and I were back in the car, instead rocking back and forth on the tips of my toes, craning my neck to overlook the sea of people crowding the airport in search of the familiar head of brown hair. I was anxious, to say the least.
It wasn't like we'd made it through the entire year we were apart smoothly - we must've broken up at least four times within the twelve months the band was on tour. The complications of everything almost came in stages, in fact, the first being pissed fans who happened to have enough time on their hands to drown both Calum and I in a tsunami of unwanted opinions. Cal was made out to be an absolute asshole for dating a set of two twins, while I was called a home wrecker for the first few months we publicized our relationship. It was aggravating, obviously, since nobody actually knew what had actually happened between all of us, but I'd never actually taken it too seriously until the night Calum called me saying he was getting tired of being made out to be somebody he wasn't. And I got angry, considering I'd been putting up with being called a slut and a home wrecker and having fans show up at my house angry or calling my phone and harassing me, yet it felt like he was giving up on me, on us. It felt like I was trying more than he was. So, we didn't talk for a week - and that was the first silent break up.
Of course we ended up getting over ourselves once we realized that our relationship wasn't going to please each individual of the planet's population consisting of seven billion people. Hate and disagreement and displeasure was inevitable - breaking up and pushing pieces back together every so often in relationships was inevitable.
So keeping that in mind, it wasn't too surprising when groupie rumors came into the picture. It wasn't surprising when we both yelled at each other through the phone that one night over the fact that we weren't finding enough time to even text one another, with Calum playing all of these shows and with me attending UCLA. It wasn't surprising when our conversations went from being full of emojis and long paragraphs, to three-word replies and "k's", to being simply non-existent. It wasn't surprising when I woke up one morning with a voicemail with a not-at-all-sober Calum, voice wobbly and deep, telling me that he didn't know if he could wait it out anymore, that he was tired of counting days down on his calendar.
But we held up. We held it all up, we held it all together. Through all of those silent, wordless breakups, there was never a time where one of us actually came clean and called it over.
And I was thankful. I'm really thankful. I'm thankful that somehow, someway, we managed. I'm thankful that Cal and I both were enticed with one another so much that we would both desperately scramble to push a piece back into its place the minute it started to crack and chip, before it fell all together and crumbled completely. We held it together.
My phone vibrating between my palm brought me back to reality and out of the reminiscent, and I harshly pressed on the green accept button the instant my eyes caught sight of the caller ID, "Cal, hey, I'm waiting by your terminal, I just got here, have you guys left the plane yet?"
"Hi, beb," his voice was rather timid and low, the exact opposite of mine - wistful and breathless and anxious and excited and frantically loud. Nonetheless, my lips twitched upwards at the nickname, only faltering when he continued, "I uh, I'm not gonna make it. I don't think I'm gonna make it."
I cocked my head to the side confusedly and paced the tiles of the airport floor, slowly. "What?"
There was a deep, guilty-sounding sigh on the other end of the phone, "I'm not gonna make it, my flight is delayed. We just left the layover in Georgia, I'm not going to make it there until tomorrow."
"I-I thought you were supposed to have arrived like, ten minutes ago?"
"I did too, but once we landed in Georgia, our flight got delayed by an hour and I was supposed to call and tell you but the cell reception in the airport was really shitty, and yeah, we're um, we're late. We're still in the air, right now, we won't land until eight in the morning tomorrow."
I nodded and bit down on the inside of my cheek, swallowing to rid the sudden lump that'd formed in my throat. It was a little hard to swallow down the disappointment of knowing that I wouldn't be able to be with Calum for another twenty-four hours, though, especially when I hadn't asked for anything else this Christmas other than him. "Oh, okay, um, I understand. J-Just call me once you actually land, I guess?"
I rose both of my eyebrows in shock when the phone started to beep, signaling that Calum had hung up on the other end. There wasn't even any time left for me to actually boil up annoyance towards him before my phone started to ring once more. I'd expected it to be Em, or Elena or maybe even my parents asking me if I was on my way back home, now, but it was still Calum's name that'd appeared on the screen. I rolled my lips back hesitantly, accepting the call, "Hey?"
"Hi," Calum spoke, voice laced with giggles and humors, causing me to squint quizzically. He'd just sounded bummed out two minutes ago, and now I could practically imagine the grin spreading across his tan face.
I shook my head, "Why're you calling again?"
"You told me to call you once I landed."
"Yeah, but you're still flying right now?"
"Car, you know you can't call people while on an airplane, right?"
"What?"
"You can only call people once you've landed." Cal explained further, the amount of humor in his voice only growing.
"But you haven't-"
I froze after realizing what Calum was trying to say, a relieved sigh exiting my lungs. I tugged at the roots of my hair frustratedly and stood on the tips of my toes to get a better look at all of the people roaming the airport in front of me, "Goddammit, Calum, stop it! Where the hell are you?!"
There were suddenly two arms snaking around my middle and a sharp weight being placed on my shoulder, making me jolt and and turn to my side. I squeaked as I nearly bumped my head right into Calum's chin that was set on my shoulder blade, his face facing me with a grin tugging violently at his lips, "Right here."
"Bastard!" I narrowed my eyes and swung my hand at his chest, making him laugh loudly and reel me into him further. I frowned into his shoulder, grumbling against the material of his grey hoodie as he continued to laugh into my hair, "Stop laughing, it wasn't funny!"
"Luke didn't even think it would work!" Cal continued to giggle vigorously though, shoving his head into the mess of my hair and pulling me in even closer towards him, until we were both simply pressed against each other. I rolled my eyes, waiting for the giggling to eventually die down as I clung onto the boy tightly. He still smelled like clean sheets and aftershave and musk and his skin was still as warm and glowy as it had been when I'd dropped him off to the airport a year ago.
I pulled away from the brunette for a second to stare at him fondly with my head cocked to the side as I studied his features, feeling my stomach kick around because this was my Calum. My Calum who'd been as insecure as ever about his nose and eyebrows that I loved with all my heart and my Calum who'd made me a playlist and my Calum who'd baked brownies with me and threw flour in my face and my Calum who'd proposed to me in advance and my Calum who forgave me even when I didn't deserve it all that much - a year later, after countless silent breakups and fallouts, this was still my Calum.
"What?" He eventually chuckled, bringing his calloused thumbs up to rub against the skin underneath my eyes. "You're staring."
I shook my head dismissively, "Speaking of Luke, where are they? They're coming to dinner later, right?"
Calum nodded, "Yeah, they're spending a few hours with their families and then they'll head over to your place." I hummed contentedly and grinned as he leaned in further to press his forehead against my own, placing butterfly kisses on my nose, and my cheeks, and my chin, and my forehead, and then my lips. "Merry Christmas."
I nodded, "Yeah, now that you're here."
-
I pulled the car up into a parking spot nervously, clenching and unclenching my hands upon the steering wheel. I was starting to second-guess my decision of even coming here, now.
"Car," Calum's hand had somehow found a way to interlock itself with my own, rubbing the top of my palm with his thumb comfortingly, "you don't actually have to-"
"I do." I quickly said, interrupting him. "I do, this is the right thing to do. it's Christmas, Cal. She's still a person. The whole reason any of what happened, happened, was because she was looking out for me. I owe her at least a Christmas greeting."
"Do you want me to come with, you at least?"
"I don't think you have to, unless you really want to? I'll be quick, I just really want to see her, is all."
Calum grinned and shook his head, leaning it back against the car head-rest and running his hands across his face. "You should probably stop."
I tilted my head confusedly, "Stop what?"
"Stop being an astounding person, it's throwing me off guard."
I scoffed playfully, internally blushing. "You should top kissing my ass, I'm still ticked at you about earlier."
I could tell he was about to say something by the way his full lips had parted objectively and his eyes doubled in size, but I made sure to open the car door and shut it just as quickly. I stuck my tongue out at Cal through the glass of the windshield, my silent way of celebrating the fact that I'd gotten the last word, before turning around and making my way into the hospital doors.
After signing into the visitor's guestbook, a nurse in a pair of mauve scrubs and a black scrunchie in her hair guided me towards the visitor's room, ushering me to take a seat on one of the plush couches as she'd only be gone for a second. I complied, and went for the black couch towards the back of the room, away from other patients and visitors. I couldn't even reach to flip through one of the magazines on the coffee table before someone was squeezing my side tightly, their head pressing into my shoulder.
I laughed lightly and reached my arm around Heather's shoulder to squeeze the blond back, "Hey, merry Christmas!"
"I didn't think you'd come," she whispered into the sleeve of my cardigan, her head now resting on my shoulder as we both sat cross-leggedly on the cushions of the couch. "I didn't think you'd ever come."
"I'm here now, I'm sorry it took so long of me." I said quietly, regarding the fact that this was actually the first time I'd ever visited Heather sine she'd been sent to rehab. "How're you doing here? Are they treating you nicely?"
Heather shrugged, speaking quietly, "I wouldn't ever choose to be here if I'd been given the choice, but the nurses make it a little easier. They're okay people."
"I'm glad they make it easier."
"I want to get out of here, Cara."
I sighed, wanting to say something supportive that would make Heather feel a little better on Christmas day and would lessen the amount of brokenness and exhaustion I was currently looking at in her eyes, but honestly, this was what Heather needed at the moment. Reflection and rehabilitation. No way in hell would I be comfortable with Heather leaving the hospital already. "I know, Heather, I'm sorry."
Heather exhaled loudly and pried herself off of my shoulder to sit with her legs in a pretzel, a smile looking forcefully plastered on her face. "How is everybody? Are you and Calum...?"
"We're good, we're all good." I smiled, knowing that finally, for once, it was the truth. "Yeah, we are. Since last year."
Heather pushed her bottom lip out and rose both her eyebrows, nodding as if she were impressed. "Cara?"
I hummed, "Hm?
"I've been um, wanting to tell you something for a while now. Like, ever since I was taken away." Heather said and shuffled closer towards me on the couch so that we really were face to face with one another. "Not that I don't trust you or Calum when it comes to knowing this, I just want to make sure you're definitely aware."
"Okay, I'm listening."
"After I get out of here, I'm getting sent to jail. I don't know when I'll ever get a chance to like, tell you this again, so I'm doing it now." Heather's hands that'd become extremely bony and fragile fell atop of mine, "I want you to know that you're worth more than you think you actually are. Regardless of if Elena is who people tend to gravitate towards more, you're so great, Cara, and all I want for Christmas is for more people to stop and talk to you and actually realize that. You're somebody who is so, so worth fighting for, even if in the end it all goes to hell. It's why I'm here right now, you feel me? It's why I'm going to jail right after this.
If you and Calum don't work out, or you and Emma don't work out, or Elena is shown more light than you are, I want to make sure that you know that even though I conveyed it in the shittiest way possible, I care so much about you. I don't ever want you to settle for less than what you are, Cara. You're worth fire and burns."
I didn't know exactly what to say after that, only knowing to reach over and wrap my arms around Heather tightly. I bit my lip, definitely hearing the tiny sobs that had started to leave Heather in hiccups as I held her. I pulled her in closer to me, suddenly feeling dangerously defensive of the girl.
I remember learning about Anne Frank in middle school. I remember learning about how treacherously the Nazis had treated her, and every other Jew alive during the time of World War II. I remember reading entries out of her diary, ones that explained how awful the Nazis had made her life and how much she was struggling to wake up, and fall asleep, to make it through, each day. In that moment though, as I stared down at the blond girl in my arms who'd finally come raw, come absolutely clean, I was reminiscing reading one specific line from one of those diary entries in particular;
Despite everything, Anne Frank had said, I believe that people are really good at heart.
-
"What the hell is that?" Elena grimaced, peering over my shoulder to get a glimpse of the gift that Luke had given to Ashton, that they were both also currently cackling at.
"It's a waffle maker." Emma chuckled from the other side of the living room where she was laying in a spooning position in front of Michael. I'd teased her about it earlier, only for her to threaten to drive my face into the wall once Christmas had come to an end, claiming that it was too holy of a day to be slaughtering people.
"As if the panini press wasn't enough of a shit show." Michael added, his words muffled from his lips being pressed against Emma's sweater. Ashton turned to give the purple-haired boy a look that practically screamed "I-didn't-ask-so-stop-talking".
"That's the point, though!" Luke said, flailing his arms towards the waffle maker that was still in the industrial looking box. "He obviously can't make paninis, so I thought that he could try out waffles!"
Calum groaned loudly, "If he burns the house down, I shit you not, Luke, you're out. We'll find a new lead singer. Joe Jonas, or something."
Ashton narrowed his eyes, darting from Calum, to Luke, to Michael repeatedly, "You guys are talking about me like I'm not even here!"
A few more gifts were opened after that, about an hours worth, before Calum stood up from where he'd gotten comfortable in the recliner, "Alright, I have to take Cara to see the gift I got her for Christmas, so we're gonna get going now."
Elena scoffed while shoving her feet into the blue cashmere socks she'd gotten as a stocking stuffer, "Is this like, an excuse for you guys to leave and do inappropriate things on a mattress?"
"Wha- No!" I'd cried out at the same time Calum had shrugged and let out a "Maybe" - I turned to glare at the dark-haired and dark-skinned boy who only grinned back at me cheekily.
I only got about five minutes to say goodbye to everyone and run up the stairs to where my parents had retreated about an hour ago to say goodnight to them, before Calum had ushered me out of the door and into his car. He was being extra giddy as he pulled out of the driveway and onto an unfamiliar highway, squirming in his seat. I kin both of my eyebrows together, "Why are you so antsy? Where are we even going? It's like ten PM, right now."
After Calum didn't say anything, keeping his lips pursed together, I sighed and gave up, deciding on just leaning my head against his shoulder and closing my eyes for a few minutes.
By the time I'd re-opened them, Calum was pulling his keys out of the ignition slot and stepping out of his seat. I didn't bother questioning him as he made his way around to my side of the car and pulled my door open and dragged me out of my seat. Sleepily, I took a thorough look at my surrounding, which happened to for the most part be only the one large black building in front of us. Calum and I made our way towards the front entrance, and I complied when he told me to step into the elevator, only to slump back against his frame once the two elevator doors shut. I was exhausted.
The two large industrial doors slid open once again, and I groaned as Calum forced me to step out of the box and walk down the hall with him. After what seemed to be over three hundred steps, we'd finally made it to a stop at the end of the hallway. I watched tiredly as Cal reached into his jean pocket to pull out a silver key, and used to it to open the door. I stared at the empty room behind the door curiously, turning to look at Calum for help. "What is this?"
Calum shrugged and took a few steps into the room, motioning for me to follow. "Come look."
I stepped in and turned to shut the door behind me before flicking the light switch to my side on, and peering around the room - it looked to me like it was a large apartment, almost like a loft, hence the kitchen and wash machine and dryer and sofa in the middle of the open floor plan. Aside from the sofa, though, the room was entirely empty.
"It's yours." Calum suddenly said from where he was standing beside me. My eyes widened and I turned to look at the brunette in disbelief. "Or ours, sorry. Our place."
I let my mouth fall agape for a few moments more as I stepped further into the the room, looking around more. My eyes eventually fell back on Calum. It all came back to Calum. "Y-You bought an apartment?"
"A condo." He was smiling widely at me, wiggling both of his eyebrows. I scoffed out an incredulous laugh as I proceeded to walk around the empty living room, and then into the kitchen, running my hands across the marble countertops. Cal had come up behind me, and I could feel the warmth of his hands grazing my shoulders, "This is your gift. Our gift."
I giggled, happiness genuinely filling every inch of me as I spun myself around to leap onto my boyfriend, my arms latching around his neck while his arms were pulling me off of the ground slightly. "I really can't believe you," I'd mumbled into his neck, tiredly, but happily. "you're an unbelievable human being, Calum Hood."
Calum shrugged and pressed his lips to the top of my head, grinning down at me, brown eyes meeting brown. "I kind of wanted a place to come home to every night where you would be at all times, you know?"
I didn't say anything further, just nodded, and pushed my nose against his lightly. Then, I pried myself from out of his arms and shoved him harshly, before taking off into an unknown hallway of the condo. "You're it!"
I could hear him calling out all the way from the living room, "Tag, are you serious, Cara?!"
I laughed loudly to myself, fully awake now as I barged into one of the rooms to the right where a mattress was laying in the center of the emptiness. Before I could turn around, or even find a place to hide, I was being knocked over by another body and falling onto the mattress, laughing even louder once I saw that it was Calum on top of me. His weight was practically crushing me, but it was one of the most endearing positions I'd ever been in, so I decided to merely put up with it. I exhaled happily, "Is this our room?"
Calum nodded and rolled off of me, throwing his arm around my torso and nuzzling his face into my neck. I could feel the sharpness of his jawline poking into my skin. Before I knew it, I'd started to giggle once more, haven't had being felt so happy in such a long time. It'd been a year since I'd seen the boy I was so in love with, and I thought it was only slightly ridiculous seeing that within barely twenty four hours, he'd made me smile so much. Calum had joined in with my laughter, until we were both laughing to the point of tears.
And then suddenly, we weren't.
Suddenly, Calum was crying. As in bawling crying.
"Hey," the frown of my face was deep as I sat up and looked down at Calum who had his face pushed into me, his bod shaking from the sobs leaving him. I quickly rubbed up and down his back, trying to be as soothing as possible. We'd just been laughing and playing tag and now suddenly, he was crying? "hey, what's going on? Why're you upset?"
"I'm not." Calum shrugged, sniffling loudly and sitting up so that we are facing one another. "I'm just happy we made it up to this point. I didn't think we would, with all the fights we had and... I don't know. I'm just happy we made it here. I'm happy I'm here with you right now."
"I'm happy that you're happy." I whispered simply, lightly tracing the letters of the alphabet into the material of Cal's shirt.
It was quiet after that, and I was about to validate with myself that Calum had obviously fallen asleep until he had started to sing,
"Wise men say," he yawned loudly, "only... only fools, rush... rush in..."
I rolled my eyes endearingly at the fact that Calum still remembered something so dumb, something that I hadn't even intended to make into such a huge thing, yet had become such a large sentiment in this relationship.
"But I, I can't... I can't help," he was starting to stammer at this point, and I could tell he was beginning to fall asleep, "falling in, in love... with...,"
I waited it out a few moments, wanting to see if the boy was awake enough to finish up the last line of the song. The snores I'd started to hear after a few long seconds proved my assumptions, wrong, though. So, I pulled Calum's face away from my the sleeve of my shirt, not wanting the boy to suffocate, and pushed his hair out of his face, using the pads of my thumbs to wipe the dampness of his tears off of his cheeks. I leaned down to kiss his cupid's bow, lightly, and then I finished the song for him, "You."
Only him.
Only Calum.