I ended up studying through lunch. Everyone in my family knew enough by now to leave me alone during the day on a weekend, and I let myself drown in the silence of my room. It was near one in the afternoon when I felt my willpower weaken. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I checked my phone.
A message from Mason, nothing from Calum. My eyebrows came together, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Calum was already deciding he didn’t want to continue anything with me. I couldn’t blame him, and I knew it’d been coming from the start, but…but I guess a part of me was hoping that this, whatever it was, would last just a little bit longer.
Day by day. I wanted to take it day by day and not pay any attention to the weight of the future.
No. You know what? That was fine. It was fine. I was prepared for this. I could handle this without breaking down completely.
At least, that’s what I thought, but still, my traitorous eyes started to tear up, anyway—like they failed to get the memo my mind had. I set my phone down, trying to push the tears back, not wanting to cry, for I knew that if I let the tears fall, my focus would be shot and I’d do nothing but wallow for the rest of the day.
I cried a lot, but I was smart enough to know I should never cry about a guy, especially one I wasn’t even dating. Not technically.
What were we doing? If we weren’t dating, we had to be doing something.
Ugh, either way, did it matter? Calum was obviously done with me, and Mason…Mason would get tired of me, too. No one would ever want to stick around. I wasn’t worth it.
I closed my eyes, leaning my head on my desk. I remained there for a while, a long while, and as I stayed there with my head bent, I struggled to get my emotions under control. It sucked, because I knew this would happen from the beginning. I’d told myself not to get emotionally involved, and what did I do? I went and let my heart get the better of me, anyways. Stupid, stupid. How could I have been so stupid?
When I finally lifted my head, I saw that I had a missed call from Calum, and I wondered if he somehow knew I was thinking about him. If, subconsciously, he knew I was giving up, trying to cut myself off from the source and protect the fragile heart residing in my chest.
Or maybe he was just calling me to say goodbye.
I guess I would never know, because he hadn’t left a voicemail. With a sigh, I grabbed my phone and tossed it off my desk. It landed on my bed with a small bounce, too far from my fingertips to be of any use to me. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what they said, wasn’t it?
Nope. Wrong.
A soft knock echoed on my door, and I didn’t get up from my desk. Figuring it was my mom, I said, “I’m studying. Go away.” But she didn’t. I heard the hinges on my door creak open as she pushed inside, and I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I could fake it long enough for her to believe it and get the hell out. Privacy, and all that.
But when I turned around on my chair to give her a smile and kindly ask her to leave, I realized it wasn’t my mom.
It was…Calum?
I swore, my heart nearly stopped in my chest when I saw his handsome face. His blonde hair had just gotten cut, so he looked a little dorky, but still a ridiculous sort of attractive. A bit of near-white stubble rested on his jaw, and he gave me a tiny smile as he shut the door behind him, stepping inside, acting as if nothing at all was wrong.
“Bree,” he said, flashing me his pearly whites. “I have to say, I thought you’d be a little more excited.”
I probably sounded stupid, but all I could do was say, “Calum. What are you doing here?” My back hurt because I was so twisted in my seat, my fingers curling around the back of the chair so tightly my knuckles were white.
Calum shrugged. “I wanted to surprise you, but it looks like you don’t want me here, so maybe I’ll just go—”
What happened next was a blur. One moment I was sitting there, staring at him, questions racing through my head, and the next I was up, walking to him in a daze, practically slamming my body against his wide, strong chest. His jacket was unzipped, allowing me to grab hold of the fabric of his shirt under it, bury my face against it and breathe him in.
He was here. He wasn’t ignoring me or trying to leave me; he was only trying to surprise me. I didn’t know what to think about that. This almost felt like a dream. A strange, hyper-realistic dream that I never wanted to wake from.
His arms were slow to wrap around me, holding me tight, and I heard the thrum of his voice in his chest as he asked, “So, I can stay?”
I nodded against him, too speechless to beg. I was at that point, you know—where I’d beg this man to stay, plead with him to not go back. If that made me pathetic, if it made me stupid because this could never last…then I guess I was the most pathetic and stupid of them all.
Calum’s arms squeezed me once before letting me go, though he didn’t release me entirely. His hands went to my arms, as if he was afraid to
