Wherever You Are

I wish I could say that it was the sunlight peeking through the curtains that woke me up, but that's not true. I had a dream about the distant past and my eyes shot open though my body couldn't move. I was lying in a different room, Calum's room. I sat up to see him still sleeping soundly, holding on tight to the fluffed pillow on that side of the bed. I sat for a minute, my eyes scanning the room as the internal dialogue began. What the hell are you doing, Riley? I could see Michael's hoodie thrown on the other bed even though the linen was still politely made. I wondered where he had spent the night and then decided that if he had been as lonely as Calum, then he was definitely waking up in the arms of someone. I thought about what had happened the night before, but was too embarrassed by the memory of drowning in Calum's whiny moans. It had been a long time, but he hadn't changed much. He was working out a lot more, but I didn't want to enjoy his tones muscles. I didn't want to think about how much better he had gotten in bed, or who taught him that he shouldn't be so selfish in bed. Instead, I tried to answer the part of me that was busy scolding. If you want him to care for you, then you can't sleep with him you fool. I sighed as silently as possible. I had to be honest about everything. I couldn't keep telling myself that I needed closure because the truth was that closure was the farthest thing from what I wanted. So then, what did I want from Calum? I was so scared to even think about it, but I was never going to stop being heart broken if I didn't admit it to myself. I wanted Calum to look at me and see everything good in the world. I wanted him to hear a song and instantly think about how much he misses me. Gods, I want him to miss me so badly. I want him to ache for the sound of my voice, and daydream about looking into my eyes. I wanted him to feel absolutely everything that had tortured me, but I wanted him to feel it all for me. I took a moment to question how that could ever happen and wasn't surprised that I couldn't think of anything. Calum wasn't a fuck boy. He was rather respectful of me, the problem was that he didn't think he could have anything with me. He would rather look for the romance building traits in someone else besides me. Unless of course, he simply didn't know what I wanted from him. Let's be honest though and say that the chances of that being true were incredibly slim. It was obvious how I felt. I always wanted to be around him. I was so angry last night, but I still wound up naked in his hotel room. I bit on the nail of my index finger, not enough to cut through the calcium but enough to feel it clenched between my teeth. It was a poor habit that happened when I was deep in thought.

Calum stirred next to me before rolling over, his body now facing my direction as his eyes opened. He didn't bother to yawn or stretch and instead, wrapped his arms around my waist and moving closer to me so that his head was in my lap. With him being so close, I could instantly tell that he was still naked from the night's activities soon. His morning wood was pressed up against my leg and I jumped a little bit. That made him chuckle, and then sit up. "Sorry." He grumbled, and then proceeded to climb out of bed and begin to look for clean clothes to wear. I didn't hesitate to begin dressing myself, either, doing my best to seem confident with being naked in from of him. It didn't help that he kept glancing at me as I pulled my jeans up over my legs, or when I pulled my shirt down over my tummy. When he was dressed, I was looking for my phone. He handed it to me, having found it on the floor beside the bed where one of my sneakers lay as though forgotten. I accepted it with a quiet thanks and checked my notifications. Mostly some tweets and Facebook comments. Calum interrupted my scrolling with a question. "Hey Ry, do you wanna go get some breakfast with me?" I shot him a look, filled with mostly hesitation and minor hints of confusion. He wanted to treat me to breakfast? Was this supposed to be a thank you for the sex? He quickly eased my mind. "I just think we should probably talk about what happened, for real." I couldn't argue. It sounded really logical. So I nodded my head and agreed to walk back down the street with him. Before we left the hotel, we stopped by my own room so that I could change my clothes. It was the fastest thing that I could do to freshen up.

We stopped at the restaurant in the hotel's lobby, feeling like leaving the hotel might be troublesome later on. If his fans saw, or if the media saw. I didn't mind it because truth be told, I was feeling just a little bit tender after sleeping with him. I swallowed the soreness as best as I could and let him order my coffee. My order was always simple with no foam, no whip, no sugar, and no fruity name. I liked regular black coffee, the caffeinated kind. The man who waited on us obliged without hesitation. We sat quietly as we mulled over the short menu. I decided on having toast and bacon with blueberry oatmeal. Calum ordered two different omelets and I made a face of disgust as he did so. I hated eggs with no explanation except that they tasted foul and bitter. Still, he didn't mind my distaste and I caught him smiling at my grimace. The waiter left and I sipped on my coffee, nice and bitter and strong. "So?" He asked, as though I had invited him to breakfast to talk. I rolled my eyes. "For gods' sakes, Calum. You said you wanted to talk." He shook his head, suddenly very adamant. "No, I said that we needed to talk. There's a difference." I put the coffee cup down on the table, rather loudly to the displeasure of other guests in the dining room. They all turned to glare but I paid them no mind. "You're right, we certainly do and I'm finally ready." He didn't hesitate to cut me down in my tracks. "But you can't get mad, Riley. We have to be civil." I thought making a sarcastic remark about the civil war but decided against it, unsure if he even knew what the civil war was. I certainly didn't know anything about Australian history. "Fine, we'll be civil." I said, finally. He wanted to smile so badly but he was a good boy, so he cleared his throat instead and then looked down into his cream colored coffee loaded with sweetener. "Alright, so where do we need to start?" I knew just how to start.

"Why did you sleep with me last night?" He scoffed, his sass in excess as he retorted. "Well, you were quite an active participant as well, Riley." I imagined burning him with laser beam eyes as I snarled. "You know what I mean, Calum Thomas." His smile instantly faded with my use of his middle name. "You were beautiful." I diverted my attention, swallowing back tears of frustration. "Really? That's it?" He grew more annoyed. "And you were hurting. I don't know, Riley. What do you want me to say? You were crying." I could feel a hard and rough lump building in the back of my throat. "So your first inclination is to sleep with me? You know, you're really fucked, Calum." He was obviously offended. "I'm fucked? Riley, you yelled at me on a crowded street." He wanted to say more, but I cut him off. "Because I was in love with you, Calum." I started out yelling, but very quickly lowered the volume of my voice as people looked back at us again and I neared the end of that sentence. Calum's entire body grew tense, the leg he had been previously bouncing was now still with his foot flat on the floor. "I loved you and I just wanted to be with you all of the time but you only ever wanted to use me when you were bored. I realized that I couldn't keep being nothing to you, so I left." He had nothing to say, but his breathing was suddenly picking up and his eyes didn't move from their focus on my face. "Didn't you think it a bit odd that I just left without a real goodbye? Huh? Or that I stopped taking your calls and stopped texting you back? I needed to be free of you and your games. I needed to be okay and stop feeling like shit. You made me feel like shit, Calum." I was rambling on as he sat so silently. By the time that I finished speaking, I realized that I was crying again. I wiped my eyes with the sleeves of my shirt and glanced around to make sure that no one could see me making a fool of myself over Calum, yet again. The waiter came by and served our breakfast on basic white china, knowing full well that there was nothing but tension at our table. When he left, Calum took a deep breath in and then spoke, not bothering to touch his food.

"I knew that something was going on. I just never bothered digging because you never tell me anything." I scoffed, rolling my eyes at his poor excuse. "Seriously? I've fully devoted myself to you-" He interrupted me before I could go on any further. "No, Riley. You never did. If you were angry or sad or if you just didn't feel right then you never told me. We were supposed to be best friends but I don't even know anything about you." I tried to butt in with a simple "Calum, I told you everything-" but he interrupted me yet again. "You told me about your favorite movies, or all your favorite songs. You told me why you loved photography but you never told me how you go into it. I don't know anything about your parents, or if you even have any siblings. I know what you like, Riley, but I've never known who you are." I swallowed hard and sniffled at his response, being forced to face my own short comings. He wasn't wrong. I had been so focused on trying to impress him that I never thought to trust him and let him in. I suddenly felt ashamed, like I had let him down. He shared so many things with me. We spent night after night cuddled on his couch or in his bed, with him whispering his secrets into the darkness between us. I hadn't even told him anything that mattered. "You never wanted to know. You were always talking about yourself." I shouldn't have said it, but I did. It wasn't true, but it was the only thing that I could think of to defend my honor and protect my pride. He didn't falter for a second. "Somebody had to keep the conversation going." We sat in silence for a while. We stared at each other, and then at our food as it grew cold. Calum took a bite of an omelet in the silence as I sat and contemplated what a shitty friend I had been to him. It boggled my mind to think that all this time that I spent trying to hate him, when I was just as at fault. Finally, after a lot of hesitation, I spoke up. "I honestly don't know what to say, Cal. I feel," I paused, searching for the right words. "I feel embarrassed and told off." He didn't smile like I thought that he would. In fact, he barely looked up from his breakfast. "Well, is it okay if we start over?" I didn't know what he meant by that and I told him so. "Riley, at some point you have to tell me some serious stuff." There was another pause as he put down his fork and looked me in the eye. "I want to know everything about you." I started to shake my head, knowing that it was too late to repair the damage that had already been done. "There's no point in any of that." I sounded so certain, but he seemed so sure. "There is. I mean, you need to give me a chance to fall in love with you."

My heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity. I could no longer hear anything but the rush of my own blood as it raced past my ears and my vision was growing a little foggy. I prayed that I didn't pass out. "What?" I muttered. Calum didn't falter. "If you fell in love with me, then it's only right that I get a chance to fall in love with you." I wanted to yell at him some more. I wanted to tell him that this commitment was empty and that I wouldn't fall for it. I wanted to, but I couldn't. If he wanted a chance to get to know who Riley was, then I was going to do my best to give it to him. No matter how much it hurt, I needed to know if there was any chance for us to live happily ever after. I nodded. "Okay. Then starting right now, I will do my best to be open and honest with you like I should have been from the start." We finished our breakfast in silence, my food already having grown cold. When Calum paid the tab, we decided to talk a walk back up to his room and watch a movie. It was a rather anticlimactic moment. In movies, the two main characters would hold each other and talk about how in love they were. It was a cliche ending. Real life doesn't work that way, though. I may have still had love for Calum in my heart, but Calum had yet to know if he ever could be capable of loving me. It hurt more to know that it was all my fault. Maybe if I had just broken down my wall for him when we first met, then we could have been living my dream this whole time.

Calum loved movies for as long as I had known him. Whenever we hung out, he always wanted to watch some kind of film instead of going out. Sometimes, the movies that he picked out were fantastic stories of love or adventure but other time he selected titles that were barely deserving of the title "D-List". I wondered what kind of film it would be this time around, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Underworld. It was something that would be interesting, but the both of us had already seen it enough times that we could still talk while it played. In his room, I plopped down onto his unmade bed and watched him open up his laptop and prepare the movie. I cleared my throat and pulled my phone out to check my emails while I still had the chance. I had a few different work related things and then a lot of spam emails about twitter notifications. I locked my phone when I heard the familiar introduction scene and Calum climbed into his own place in the bed and sat cross legged. I imagined how cute it might look if I pulled my knees to my chest but my thighs were too thick for me to comfortably take the position. Instead, I leaned back against the headboard and tried to stay focused on the movie. I hardly could, though, because my thoughts kept slipping into all of those things that I had never told anyone. I didn't want to talk about everything. Some things just didn't need to be known or told, after all. Still, there was something that Calum said earlier that was bothering me. I could see him watching the movie from the corner of my vision and the suddenly could feel the words burst from my throat. "I don't." He looked confused. "What?" I swallowed hard, trying to find the courage to finish that thought. "I don't have any parents." His eyes slowly glanced over my face, to my eyes, and then to the movie. I was unsure if he was comfortable with me continuing but I did anyway. He wanted to know who I was. "I was found outside of the fire station when I was nine months old." His eyes shot right back at me and his expression looked as though he was expecting me to break down and cry about it. In fact, he seemed surprised that I was so calm about it. "Are you serious?" His voice sounded so concerned compared to my nearly monotone drone as I continued with a small nod of my head. "I grew up in foster care, so I don't have any parents." He hesitated, but then swallowed hard and reached out for me. His arms wrapped themselves tightly around my shoulders and he shifted his weight so that I was lying against his chest as he laid on his side of the bed. The laptop still laid awkwardly in the gap between our legs. His right arm remained on my back to hold me tightly to him, while his left hand stroked my hair. I could feel him kiss the top of my head and I felt bad for making him feel so sad. "Cal, I just-" He shushed me with a gentle and low hum before his left hand began running down my arm. "Riley, we don't have to do this all at once." I wanted to see his face right then. I imagined that it was a sweet expression, one that would melt away the hidden pain weighing heavily on my chest. I couldn't bring myself to lift my head from his chest, though. I could hear his heart beat slow as I wrapped my arm around his waist and held onto him tightly. I had missed him so much. I had forgotten how good it felt to have him hold me and know that I was what he was thinking about. He kissed the top of my head once more, and I imagined what life might be if he fell in love with me. I hoped that this was a good start.