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"I relive that crash every single day. The one where I just began to exist. I didn't live, I didn't die, I'm just here. And I'm completely fine with that. Or at least I try to convince myself that I am. And it's all I ever think about. That it should have been me that died, not my family. Not the ones I love. And now I'm left in this void, forced to exist without them, to exist in a world that I wish was only my imagination but isn't. . ."
Calum
I was two when the world around me fell silent. It was only three years after when everything suddenly felt so loud; like a boomerang dropping from a two thousand foot cliff, or an arena filled with people screaming at the top of their lungs when their favorite band comes out to play, except without exhilaration. It was sirens, loud ones that seemed distanced and discombobulated, yet they were so close, within inches of my fingers clawing against the seatbelt I was tucked under. There were people, with beards and skin that matched the color of the sunlight and the color of my white sneakers and the color of my eyes, and they were all the same. Loud. They were so loud, and the last thing I could remember was seeing their eyes, closed, bodies unraveled, chests hardly moving, shreds of glass covering every centimeter of their faces. And I was lost.
I survived during the ambulance ride to the hospital, with a female wearing all baby blue attire, whispering words that I didn't understand at the time, but wanted to. She had brown eyes, like my mother, father and sister. She was just like them. A blur that I could hardly remember; a blur that I was beginning to forget. And in the back of the truck that had sirens as loud as my heartbeat, all sources of light and hope I had within me were defeated. They were dead, and I had nothing anymore.
Nothing but a beaten down orphanage, that I was trapped inside of for nine years of my existence after losing the only memory of happiness I could recall. I was numb to feeling anything but scratches and bruises, and even when they'd unexpectedly tackle my skin, I wouldn't mind. I was used to it. I enjoyed the pain.
I inflicted it on myself each time I'd stare down at the only family photograph I had, the one the police could pack into a suitcase before the house needed to be sold. But I could hardly remember their laughs. They were happy, I was happy, but it just didn't seem to exist anymore, in the same way that I didn't want to exist, but was forced to, anyway.
Taking my life never seemed like an option. It was never something I wanted to do. At least not until I turned fourteen and was adopted into a family of seven. To be precise, taken into the Cabera family; the only people who seemed to care about my mental and physical health from the moment they spotted me inside of the orphanage.
I began to adjust to the memory of laughter again, but it was often forced. They would crack jokes, spin transparent bottles of liquor on the carpet and announce random facts about themselves, but it was never for me. Nothing was ever for me, aside from leaving the house to smoke a couple of cigarettes and forget about the fact that I only had a real family for five years. Not ten, not twenty, not seventy eight, but five. I had to lose the people that would mean the world to me when I was developing. And the truth is, it wasn't fair.
There were nights where I'd pretend everything was my imagination, like I was Calum Thomas Cabera, not Calum Thomas Hood. Like I didn't spend nine years of my life trapped inside of a shitty orphanage where most of the kids misbehaved and knocked on pots and pans at two in the morning because they were 'bored'. Most of the time, I just didn't want to exist. But it was a mandatory thing, and I hated it. The world made everything a requirement.
I was fourteen and smoking cigarettes, and I was fourteen when I was forced to go to high school, to meet people who were just like me, yet had no connection to me at all. Everyone was different, but everyone was the same. The world is just fucking crazy.
Calum Hood, the frat boy, is what people called me from the moment I stepped into a public school. I didn't have the nicest clothes, but they were something. Band shirts, skinny jeans, flannels and vans. It suited me, or at least I thought it did. I hardly knew anything about myself, and quite frankly, I didn't want to. Because that would mean existing, and existing would mean that this isn't my imagination, that there aren't hundreds of people walking in the same building that I am, that I'm not the only one breathing, the only one feeling pain or the only one realizing that life is just a game and you have to play by the rules in order to be happy.
I didn't want to exist.
I didn't want to breathe.
But I didn't want him to exist either. His name was Michael Clifford, fourteen and a half years old with bright blue hair, green eyes and a petite body that made his sweaters look two sizes larger than him.
He didn't belong here. I didn't need him in my life. And I wanted him banned from the world, banned from society and sent somewhere else. Somewhere that didn't put the two of us in one secluded area where no strings were attached.
I wanted out, but he reeled me in.
He was Michael Clifford, and I spent most of my days wishing that he didn't exist, more than wishing that I didn't exist. That's how you know I'm fucked up, but we all are, and as sickening as it is, there's nothing we can do about it.
Existing is just something that comes natural, and I'm selfish enough to know that Michael existing won't be good for me, just like how nothing else is good for me, either.
"I'm left with that void again, and it needs to be gone, before it's more than my imagination. Before it's just pure sadness, before I decide that existing is no longer for me. . . "
If only escaping was easier.
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A/N;
So thoughts?
I think I like it. I dunno.