Hold the Broken Pieces Gently (Calum Hood fluff)
“Y/N!” you heard your mother yell from downstairs. “Get ready, honey! They’ll be here in less than an hour and I’d really appreciate a little help with the rest of the food!”
You rolled your eyes and flopped back on your bed. It was too much - all of this was becoming too hard. You tried everything you could to get him to look at you the way you looked at him. You flirted with him using your eyes and body language, you talked to him at every opportunity, and you touched him every time you were close enough. It was all for naught, though.
He was kind to you. He was respectful and gentle and compassionate and helpful. It wasn’t enough.
David and Joy Hood and your parents had been friends since they moved to Sydney before you were born. Your newlywed parents bought a house on the same block as the other young couple, who had just given birth to a beautiful little girl named Mali. When your parents decided it was time to try for one of their own, they had issues conceiving and David and Joy ended up pregnant again first. Calum was about three months old when the fourth round of IVF was successful and your parents were blessed with their one and only child. Mali, Calum, and you spent a lot of time together growing up. Mali treated you like her baby doll - always dressing you up and carrying you around, and the two of you remained close to this day despite your more than five year age gap. Your relationship with Calum, however, was significantly more complicated.
Calum and you were very close when you were young and remained close until somewhere around year 5. At that time, his parents finally allowed him to start taking guitar lessons and he was spending more and more time with his guy friends from school. You went to the same school and you knew Luke and Michael, but you had a different group of friends. Though you lived just a few houses apart, you rarely even saw Calum outside of school except for when he came around with Dave and Joy. It became even less frequent after Mali moved away.
Every time Calum showed up to a dinner and movie night at your house, he was very polite to you and your family. He said “please” and “thank you”, cleared his plate from the table, and offered to help wash the dishes. When you would all sit down in the living room and put the movie in, he would always offer to get everyone drinks or popcorn before sitting down. Each time you would eagerly sit on the smaller two seat couch, silently begging Calum to sit next to you. You would envision him walking toward you slowly and sitting down a little closer to the middle than necessary. After a few minutes you would gather the courage to pull the blanket from the back of the couch and offer to share it with him. He would accept and your heart would race as he reached over and held your hand under the blanket.
None of that ever actually happened though. Calum always, always pulled a chair in from the dining room and sat on the opposite end of the living room. Lately, each time he would distance himself from you so completely, it would feel like a knife was twisting in your chest. You would often spend the entire movie huddled down into the cushions of the cold and lonely couch while silently wiping away your tears.
You showered quickly and dried your hair before dressing in a simple pair of jeans and a light pink sweater. You left your stud earrings in your ears and pulled a delicate necklace from your jewelry box to put around your neck. You smiled lightly as you remembered it was actually a Christmas gift from Joy. You put on a small amount of make-up and slipped on some simple flat shoes, spritzed a tiny bit of perfume on your wrist and made your way downstairs.
Just as you and your mother finished dinner and put everything on serving platters, Joy’s voice rang out from the hallway. “Hey we’re here!” she exclaimed. She threw her hands in the air and you giggled at her silly dance move as she sauntered into the room followed closely by David and Calum. Calum stepped immediately toward the wall as David moved over and hugged you tightly with a kiss to the top of your head. Joy grabbed you from his arms and embraced you quickly before pulling you back to look at your face. “You get more beautiful every time we see you, Y/N,” she told you, causing your cheeks to flame wildly and your eyes to dart down to your shoes.
“Oh… uhm… thanks, Joy,” you mumbled quietly, taking a deep breath and bringing your eyes back up. As you raised your head, you happened to look over at Calum who was looking down at his feet as well. When he brought his head back up, his cheeks appeared to be as red as yours. Your eyebrows furrowed and you nervously brought your hand up to pull on the small diamond heart that hung from your necklace.
“Aww Y/N! Is that the necklace I got you for Christmas last year?” Joy asked excitedly.
“Yeah, Joy,” you replied with a smile. “It’s my favorite necklace. I love it so much - it’s perfect.”
“I’m glad you like it babe. I can’t take credit though! Cal picked it out,” she told you quickly before turning toward your mother to comment on the food.
Your head snapped toward Calum again and this time you were sure that his cheeks were bright red. You stared at him until he brought his eyes up and he looked back into yours. Calum pushed off of the wall and walked toward you slowly as your breathing increased and you felt your heart thrashing wildly in your chest. As soon as he reached you, he tentatively wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into a warm hug. He lingered there momentarily before pulling back and placing a light kiss on your cheek.
As quickly as he was in front of you, he was gone again. When you finally shook your head to lift the daze, you saw him walking through the dining room to find your dad in the living room. You glanced to the side and saw your mom and Joy at the counter with their backs to you, fussing over a platter.
You took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then grabbed a platter and carried it into the dining room deciding to shake off the incident as a fluke. He was just being nice.
The rest of dinner was uneventful and after the dining room was cleared everyone headed to the living room to sit down. “What movie are we watching?” you asked your mom as you sat on the love seat hopefully. Your heart raced again when you saw Calum walk into the room with no chair in his hand.
“Iron Man 3,” your dad piped up with a smile. He had been talking about seeing that movie for ages, but had apparently never gotten around to it.
“Dad that movie is so old I’ve seen it like 3 times already!” you whined, unable to contain your disappointment. Calum giggled from the opposite side of the room, but quickly ducked his head and hid it with a cough. You made eye contact with him again and quirked an eyebrow in his direction.
“Actually, I’ve seen it too Y/N,” Calum said slowly. “Do you want to go for a walk or something instead?”
You cocked your head to the side, completely confused at this freakish turn of events. What the hell had happened between the last time you saw him and now? Whatever it was, you weren’t letting the opportunity to spend time with him alone slip away from you.
“Oh, um… yeah sure,” you replied calmly, attempting to dissuade any curious glances from any of the parents in the room.
Your parents paid the two of you no attention as you slid your coats on and made your way out the door quietly. You walked in silence for a few blocks before you made it to the park near the middle of your neighborhood. You walked over and sat on one of the old swings, your feet dangling and kicking lightly at the sandy rocks beneath them. Much to your surprise, instead of sitting on another swing Calum walked behind you and gently pushed you by your waist.
You let out a breathy giggle as you soared into the air and your laughs increased in volume as you achieved greater and greater heights with Calum’s assistance. After several minutes of swinging, you began to brush your feet against the ground and slowed yourself to a stop. Calum walked around the swing set and planted his feet on the ground in front of you, toeing the grass beyond the rocks with his scuffed Vans.
“Can I talk to you about something?” Calum said nervously, worry etched in his face. He looked up at you and you nodded back, unsure of the direction of the conversation, but excited at the endless possibilities. “Do you remember back when I was in year 6 and you were in year 5 and Brian Ramsay walked up behind you in the lunch line and pulled your pony tail? Your head snapped back and you dropped your open milk carton on the floor and Katie and Marissa laughed at you?” he asked.
You nodded back at him, but you were as confused as ever. You remembered that day clearly. Katie and Marissa had been your best friends up until that day. Right after Brian pulled your hair, they were laughing at you and when you quickly turned your head around the room. You briefly locked eyes with Calum that day. You pleaded through your expression for him to come and help you, but he just looked down at his feet. Your eyes filled with tears and you ran out of the lunch room crying. You told the nurse you were sick and got sent home for the rest of the day. When you went back to school, you sat with different girls at lunch and you were never close with Katie or Marissa again, although as you got older you had forgiven them for not sticking up for you.
“Yeah, Cal,” you told him as you brought your hand back up to fiddle with your necklace. Calum sighed and moved closer as you sat on your swing. “Why are you asking about that? That was almost seven years ago.”
“That day is really important to me, Y/N,” he continued, seemingly unable to meet your eyes.
You both sat in silence for several moments until you decided to break it. “Calum, what’s going on?”
“I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember after you dropped your milk and it splashed all over – I remember that you looked at me. You could have looked anywhere around that whole cafeteria but you looked right at me. Do you remember that?” he asked insistently.
“Yes,” you answer quietly. “You didn’t come to me, though. You just looked away.”
“That was the exact moment that I realized that I was in love with you,” Calum breathed. Your head snapped up as your eyes locked with his, shock evident in your expression. “I was always in love with you, I think. But at that moment, when you looked at me – I knew. I loved you, Y/N. I loved you that day, and every day since. I’m crazy, ridiculously, hopelessly in love with you, and I have no idea what to do. If you don’t love me back, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
You wasted no time in hopping off of the swing and making your way over to Calum. His brown eyes suddenly flooded with hope, but you didn’t stop to admire them. Instead, you closed your eyes and crashed your lips into his and wrapped your arms around his shoulders as your hands tangled in his hair. He responded immediately and his arms wrapped firmly around your waist, lifting you slightly to bring you closer to his height. After several long moments, he pulled back to look into your eyes.
“I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, Calum. Every time I would see you at school and you ignored me; every time you would come over to my house and keep your distance from me, my heart was breaking. My heart has been broken for so long, Cal. Please, please tell me that this is real. Please tell me that I’m not dreaming. I’ve been hurting for so long,” you begged him. You felt his thumbs caressing your cheeks smoothly and he placed feather light kisses onto them.
“You’re everything to me, Y/N. I convinced myself for so long that you were too good for me,” he explained between soft kisses. “I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you, I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s okay Calum you don’t have to be sorry. I just need you to hold me. You’re the only thing that can fix the broken pieces.”
He kissed you gently before he took your hand firmly in his and walked back toward your house. You opened the door as quietly as possible, but as the two of you rounded the corner hand in hand, your mother’s eyes turned toward you. She elbowed Joy who was seated on the couch next to her. Your cheeks burned at the sudden attention, but Calum’s hand held firmly to yours. Your mothers said nothing as they stared at the two of you for a moment, but soon they both reached over and each hit their respective husbands on the arm, grinning as they motioned toward the two of you. Suddenly, the men groaned in unison, fishing out their wallets and placing several bills each into their wives’ outstretched hands.
