Twenty

                                    

                                          
"No offense, but you look like hell." Charlie comments as Calum walks into the studio space. He's an hour late, but it's what he could muster. 
                          
"I feel worse." He shrugs, dropping heavily into the middle of the couch between Ashton and Michael. 
                          
"What time did you get home last night?" Luke asks, concern written across his face. 
                          
"After two. I don't think Roy dragged me to bed until three though." He lets out a yawn. 
                          
"You mean after the day you had you didn't just collapse into bed?" Michael almost chuckles. 
                          
"I sat on the kitchen floor, couldn't get back up." Calum shrugs. 
                          
"How are things?" Ashton asks hesitantly. 
                          
"Completely up in the air. I haven't got word since I left so at least they haven't got worse." He sighs, pulling his phone out to double check that is still true. 
                          
"What's going on?" Ryan asks quickally, looking between the four band members. 
                          
"My girlfriend got seriously injured in a work accident yesterday. I spent most of the day at the hospital waiting for news on her condition." Calum sighs. 
                          
"You have a girlfriend? Since when?" Alli grins at him. 
                          
"Six days ago." He chuckles humorlessly. 
                          
"Officially six day, but they've been something for a few months now." Ashton smiles sympathetically at Calum. 
                          
"Still sounds pathetic doesn't it. My girlfriend of six days is in the hospital and I'm a complete mess as if I'd known her more than four months." 
                          
"It's okay man, all of us that have seen the two of you together know how much she means to you." Michael tosses his arm around Calum's shoulders bringing him into a side hug. 
                          
"So they don't know yet if she's going to be okay?" Luke asks quietly. 
                          
"There's about a fifty-fifty chance she wakes up. And about a fifty-fifty chance if she does wake up that she wakes up without any brain damage or physical issues due to the accident." Calum sighs. 
                          
"Physical issues?" Ashton frowns, questioning for further explanation. 
                          
"Paralysis, speech issues, lost motor skills. Those sort of things." Calum shrugs, trying to remember what the nurse had said last night while trying to fill them all in somewhat after Z had been taken to do more tests. 
                          
"Shit." Andrew turns from the sound board to address the group finally. 
                          
"Yeah." Calum chuckles darkly, "just my luck." 
                          
"I'm sorry Cal, that sounds ridiculously hard." Ryan offers kindly. 
                          
"Thanks, but enough about Z. I don't have the energy to get emotional about it all again right now. I was already an hour late, let's finish the song." He sighs, pulling away from Michael's embrace and straightening himself out. 
                          
*** 
                          
"Any word?" Calum glances up from his phone to see Michael approaching him cautiously. 
                          
Taking a long drag of the cigarette between his fingers he shakes his head, watching the smoke stream from between his barely parted lips. "I'm trying to remind myself in this case, no news is good news. The doctor told us last night that she probably wouldn't change much for a day or two. They had to sedate her on top of the coma her body naturally is in, to get control of the seizures. They don't expect her to do anything really, unless it gets a lot worse suddenly." 
                          
"She's in an actual coma?" Michael frowns. 
                          
"Two technically. The medical one and the natural one." Calum scoffs angrily, "It's terrible. Seeing her like that, it hurts so much. She is most vibrant and full of life than anyone I've ever met, and she looks dead Mike. She looks like a shell of who she actually is. I don't know how to cope with it all." 
                          
"How do you cope with anything Cal? Big or small?" 
                          
"Smoke?" Calum cocks an eyebrow at his friend, demonstrating his unhealthy addiction by taking another lungful off the nicotine. 
                          
"No your healthy outlet. All of our outlet, music." 
                          
"You want me to write a song about my girlfriend of six days being in a coma? Talk about a desperate emo pop-punk tune. Maybe in 2014 we could have pulled that off." Calum scoffs. 
                          
"It doesn't have to be about this exact situation. It could just be about her, about how you're feeling in general towards Z and your relationship with her. And it doesn't have to be something the world hears. Write the emo song about this and tuck it away in a journal for just you. Do you know how many terrible emo songs I have tucked away from when Georgia died? I know it's not the same thing, I mean dog, girlfriend, but it helps with the overload of emotion, and it gets some of those thoughts out of the jumble. It organizes things and expresses them. And I know you know that. And if one of the songs comes out amazing, well there's one more song for the album." 
                          
"I have never written a song for a girlfriend while still dating them. Only about past romantic partners." Calum sighs, filling his lungs yet again with smoke as he thinks over the idea. 
                          
"To be fair, you've only had one other worth writing a song for, but things were different then." Michael claps him on the shoulder softly. 
                          
"I'll think about it." Calum nods. 
                          
"Good. Now, how about we head back in and finish up the instrumental tracking so you can go see her before it's too late." 
                          
"Thanks Mike." Calum nods, dropping the butt of his cigarette and stomping it out. 
                          
"I love you man, and I'm sorry you're going through all this." 
                          
"Me too. But I can't be mad, she warned me about twenty times that this was a possibility, I was just naive enough to believe it was something we'd have to worry about months or years from now." 
                          
"You're allowed to be sad though. And I like seeing this committed side of you. Talking about months and years with her. Even a year ago you would have called it all a hoax, a farce, and yet this girl has changed your views. It's nice. Now she just needs to recover so she can continue to soften that stone heart of yours." 
                          
Calum doesn't respond, knowing Michael is right, he's said it multiple times that he doesn't believe in love or relationships. But Zeppelynn is different, and she is definitely changing him in that sense. But Michael is also right in knowing she needs to wake up so she can continue to help him change. If he loses her so quickly he might really lock his heart up in an iron box and throw away the key. 
                          
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Malum!!! 
                          
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