𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐘 | callum turner

011 , the way he looks at you

MESSY
011, the way he looks at you

" AM I INTERRUPTING SOMETHING?" I hear a voice, I break from Callum and notice Olivia stood in the hallway. She's changed into pyjamas that as a woman I know isn't comfortable to sleep in and is more on for show. Men are oblivious and will think we sleep in stuff like lingerie with a light brush of makeup on our face and not the pair of cotton shorts and an oversized shirt with scotches of white pimple cream scattered on our face.

It makes my stomach drop, and I recoil without looking at Callum. I don't know why but I think I'd feel worse If I did. Is that what I walking in on? Is that why he opened the door half naked? Was he waiting for her? Did he think I was her?

But my lips part and nothing leaves my lips, I'm stood in the hallway like a mute mess and I can't focus on either the beautiful woman who stands in front of me or the half dressed man who is stood beside me who I can tell is looking at me, waiting for me to do something, to do anything. This is all too much for my mind to comprehend.

" Olls had something of mine that I left with her yesterday." he lies, almost as if to reassure her.

Why does he need to reassure her? What has happened between them that a hug between me and him — two people who have a friendship that has spanned nearly a decade — has to be justified with nothing less than a lie?

I feel sick as I purse my lips and nod. Just offering an artificial smile as I flicker my gaze to Callum but can't stomach to actually look at him, instead I focus on the painting that is close to his face. But he's staring at me, that thought alone is making my eyes water as I just nod.

I inhale " night Callum."

" night Olympia."

not Olly? No Olls? Oh I'm definitely fucked.

I give Olivia a look that she gives a half assed smile to before I begin moving back down the hallway. Picking up my pace once I turn a corner and I'm no longer in their eye line. In a normal state I would hide around the corner and spy but nothing about this entire situation is normal.

I hate this feeling, mostly because I don't know what it is and why it's brewing in me with more intensity the more that I think about that interaction. About Callum, about Olivia, about Callum and Olivia... together?

Walking until I reach my room, the small paper bag sits by the door like I left it. I look down at it, exhaling with a tense stature as I kick the bag over with my bare foot.

Continuing down the hallway, and then down the steps and through the dining room and the kitchen. Only feeling the ability to breathe normally again when I push the patio doors open, my head bows and the concrete patio catches a couple years that leave my eyes before they have chance of falling down my cheeks.

I sit down on the step of the outside patio, although it's not as warm as it is in the day. It's not like London where you have to bundle yourself up before an outing.

Sat on a step looking at a beautiful view that my mind won't let me appreciate. Instead my hand reaches into the pocket of my linen trousers that pool at my feet as I peel my phone out from my pocket, the lock-screen of me and Drew, taken at some restaurant by either one of my friends or his. Back in New York, god how everything was much simpler back then!

My lockscreen is normally just the view from our apartment in New York. But I change it when I miss him, which is odd as he currently lies in my bed a floor above me and he's not the reason I've had to take a fresh of air and in the last couple minutes he's barely been at the forefront of my mind.