Calum...

Adrenaline is something I'm used to. I play shows for thousands of people a night of course I'm used to adrenaline, but right now I feel like my hearts going to explode it's pumping so hard. And the only thing making me excited is the look on her face and the happy squeal that escapes her lips.

"I cannot believe you brought me to an All Time Low concert out of all people, me, this is amazing. No you know what? You're amazing, you're just amazingly amazing." She says. Not realizing she was reaching up to kiss my cheek I turn my head to face her and our lips collide. I pull away quickly, not sure if she was ok with kissing me yet. I mean yes we kissed once, but it wasn't really ok with her she pushed away pretty fast because she wasn't comfortable with that type of contact yet. It was understandable I mean we had only met really and she hasn't been the most comfortable with any type of affection from anyone. "Calum y-you can k-kiss me. If you want I mean you don't ha-" she rambles but I cut her off by placing my lips onto hers. Our lips move in sync as she wraps her hands around my neck and I place my hands on her waist pulling her closer to me.

"Mhm." I hum into the kiss and she finally pulls away but continues to play with the hair on the nape of my neck. My hands stay on her hips and we both stare into each other's eyes. "You ok love?" I ask.

"I'm better than ok." she smiles. "You know you're a pretty great guy Hood."

"And you're a pretty outstanding girl Greene." I state.

After our cliche little kiss we walked hand and hand into the actual arena and I lead her straight to the front row. The look on her face when she sees how close we are is priceless. I literally want to snap a picture of her smile and frame it so if I was ever sad the contagiousness of her grin would wear off on me. (did that make sense? Idek I hope so) "This is incredible Calum. You didn't have to do this." She says turning around to face me.

"I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to, this is something I wanted you to experience and I wanted you to experience it with me."

"You're adorable." she smiles kissing my cheek this time.

"I know."

"Don't get cocky Hood." She warns playfully.

"Whatever you say princess." I agree. I snake arm around her waist and pull her into my side her petite frame fitting comfortably next to mine.

"You know I'm gonna use that against you right?" She asks looking up at me with a smirk.

I laugh at her statement just the fact she turned that around quickly bringing me entertainment. "I figured." She shrugs and turns back to look at the stage that, so far, has no one on it.

---
After the opening act All Time Low finally came on stage. In that moment, while she was smiling and dancing to the music in her head while the band unnecessarily introduced themselves, I didn't hear anything but her laughs and squeals, I didn't see anything but her smile and the way she moved, and I felt nothing but pure joy and admiration for the girl stood in front of me. In that moment she was my whole world. She was the one that made my breath hitch when she was near, she was the one I would do anything for, she was everything and in that moment I knew it was more than just a crush. I'm going to call it love because I don't think that's what it is yet, I think this is just the beginning.

All Time Low played tremendously and Halley and I sung along to every song. She knew every word to even the least known of their songs, I think she's a bigger fan than I am and that's saying something because I've worked with them. "We don't usually close the show out with this song, but a special friend asked us to and we kind of owed him a favor." This is it. "We were also supposed to dedicate this to his special friend so Halley Greene this ones for you." Alex says into the mic and then the beginning of "Cinderblock Garden" began to play.

Halley spins in her heels and faces me with tears of happiness in her eyes. "You remembered." she muttered and attacked me in a hug.

"Of course I remembered love." I said hugging her back and placing a kiss onto her forehead. She told me one time that "Cinderblock Garden" was one of her favorite songs and that she felt it described her and I.

"I'll be the boy with the silver lining," She said that
I was like her ray of sunshine. I always look at the good in life instead of the bad, apparently I was her silver lining in a sky of nothing but black.

"You'll be the girl with the Cinder Block Garden." Halley on the other hand was reserved. She wanted to stay behind her wall where she wouldn't get hurt, she was my protection. She was where I found comfort and where I decided to hide. She was the girl with the Cinderblock Garden that I somehow managed to worm my way into.

"Tonight,
Take all the ghosts and all those skeletons,
You hide,
Bury them deep beneath the ground,
Let them rest,
'Cause you weren't meant to bear that burden,
Look at the roses in your garden,
You can breathe now and forget,

Forget it gets hard for you to stay,
But we don't really have to throw it all away,

I'm thinkin',

That we could make forever after all,
Finding the gold in our darkest moments,
Watching the roads turn into white roses,
And we don't ever have to leave these walls,
I'll be the boy with the silver lining,
You'll be the girl with the Cinder Block Garden." I sing along into her ear as we sway back and forth to the music. I feel like these were the lyrics that should mean the most to her. She had her ghosts and her scars and I hope someday she can just bury them and wade her way through without them pulling her down. I hope that I can carry the weight of the world so she doesn't have to.

"You're amazing you know that." Halley says after the song and the applause die down. I wiped the remaining tears of I'm guessing happiness from her cheeks and smiled.

"You mean a lot to me Halley I hope you know that."

"I do." she nodded, but for some reason that wasn't the response that I wanted. I wanted her to say I meant a lot to her too, but she didn't she just hugged me again and for some reason that hurt. It stung.

---

"Cal hey how've you been buddy?" Alex greeted as soon as we walked back stage.

"I've been great man. How bout you? How's Lisa?" I asked accepting Alex's friendly dude hug.

"All great." he smiled.

Halley stood at the door looking incredibly dumbfounded and in her own world until I motioned her over. "Alex this is Halley. Halley this is Alex." I introduced.

"I-it's nice to meet you I-I'm a big fan." she stuttered shaking Alex's outstretched hand.

"Is this your girl Cal?" Jack asked walking up and drying his hair out with a towel since he poured his water bottle on his head.

"Um-uh- I-um y-yeah she is." I stammered not even looking at Halley, but by the way her hand squeezed mine tighter I could tell she was either embarrassed or pissed. I was hoping for the former, but I was leaning towards the latter because at the beginning of this she told me I could take her out and all that but I was not to put a label on our relationship. She wasn't ready for that. She did not want that. I had a feeling she wanted to interject but decide that would make us both look stupid so she kept her mouth shut.

"Rian, Zack come meet Calum's girlfriend!" Jack called. At this point I had to remove my hand from Halley's grip because I was kind of scared she might break it, she was holding on really tight.

"Hi I'm Jack, this is Rian, and the idiot over there that is apparently stuck in a bucket is Zack." Jack introduces.

"Hi I'm Halley Cal's girl." She said venom obvious in her tone when she said "Cal's girl". Yep she's pissed.

We all chatted for a while and they took pictures and things. The whole band seem to take a serious liking to Halley besides maybe Alex I wasn't sure about him. "It was really nice to meet you guys thank you so much." Halley smiled.

"It was our pleasure. You better treat her right Cal she's a keeper." Jack said patting my shoulder and giving Halley a hug.

Everyone gives us hugs and we walk out of the arena hand and hand until we reach the parking lot and Halley rips her hand from mine. "What the hell was that?!" She snaps.

"What?" I ask innocently.

"Why the fuck did you tell them I was your girlfriend?!"

"What was I supposed to say? Oh I kissed and had you dedicate a song to a girl I really fucking like but she's not my girlfriend because she's to scared of even liking me back?!" I yell.

"I have a good fucking reason to be scared Calum! You're the only person I've told since the wreck about my problems and here you are still continuing on with this girlfriend shit! I'm not your girlfriend Calum and I'm not going to be!"

"Why?! Halley why the hell not?! I care about you why can't you see that?!" I reason.

"I fucking see you care about me Calum but dammit that won't stop you from leaving and I can't handle that! I'm like a rubber band there's only so much I can stretch until I snap! I already snapped once Calum and I won't survive another break." She says her lips starting to quiver and tears starting to form in her eyes.

"I won't leave you Halley." I state taking a step towards her and putting my hand on her cheek.

"They all say that Calum, but they never mean it."

"I mean it Halley I promise."

"What about when you go on tour huh? You're leaving me then." she argues. "Or what if you die Calum I can't handle that?" She shakes her head. "I can't do this. I thought I could but I can't."

"Halley where are you going?!" I call. She started walking down the sidewalk wiping at her eyes.

"I'm going home!" She calls back.

"I'll drive you c'mon."

"I'll catch a cab!" She says then walks further leaving no room for argument.

I climb into my truck and bang my fist on the steering wheel. "Dammit Calum you're such a fuck up." I mumbled to myself. "You lost her before you even had her. How the fuck do you even do that?! Ugh." I grumble lying my head on the steering wheel and sighing.

I'm so mad at myself why did I have to do that? I knew what I did was wrong, but I guess I just wanted it to be true. I wanted her to be mine. I was hoping that it would be like in the books, the happy ending for the under dog you know, someone asks if the girl is with the main character and they reply yes and the girl is totally ok with it, yeah I was hoping for that. But I guess I should have expected it to go badly because my life isn't a movie, not everyone gets a happy ending, things don't ever go the way you want them to. I should have known and deep down I did which only makes it worse because now, looking back, I see that this petty argument could've been avoided by the truth. And now I see that's all Halley wants, the truth.

She doesn't want someone to tell her everything will be okay when it won't be, she doesn't want someone to tell her it'll get better if it won't, and most importantly she doesn't want someone to promise they'll always be there when they can't. She wants honesty, that's what she's searching for, and I can't believe I didn't see it sooner.

---
I hope you liked this. Im sorry it's late but I was traveling all week and yeah just yeah. This is probably one of my favorite chapters even though it's bad I liked how it ends. I think this is the first chapter completely in Calum's pov I hope you enjoyed that.

Who are you guys shipping I really want to know? And ship names are not my strong suit so I'm going to ask you to help me on that please?

Oh oh and this book reached 800 reads the other day and I'm just ASDFGHJKL THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH I LOVE YOU

dedicated to Calum Hood for obvious reasons and just where can I get a Calum?