Black (adjective): of the darkest colour owing to the absence of or complete absorption of light.

Then

Calum

Black was supposed to be a bad omen, you wore black for mourning, for when you wanted to be invisible in the night. She always wore black for some reason, not that it didn't look good on her because anything would look good on her, but I still wondered since she once told me it wasn't her favourite colour. I didn't ask her to elaborate further like I don't with many things that lie in the air between us these days, wrenching us away every time we get closer.

"People who wear black have colourful lives," I remember someone saying once. I look at the side of her face, wondering if her dreams dripped with vivid colour.

Our mindless driving had led us to the Golden Gate Bridge, the view of the bay on the other side glimmering while life went on around us. "You know, the founder of Victoria's Secret killed himself by jumping off this bridge," I tell Montana, who is eerily quiet next to me. I wish she would take me wherever her thoughts went.

She has signed her contract with the brand, but for some reason, she thought that it was not what I wanted for her, so I was the last to know. Little did she know that I wanted the whole world for her and I've never loved anyone enough, not like I love her, to know how to stop the poisonous thoughts she was having about me. "My sister told me that when I called home last week," the fondness she has for her siblings lifts the corners of her mouth a little from the frown that doesn't seem to leave her no matter what I do these days.

"Please talk to me," I reach for her hand on the ledge, her fingers are icy cold.

She looks up at the sky. "It's going to rain, let's get back." Sliding her hand from underneath mine nonchalantly, she turns around and walks back towards the car.

I follow her hesitantly, getting in and cranking up the heat inside the car and turning in my seat to face her. "I can't fix it if I don't know what I have done wrong. I've been supporting you through everything, and so have you but you need to talk to me."

"I can't talk to you! Because every time I open my mouth I want to scream and cry and I don't want to cry! I am done crying!"

I take a deep breath, mustering all the patience that I can. "Tell me, even if it makes you cry." The sky opens, just like she said it would and the rain starts to beat against the windows, thunder rolling through the clouds.

After what feels like ages, after she has stopped clenching her hands into fists and un-clenching them over her thighs and I've worn thin in the silence, she turns to me. "I only want to know one thing." She says, her voice sharp as the thunder and there is something inside me that rattles, pleading to get out.

"If you were blind in a room full of people, would you know which one I am?"

My eyes widen involuntarily, it was the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth, or maybe she was saving the worst for last. "I—I guess I would."

"Wrong. You are wrong." She opens the car door, getting out into the rain.

I clamber out the drivers side door quickly, the downpour soaking me instantly. "You wouldn't know if it was me or someone else if I wrapped my arms around your neck and whispered it in your ear!" Her yelling is louder than the rain, her back turned to me.

There was a lot in life that I was confused about, but nothing was ever confusing went it came to her, we were always bare open in each others presence. There was nothing to hide. "You know how much I hate when you talk in riddles. Just tell me what it is, put me out of my misery. Push me off this bridge if you like." A shiver runs down my spine when she turns, the water sticks her hair to the sides of her face, her dress clinging to her body like a second skin.

"We are done." She throws me off the bridge emotionally, metaphorically, in all the ways that matter and hurt the most.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm breaking up with you. We--we are done."

I take a step closer to her and she takes a step back. "Montana. You are not doing this to me right now."

"I know right? It's too late but I should have. A long time ago."

My brain must go through the process of grieving pretty quickly because the sadness and the shock turn into anger almost immediately before she can walk away from me for good. "So you finally get a deal that's going to make you famous and you dump me?"

There is a movement from her like I have shot her in the chest and she looks back at me with shock. The rain beats down heavily now, and it's too late to wish the rain would have washed away those words. "Is that what you think? That I was using you?"

"That's not what I said."

"But that's what you meant!"

"You can't just throw our relationship away without giving me an explanation, oh and it better be a good fucking explanation too." I laugh because you laugh when you don't want to cry and show the other person that they've won.

"You want to know what you did? You cheated on me."

There's another bolt of lighting in the sky, and I find myself wishing it would have gone right through me. "I would never."

"I didn't say you will, I said you did." She walks closer until we are a breath away from each other. She is close enough for me to touch but she is miles away in all the ways that matter.

"You and I both know that it's not true. I've been with you all this time and when I'm not with you I'm with the band or my mother. I never cheated on you." It's a rush of words that I hope comes out as a sensible sentence.

She doesn't reply, staring off at something behind my shoulder. It scares me, more than anything ever has because silence is never a good thing.

I want to put my hands on her shoulders and shake her until she tells me everything and puts me out of this confusion. "The worst part about all this is that you can't even remember."

I move the waterlogged strands of hair away from my forehead so I can see her clearly. "What the hell are you even talking about?"

A shiver runs through her and I shrug off my jacket, offering it to her but she refuses the only piece of comfort I'm able to give her. "Please, just tell me clearly." I plead.

She takes a deep breath that it's almost a hiccup and I can't tell if the streams down her face are tears or the rain. "You were high and you were in bed with someone else when I got there. You didn't even remember it in the morning. It's probably not even a big deal, but I can't stop thinking about it. How you were wrapped around her and you were so sure it was me."

If she had taken a knife and stabbed me multiple times I wouldn't have felt it this much. But I felt this, like a lightning strike that burns me alive. "No way."

Refusal. I would have remembered. I would never, I could never.

"I have nothing to gain out of lying to you. I want to put it past me, past us, but every time I look at you all I can think of is how you can't even remember." She wraps her arms around her body, shivering like a caged animal.

I'm rooted to the ground, vines growing up my legs and my body, tightening around my throat. What do I say? What do I say? "I would have remembered," I say, but she doesn't hear it.

"I don't want to be the girl who leaves her boyfriend behind to follow her dreams and then comes back a month later to see him fucking someone else. I won't let that happen to me, I can't." She's shaking so much that I worry she might crumble but her voice is steady and it rips at my chest.

"It's always been you. From the day I laid eyes on you, every word we've ever said to each other, all along its always been you. You are everywhere, Montana."

"I'm sorry." She looks down at her feet, the rain beating down on us mercilessly.

I'm afraid to touch her but I can no longer bear it so I do, ever so lightly I lift her chin. "You don't have to apologize for being larger than life. It's why I love you, and why I know I would never cheat on you. But you know what?"

The universe was playing a cruel joke on me because the words that come spilling out of my mouth next aren't mine any longer. "I'm going to let you go." Her head snaps up like I've stabbed her in the heart again.

"No."

"You're standing here in the rain when you fucking hate the rain, and you're trying to make up your mind and you say you'll never forget something I can't even remember, you have so much you need to do. And I'm only holding you back and I swore I would never be that guy."

"Calum." Her hand reaches out to clasp my arm, panic in her eyes.

"I'm letting you go, it's what you want. So I'm letting you go." I hope saying it enough times makes it easier, but it doesn't.

My head screams at me, my heart screams at me but I watch the emotions that cross her face. It's a storm, a disaster that could wipe the earth.

Her hand drops and she straightens her spine. "Okay." There's so much strength, more strength than I have ever seen and I love her so much for it that I watch, rooted to the spot while she turns away from me. I love her so I watch her leave, I love her so I let her leave.

Maybe she will wear colour now, maybe she will bask in it, and it will flow through her veins and light up the air around her even more if that was possible. The black, however, spreads into me, dawning on me like death. The biggest mistake that I've just made that I can't fully comprehend yet.

My arm reaches out because I want to tell her something before she leaves me, but it's a lost whisper in the rain. It's something I heard my mother say to my father when he left us. But he too never got to hear it. It's fucked up, how the world works.

"Be free, my love." She had said. "Wherever you go, get there safely and don't ever carry your burdens with you."