Revenge (noun): the desire to inflict retribution.

Now

Calum

"I can't believe you broke a champagne glass." Luke shakes his head, wrapping my hand with some kind of scratchy gauze the hotel staff gave him. The gala hadn't even started an hour ago so we couldn't leave yet.

"Fuck." I try not to wince at the sharp stinging pain in my palm. 

Luke is quiet as he throws the wrappers in the bin and washes his hands. "You saw her too didn't you?" I ask slowly, wanting to make sure that I hadn't been hallucinating.

She was here, in this very building. The woman who still had a firm hold of all of my sanity, my heart, and every other coherent thought. 

Luke sighs through his nose, pushing his hair back from his forehead and looking at me with exhaustion in his blue eyes. "I did."

"She was really there..?" I inquire again. Just to make sure.

"Doesn't matter if she is. She left you, remember?" He stares back at me, drying his hands with a square of paper towel.

I wasn't much of a fighter, but I really did want to hit him at this moment. "She didn't leave me you fucker, I made her do it." I spit, jumping off the counter.

Luke rolls his eyes, immune to my anger by now. "Whatever, let's go." He reaches for the door and steps out.

She looked so beautiful. She would always catch me off guard and I would go hours, shocked at her her love being the one the world had let me have. But life had a way of getting revenge from the weak. From me.

As we walk out, I lift my gaze from where it's on the ground because heels are clicking down the marble floors towards us. There's a pause, almost like the world stops spinning for me the moment I look up to see her fidgeting with her dress as she makes her way. 

Montana.

She sees us and falters in her tracks, her eyes widening like a caged animal. Her gaze flits between Luke and me then hesitantly settles on me like she couldn't help it. 

"Hey." Luke greets her, collected as ever. I'm frozen mid-step and I feel soberer than I have in months. My eyes search her face, trying to read her emotions. She looks tired, but she manages to make tired look beautiful too. 

"Hey." She says politely and I want to sob at the sound of her voice resonating into my ears. I wanted to drop onto my knees because my knee caps have dissolved. I wanted to plead with her. Keep talking, love. I don't say that. She doesn't.

Luke says something else that I don't register because the smell of her perfume begins to take over my senses and all my willpower goes into standing upright while she stands just two feet away from me. Her dress is barely there, it wraps around her chest and around her left shoulder and flows down her waist. My hands itch to reach for her, but I don't.

She hugs Luke and I hide my flinch by looking up at the tapestries on the walls. Sometimes I forget that he is engaged to her best friend, I forget that she is a big part of their lives, except mine.

She isn't mine, not anymore.

My eyes start to burn at the corners, tears threatening to spill. "Calum..." she says my name quietly under her breath and before I can stop it, my feet propel me forward and I move past them, Luke looking at me incredulously and her beautiful face that I've embedded into my mind, whizzing by me when I rush towards the staircase with the exit sign on top. I throw open the door, running down the stairs as fast as I can.

~~

Montana

He doesn't say a word. There are no emotions crossing his face as he rushes away, opens the exit door and disappears.

"Uh, I'll see you later." Luke waves at me and starts after him.

Calum hates me. That's the only feasible explanation I have. He hates me.

You could have made me stay! I want to scream after him, but he's gone.

All my energy goes into holding back the tears and I collapse against a wall, sliding down to the floor and folding into myself, hoping I become invisible.

I sit on the cold floor with my head in my hands, forcing myself to hold the tears until my chest twists with pure agony. Do you ever wonder how your heart actually breaks? It's like an unbearable weight pressing down on your chest as the soldiers who guarded your heart runs away, stamping furiously at the delicate organ.

That definition sounds good to us, doesn't it? because thinking an organ that already keeps us alive obviously deserves to carry the hurt of loving someone too.

Ugh. I wish I could turn off my mind.

The boy with the deep brown eyes and the cheeky smile and the callused fingers from doing what he loves most in the world did that for me, he made me stop thinking. It's like he pulled it all out of me, giving me all the serenity in the world in return.

"Calum." I sob into my hands, wondering how I ended up here as my eyes finally betray me and they leak like broken pipes. Here comes the self-pity again.

When I hear footsteps coming up the corridor, I stand on shaky legs, wiping at my face and surely smudging all my makeup. I make it into the bathroom and lock the door behind me.

Inside, I sit on top of the counter not even bothering to look in the mirror to see what a mess I've become. I click on the screen of my phone, going straight to the number of the only person other than the one who caused it, who could console this pain ripping through me.

The phone rings multiple times and I chastise myself for not checking the time in New York before calling. "Monti?" At the sound of Sierra's voice my resolve breaks. I start to cry into the phone and she listens quietly.

"Monti..." she whispers when I've managed to calm down a little and I sniffle, trying to clear the lump in my throat.

I manage to utter an, "I miss you."

"I miss you too baby, come home." she says without a doubt or hesitation.

"I wish." I croak out. 

"Do you want me to come to you? I'll get on a flight right now." She offers.

She's running a multi million fashion label, I know she rarely gets time to breathe so I shake my head no but then she can't see me. "No. I just, I'm at this gala and he's  here too." I sigh, picking at the fabric of my dress.

She must know about it because of Luke because she doesn't seem surprised, "You're at that fundraiser too?"

"Yeah." 

Sierra sighs, "You're hiding in the bathroom, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"You've been gone for months Monti, I think you should get back here. Spend some time with me."

"Yeah."

"I love you." Sierra murmurs, the helplessness evident in her voice.

"I love you most," I reply, rubbing a hand across my forehead.

Sierra's quiet for a beat but then she clears her throat. "Look, you can do this. Wipe those tears, fluff your hair like the motherfucking queen you are, straighten your spine and get through the rest of the night. You can do this." She gives me my much-needed pep talk and I can't help the little smile that spreads across my face.

"Yes, ma'am." I do as she says, finally turning around to look at myself in the mirror and huffing with relief because my makeup hasn't smudged too much.

"You're a soldier," Sierra says like she believes in me more than anything else in the world. And I know she did.

"I'm a soldier," I repeat.

~

I make my way down to the gala again and I'm stopped in my tracks when Lucky Blue, the modelling industries current prince, spots me. "Montana!" he calls cheerily, his white blonde hair styled into a perfect quiff. 

"Baby blue!" I grin, hugging him tight to me. He was one of the rare gems I adored. 

"You look stunning." He kisses my cheek, holding me close to his chest. A camera zooms in on us while we talk, rapidly taking pictures of us. Lucky Blue and I had a couple of collaborative magazine shoots recently and the media was a buzz about it.

In my peripheral, I see Calum walk into the hall, his eyes glued to my face. A beat of anger goes through me and I feel the sudden need to piss him off.

Revenge for all the times he didn't make me stay. Revenge for all the times he didn't choose me.

I lean in close to Lucky Blue, laughing at something he says. His eyes were the bluest there was, he was a beautiful guy and I've always known he had a little teeny crush on me.

God have mercy on my boycotting soul.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders playfully and he kisses me on the cheek again, inches away from my lips. I know Calum sees it and it gets me awfully excited. I've done this before, and I know it drives him insane. I know it kills every part of him and it makes me happy to hurt him the way he has hurt me for this single, dreadful moment in time.

~

Calum

"Quit following me," I growl at Luke as his footsteps follow me down the stairs.

"You never gave up on me. I'm not giving up on you," he states simply.

I finally sit on the bottom step, pushing the heels of my hands into my eyes to stop the tears from flowing. "Gah." Luke sits next to me with a sigh and my heart refuses to slow down.

"She's so beautiful." I laugh airily.

Luke huffs at this random confession and I know he's rolling his eyes at me. "Stop acting like a teenage boy."

"I can't do it, man. She's got me fucked up." I admit to my best friend.

Luke doesn't say anything for awhile, probably thinking about how he should answer it. "Their job, as women, is to fuck us all up. I mean, they really are good at it." he laughs and I bump my knee with his.

My heart was being shredded like cheese but I was obviously too messed up to feel it all. I'll feel it later at three in the morning when there's no one around to fill my head with their voice.

"I need her to come back to me, I won't make it," I confess.

"If we're going to look at this logically, you can make it without anyone, you don't need anyone. But if we look at it in the fucked up way, the human way, then yeah, you should go get her back because I'm getting tired of babysitting your sorry ass." Luke chortles.

"You're terrible." I shake my head, fisting my hands on the tops of my knees and standing up abruptly.

I need her. But I can't get her back either because then I'll be the selfish bastard who never does anything good for her. I'll be the selfish bastard who takes everything she has.

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and rub the back of my neck. Maybe I'll find her, and I'll talk to her, maybe she can love me again, maybe I should be the selfish bastard who needs her desperately to survive.

Luke follows me out of the exit doors and into the bright hotel lobby. There were so many cameras flashing. I find her instantly, leaning against a guy who looks like he was cropped right out of an anime.

She leans closer into him and my heart leaps in my chest. His arms tighten around her waist and he kisses her. 

This anger, this jealousy, this hatred mixing together is like a fiend being let loose and it's an awful out of body experience. You don't realize you can ever be this angry and this sad until you are...it's overwhelming and scary. The world goes silent and nothing matters but the pounding in your head.

She smiles up at him, biting her bottom lip and something in me snaps.

You let her go. And she will never love you again.

I turn on my heel and walk out the doors, my veins straining and my body trembling so hard and so fast that I know my bones will be dust soon enough.

________

A/N:
As the story goes on, the years and timing I mention at the start of the chapters gets confusing so I have edited the chapters to simpler terms, "Now" and "Then". I'll be using these terms from here on too! :)

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