Numb (adjective): deprived of the power of sensation.

Now

Calum

You don't feel your limbs, you don't feel your thoughts, you don't hear the sounds, you don't feel, you are just there, numb. Someone should tell all the junkies out there that a girl breaking your heart is the best way to feel such excruciating pain that you become numb to almost everything.

"Calum." my mothers voice interrupts my thoughts. "Yeah." I clear my throat, blinking myself back to life.

"What's wrong honey?" She places her shaky, bony hands on top of mine, ones that used to be the same color of mine a distant life ago. A warm brown that would shine under the sun. Dark veins threaten to pierce her paper thin skin now, the hands of a recovering drug addict.

I put the fork down, rubbing a hand across my forehead, "Hmm, just tired." I smile at her, examining her face so that my brain has something to do and doesn't drift off to nothingness again.

Her eyes are sunken shadows and they look even worse under the dim lights hanging over the dining room table.

I look around the dark house with a sigh then back at my mother. It's awfully quiet except for her shaky breaths and a bird outside that just won't shut up.

My fathers been gone twelve years, and my sister too. She left after high school and we only get to see her once a year if we're lucky, or not at all. "How are you doing mum?" I take her freezing hand in mine, squeezing them in between mine, hoping to feel something, anything but the numbness threatening to overtake me.

"I'm okay honey. You know me, I'm always okay." She smiles wearily, looking away from my face and down at her plate. She was always ashamed, but I am not ashamed of her. She has relapsed every year since I was thirteen, but she has kept trying, she is a fighter. Stronger than anyone will ever be, than I'll ever be.

I bought her this house but she's at rehab most of the time, the house was an attempt at feeling like we both had something left. We had each other though, so I liked to think.

"That's good." I simply nod because I know she is never okay. She is suffering and there is nothing I can do to ease her pain. There's nothing worse for a child than watching their mother in pain and not knowing how to take it away, these are the times you truly question the existence of a higher being.

"When are you going back?" She asks slowly, breathing heavily after each word.

"Tomorrow. I'll be gone for awhile this time mum." I take a sip of water but it doesn't soothe the sudden spike of pain inside me. "That's okay." she lays her head on her hand.

"I told you, you can come with me anytime you want okay?" I offer again, silently hoping that this once she would say yes. It made me sick to leave her behind like this, but it was yet another thing I couldn't control.

She shakes her head no. "I don't think I can handle the travel. You go, and come see me when you can." She smiles again and I have to furiously bob my leg up and down under the table so I don't cry like I used to when I was eight and she would be passed out for hours high on only god knew what and her heartbeat would be so slow that I couldn't feel it and I didn't know if she was dead or alive.

Mum shifts in her chair. "What happened to your girlfriend? I liked her, she was nice." she eyes me, watching for my reaction carefully.

"She...has moved on, mum." I stuff a carrot in my mouth so I don't throw up.

She stares at me for a quiet minute. "I may be the worst mother in the world, Calum, and my nerves are dying one at a time and some days I can barely remember my own name or the name of my first born child, but I know that girl wouldn't just move on from you,"

"Mum, don't say that-" I start, fisting my hands on top of the table, bile rising up my throat.

"-she loved you. And you loved her." she continues nonchalantly. The drugs also made her immune to others feelings.

"Please. Stop."

~

Montana

I have five hours before my flight to Barbados, five hours to see my family, five hours to get over this overwhelming sadness I feel and five hours to get myself back together.

Instead of rushing inside to see my family after months of being away, I sit on the concrete floor towards the side of our house, my mini suitcase at my side.

These concrete blocks on the ground are so weathered and vines grow out of them and grow back in, I've sat on this exact spot on my first day of fifth grade and I've sat on this spot on the first day of my last year of high school, on graduation day and prom night when I was way too dizzy after all the dancing to sit up right. There are lines that I've scratched into the ground here, each line for an overwhelmingly happy moment. There are four lines in total for my entire twenty years which is incredibly sad to think about but it doesn't get sadder than that does it.

I run my finger over them, wishing I could add in a fifth. But I couldn't, because now I'm sat on this spot with the weight of all my sorrow keeping me rooted to the ground like the vines growing out of the earth.

I wipe at my eyes when a car passes by down the street, if my mum sees that I've been sitting out here crying, she would have a proper fit about how all the neighbors could see and that I was no longer the well behaved child she raised.

I look back at the house, the lights all turned on and my family inside, waiting for me to come home. But I couldn't face them, I never want them to see me like this.

I was a source of pride for my family, not a source of tears that could flood the whole neighborhood.

I stand up, wiping at my jeans and walk back down the perfectly mowed lawn and onto the street. I've run down these streets with my siblings, walked up them with a boy and towards my front door with my stomach in my throat at what my father would say. They were distant memories, but they weren't tainted, thankfully.

While I drag my suitcase over the gravel behind me, I pray by the time I reach my destination, my bones aren't lead anymore and my mind isn't chained.

Barbados. The Caribbean was everyone's dream, one of the worlds most loved holiday destinations. But I couldn't look forward to it any less, prancing around amongst the waves for the camera was lots of fun until I have to stand away from the waves and freeze in the wind, in a bikini and most likely freeze off a part of my brain forever. I silently hope it's the part with the memories of him.

I consider ditching the suitcase as I huff and puff, sweat running down my back, the hair that has escaped my ponytail is matted to my neck now. When you do vigorous training and pilates six out of seven days a week, you hope you become the type of person who can walk five kilometers and scale a tiny hill without wanting to die but apparently not. "For fucks sake." I lean against a railing at my destination, hoping I don't tip over and fall into the sea below. Would Poseidon welcome me with open arms? Or would he banish me to the depths? Most likely the latter.

The pain in my thighs numbs the pain in my chest and I smile to myself, satisfied at the laborious torture I have inflicted on myself. I drum my fingers against the rusted metal of the railing, the blood buzzing in my veins. I haven't been here in years, a spot just like the cement block back at home but the opposite in its meaning to me.

This was my mourning place. I came here when a boy in fifth grade broke my favorite barrette. I came here back when I dated high school jocks who I thought I was in love with. I came here when my grandma left us, I came here when I didn't know how to tell my parents I was moving to New York to follow my dreams. And now I am here again, hoping I wasn't here again.

There's the scuffing of feet behind me and I whip around with widened eyes, praying it's not paparazzi.

"Montana?" the voice calls, shocked.

"Dylan?" I walk towards the tall figure as he jumps off over the fallen tree with a grin spreading across his face.

"I knew I recognized that hair." His arms reach for me as he pulls me into a hug. "You cheating bastard." I laugh into his shoulder.

"Ay! I did not cheat on you." He pulls away, squinting down at me. "You haven't changed a bit." I examine his wild hair and lean form in leather pants and a shirt, my hands on my hips.

My very last high-school boyfriend. He cheated on me with a poetic train-wreck, even though he denies it. "You have changed a lot." He looks me up and down too and I tug at a curl of his long brown hair with a grin. He has always belonged to an entirely different life form, a bizarre mind to go along with it too.

"Don't you live in New York now?" He asks and I'm about to reply when theres the sound of a baby giggling. "What was that..." My head snaps up, eyes widening again. Babies giggling when there's no baby in sight was something out of the worst horror movie you could ever imagine.

Dylan laughs at my expression. "Come here, I want you to meet someone." He turns on his heel and climbs over the log again, ducking into the trees.

I follow, wondering what the hell was happening. I barely avoid getting whacked in the face with a branch when I see a colorful shimmery material draped through the trees to form a tent and underneath it is a large carpet lain on the forest floor. There's a hundred pillows around it like a protective barrier and in the middle of it sits a baby girl, much like a fairy in her dress and tiny flower crown.

"Monti, come meet Leia Clark." the baby drops the bear in her hands and reaches her arms up. Dylan picks her up, adjusting her flowery dress around her.

My eyes couldn't possibly get any wider, the baby was just like him. Wait, did he say Clark? "She's your baby?" I sputter like an imbecile.

"Yeah." He grins and the baby who is watching her father closely, grins too, happy to see her dad happy. She claps her little chubby hands against his cheeks and squeals, her brown curls mixing with her fathers identical ones.

"She's beautiful." my hands are at my heart and I quickly drop them down to my sides, stepping closer to them.

Dylan bounces her on his hip. "We were trying to communicate with the fair folk, no luck today, huh darling?" He asks the baby and she pouts, reaching her arms for me now.

A baby reaching out their arms for you is the most joyful feeling in the world. It is acceptance in the purest form and I am now her eternal servant, I will carry her as she pleases.

I lift her from Dylan's arms, "Hi Leia." I coo and she looks at me with wide hazel eyes, wondering if I'm worth wasting her time on. She has a leaf in her hand and she extends it to me, deciding that I am to my great joy.

"A letter from the Fairy Queen." Dylan whispers. "Oh, yes," I gasp, "-Thank you Leia." I take the leaf from her little hand and she grins a toothless grin.

"She is wonderful, Dylan." I gush as I kiss the babies cheek and she proceeds to play with my hair.

Dylan shrugs his tanned shoulders, "I didn't know you got married." I say, touching Leia's soft hair. I barely knew anything about my old friends now or how they were doing.

"I didn't." He laughs his joyful laugh, it's like the trees lean in to listen too.

"Oh? You little fucker." I swat him on the chest. "Watch your mouth!" He points.

"Shit, sorry, oh god. Sorry." I apologize to the baby, shaking my head but she ignores me, highly entertained with her own hands now as she claps them together and frowns down at them. Dylan has probably already taught her to question our existence before the alphabet.

"The mother is the poetic train-wreck. As you once put it, rudely too might I add, the first time I introduced you to her." He says sarcastically.

"You got her pregnant?"

"Well the baby didn't come out of a flower even though she looks like she did but you know..."

"I can't believe you." I laugh and the baby laughs with me too like she understands. Only if the whole world could be as joyous as her.

"How's the modeling life going?" Dylan asks, sitting on the middle of the pillows and pushing away a large bound book.

I sit in front of him and bounce Leia on my lap. "It's exhausting." I snort.

"No doubt. You've been brave out there though. Australia is proud." He pats my knee as Leia crawls away from my lap and over to the book.

"Thank you. What are you up to these days?" I'm tempted to reach for Leia again but I'm worried a fairy might actually come out of the trees and assault me if I annoy her.

"Bands tour just ended, life's going as predicted, plus a baby." He shrugs again as we watch her flip open the book and stare at the pages curiously.

It was fascinating, just how much the the world has moved on around me. "You know I wasn't cheating on you right, monti?" Dylan asks in a much serious tone.

"You were in love with her, I get it. We can't help who we love, right?"

"Right. Is that why you're aimlessly traipsing through the trees with a suitcase?"

"Maybe." Leia gets bored with the book and crawls back to me, the little flower crown on her head has fallen over her forehead now. I push it back towards her hair gently.

"Well, you should forgive him, whatever he has done because he's made you incredibly sad, it's radiating off your skin and nothing makes you this sad if it isn't worth it. I would know." He says gently, ever the one to reach in an pull out your soul with his bare hands.

I sigh as Leia puts her tiny hand on my cheek. "I've forgiven him Dylan, I just can't forget."

A/N:

I've included a song from the band Little Sea in the media for this chapter, listen to it and bask in the greatness x