Being Carter Hood (5SOS)

~ Michael's P.O.V ~

The huge stadium crowd shifts from excited screams to low murmurs among eachother once they realize what's happening.
Ashton, Luke, and I ignore the crowds pleads to come back as we remain our focus on our crying band mate.
"Dont worry, I'm good to go back." Calum sniffles and begins to rise from a backstage chair. His cheeks stained with fresh and old tears.
"No Calum! Your not going back out there!" Luke yells firmly making us jump. I set my hand on Luke's shoulder letting him know yelling isn't going to help. He looks back at me and I understand his frustration. Its not healthy what Calum is doing. Its like he's wants to act like nothing happened . Its heart breaking to see.
"I need to!" Calum yells back and begins to sob harder. "Look at your self Calum. You started crying during your solo and couldn't continue on. It was just our second song." I tell him sympathetically. He looks up at me with hits of red in his eyes, his hair brushed messily, and forming bags from restlessness. A fresh group of tears stung at his eyes.

"It won't happen again. I'm going back out there." He takes a step to walk and all three of us grab him and forcefully sit him back into the chair. "Your not going." Ashton says. "Let me go!" Calum angrily huffs as he tries to fight our grip. "No Calum, you know this isn't right so why are you doing it?!" I suddenly yell, trying to get it into his head what he's doing.
"I deserve it!!" He spats loudly. The room grows quiet.. No one expecting this answer. We loosen our grip in shock but he remains in the chair crying harder then he just was. "I deserve to feel this pain." He mumbles. i don't understand...
We watch as Luke cautiously kneels to Calum's height and places his arm around him. "Calum.. Why do you think that?" Luke says softly while looking back at Ashton and I with worry.

"Because its true. I'm a terrible person, a liar." He sobs while hiding his head in his hands.
We all look to our left as a lady with blonde hair wearing a head set walks in our direction. "Are you boys ready to go back on stage. We have an angry crowd." She says shyly. "Um give us a few minutes, please." I tell her, She nods and walks away.
"No your not. Your a great person, amazing actually." Ashton says with disbelief. Calum lifts his head and looks up above him then sighs before wiping some tears away and looking back at us. "You don't understand.."
"Well, we'd like too. Maybe you can explain it to us." I say giving him a hopeful smile.
"There's something I haven't told you guys, that I've been keeping from Carter." Calum's voice is filled with pure guilt, it scares me to know what it is."Calum, you can tell us anything. We won't judge, you know that." Ashton hugs him.


"M-my.." He tries to tell us but his tears begin to fall again making me grow more concerned by the second. I hand him a tissue helping him to continue.
"Two months ago, right before the tour started my mom told me my dad and her were getting a divorce.." He finally fines his breath, but i soon loose mine. A divorce? He never said anything about that. Why would he not tell us?
Calum looks down at the floor before continuing.

"I didn't want Carter to know, I thought it was best to wait till after the tour for my parents to tell her. Then this h-happens with my m-m-mom. How am i suppose to tell her now!? She's so broken, you all know she can't handle that right now.. I mean she hasn't even ate since and if i tell her she'll.. just c-crash. What if she doesn't get back up!? That can't happen! I need her!"

Tears fall from my own eyes as Calum screams in slight fear. His arms begins to fight at us again. I can see why he's been weird lately, but he still can't keep putting himself through this. We won't let him. Even if the tour needs to end.
"Calum relax, its okay!" Luke screams trying to calm him down. As i help him, i notice we were all crying, seeing Calum like this? Thinking of how broken Carter is? How could we not?
I forcefully wrap my arms around Calum and pull my self down to him in a hug, in attempt to calm his fustrated posture. Both of us breathing heavily. "I need her, Michael. She can't know." He cries. "I know. Its okay, Calum. We won't tell her. Sshh its okay." I whisper in his ear as i rub his back as he slowly calms down.



-------
The audience got sent home with a refund. It took a while to get Calum to be okay with the fact that we sent them home, but i think now he's a bit numb from all the tears. Were spending the time that the concert is suppose to be happening in our dressing room sitting on the couches together in silence. Calum's close to falling asleep.
While he was in the bathroom earlier Ashton, Luke, and I came up with a solution for this tour situation. Calum doesn't know but Luke is out of the room on the phone with our tour manager, Theo. We tried to make a solution where Calum would be happy with or at least except. I believe we did.. hopefully.

I perk up a bit when Luke walks back into the room and nods his head with a thumbs up. Ashton clears his throat, making Calum open his eyes. He examines us cautiously then sits up with a curious look. "What?.."He asks.
"We came up with a problem solver for the tour, and its already confirmed." Ashton says urgently knowing once he said it, Calum would sigh and argue. Which is exactly what he did right now. "Ugh you guys we already talked abo-" He begins.

"Just listen." I cut him short. "Look. We talked to Theo and he agreed that we could stop the tour for one month, and still do the concerts within that time by changing the dates ahead by one month. So instead of tomorrows concert being on December 10th it'll be on January 10th. " Luke explains while Calum listens.
"Where would we stay? I dont think its good if we go back to Australia." He stresses. "Neither do we. Thats why Theo is going to set us up with his vacation house down in Miami. We can stay there for a month then start the tour back up. Calum you know you and Carter need this." I press, trying to convince him. He begins to nod his head.

"Okay, but just one month." Calum sighs and I sigh in relief as do Ashton and Luke.

"We'll leave tonight." He announces while walking towards the door.

Notes

Dang poor sad little Calum. :(