#michael preference

Luke Hemmings was the shy boy next door, the boy you had known all your life without really knowing him, and until your 14th birthday you hadn’t actually talked besides muttered hello’s, when you met while taking out the trash. However, that changed completely when you turned 14; after he, under strict orders from his mother, of course (who recently had found out about both of you being some kind of outsiders in school) came over to your house with a home baked chocolate muffin with a cute little candle in the middle. Your small trash-can-meetings evolved into a close friendship where you told each other everything and did everything together. And in-between hesitantly touches and late night sleep overs, the friendship the two of you had built became something more than that.

For you, Luke meant taking it slow and the feeling of giggles exploding in your body. He was your first love, your first kiss, your first everything, and you were his first, too. He was gentle, he was sweet and he was caring, and when you were with him, it felt like being wrapped up in a blanket made from pure love and admiration. You were his sun, his moon, his biggest support, and the person he depended most on in the whole world.

But like all good things, your relationship had to end. Losing Luke was red, swollen eyes for weeks, it was promising to stay in touch after you went to college, it was even more heart break when you realized that long distance relationship were harder than you ever thought possible, and it was trying to hold loud sobs in, while on the phone agreeing that your relationship had reached the last stop on its road.

Luke loved you, but he wasn’t yours to keep. 

Your second love taught you how to live life to the fullest with Green Day blasting through the speakers and a home rolled cigarette between your fingers. He taught you how to get lost in a pair of green eyes and find yourself again while searching for him in the darkest streets of Sydney. He taught you that there could be a completely different person hiding underneath dark colored hair, a cheeky grin and eyes blurred by smoke. Michael taught you about the depths of the human soul, and in exchange, you gave his life a purpose besides colorful pills, cheap liquor and marijuana.

Michael Clifford was everything your parents warned you about and the complete opposite of your first boyfriend. You had never met someone like him but somehow, you understood him. You understood his screams at 3 A.M when he had those nightmares, he never wanted to explain to you, because he didn’t want to frighten you. You understood him, when his restlessness became too much and he had to get away for a while. And you were with him, through the bad dreams and in the passenger seat of his old Ford, when you drove out of town to the beat of an old 80’s song.

Michael was far from perfect, but perhaps that was what made him so damn beautiful. And to you, he really was beautiful. Some people weren’t able to see his beauty; they just saw a boy with a dangerous smile, tattoos and numerous piercings. But Michael was so much more than that: he was the craziness you had kept hidden inside of you way too long, he was letting go of what held you back, he was deeply felt chords on a retro guitar and he was the poetry that came from your fingertips.

You loved him, you really did, and he loved you too. But you began to wonder how much a broken heart could love. In between broken promises and screaming at each other at the top of your longs, you realized that Michael wasn’t meant for love, and while looking for him in the corners of the city you never thought you would find yourself in, you figured that your relationship was doomed from the start. However, that didn’t mean that you wouldn’t do it again. Because while Michael was addicted to narcotics, you were addicted to the sound of his voice while he sang the songs he had written about you, the twinkle of madness in his eyes when he was making one of his legendary plans, the smell of his cologne when he planted love bites down your neck and his strong arms around you when he needed to feel your presence after a nightmare.

You couldn’t save Michael, but you had a feeling that someday, someone would.

Your third love taught you about finding art and beauty in even the smallest things in life. He taught you how to always look on the bright side, to be kind to everyone you met and to never give up. He taught you how to heal your wounds in the right tempo, and to be proud of your scars and the stories they told. He taught you that if you could learn to love yourself, then your eyes would shine brighter than Leonid Aframov’s Farewell to anger, your smile be softer than Monet’s water lilies and your beauty be even more complex than a Van Gogh painting.

Ashton Irwin was every girl’s dream; he was the most handsome human being that had ever walked on earth with his hazel eyes, golden skin and curly hair in just the right way length. He was sweeter than candy without ever being too much, had the voice of an angel, were probably better to draw than any of your art teachers and while being incredibly cute, he also had that little bit of edge, that made all the girls at your college go crazy. He was the kind of boy, girls like you could only dream of, but it didn’t take long before his love for you were deeper than you ever could have imagined. When you met Ashton, it had been a long time since you had been taken care of, since you had been able to let go, to cry in a safe place, but suddenly he came into your life and helped your broken heart heal. He never tried to hide his love for you, or his intention of making you love him back, but he let you heal your wounds in your own tempo and didn’t put any pressure on you. And while falling in love with him, you learned to love yourself, too.

You were Ashton’s muse and watching your face take form on the paper or hearing some of your words sung by his beautiful voice felt like finding pieces of yourself you didn’t even know existed. And he was a part of you, too; a previously unknown part of you that radiated with happiness. And if someone asked you to describe Ashton, you would tell them that he was the type of guy who would fight a dragon for not only the princess, but for anyone who needed it, that there always was space in his heart for the ones that didn’t fit in anywhere else and that it was clear to everyone who met him, that he was an angel sent down to earth to mend the broken ones. And you would tell them, that he really did mend you; that he saved you.

He had mended you, he had kissed your scars, he had loved your soul and he had put a smile on your face whenever he was near you, but the big grins turned into small, sad ones and the little kisses ended up as a your lips pressed together in a desperate, longing goodbye-kiss. Your “I-love-you”s became “I’ll never forget you”s and “There won’t be a day, where I won’t miss you”s and suddenly, you had to learn how to live without the golden boy, who survived from the pleasure of creating instead of oxygen.

Ashton was art, but art lives forever, and you were just a simple mortal.

Your fourth love taught you about inner warmth, absolute calmness and that love is better when it’s not all about fireworks and butterflies, but instead about the soothing feeling of coming home when you’re tired after a long day of work and collapsing in your lovers arms. He taught you how to love with both eyes open; knowing and looking forward to what would come. Calum taught you how to trust that he would catch you every time you fell, and through thick and thin, bad times and good times, he kept his promise.

Calum was the sun; he was the warmth spreading throughout your whole body when he said those three words that always made your heart flutter and he was the secure feeling that surrounded you along with his strong arms on nights where you were scared and just wanted to give up everything. Calum was the first man who told you that you were “it” for him; that he wanted to settle down with you someday and that he wasn’t scared of what the future would bring, as long as he had you by his side. And he really made you believe in a life with curly haired children running around in a small, idyllic garden, a cute golden retriever like the ones your grandparents once had and small declarations of love when coming home from work; he made you believe that the life you always had wanted, finally were within reach.

The love you shared with Calum Hood was comfortable silence, it was warm kisses while standing under falling snowflakes, it was low humming while cooking the other’s favorite food and it was falling asleep in each other’s tight embraces. Loving Calum was as unselfish as it was beautiful and simple; he was hard not love, really, and for the first time in your life, you realized that your happiness depended more on him than the fulfilling of your own needs; if he wasn’t happy, you couldn’t be either.  

With that realization followed another; you would never be able to give Calum what he deserved. He deserved the world, and no matter how hard you loved him, you would never be capable of giving him that; you were too broken, too damaged; your scars were too big and too many. So you had shot his sleeping figure one last glance before closing the door on your biggest love and the future he offered you, although you didn’t deserve it. And though he couldn’t hear you in his dreaming state, you gave him one last promise while breaking others: ”I’ll always be right here, standing in the back, where I can’t be seen, and cheering for you.”

Calum deserved the best, and if that meant you letting him go, then that was how it had to be.

You knew love, and you definitely knew the four men playing on the big stage, who had no chance of noticing you in the enormous crowd.

Perhaps it was faith that the only people you had ever loved, ended up as best friends, or maybe it was simply just a crazy coincidence. But no matter what, it gave you peace; they were happy, they were living out their biggest dream and you couldn’t be prouder. If anyone deserved it, it was them. They had broken your heart, and you had broken theirs, and although you felt a small flash of pain when considering if they had forgotten you after all these years, you were so grateful that they clearly had gotten over you, even if it meant that they no longer smiled at the mention of your name or saw your face for their inner eyes every night before falling asleep. The first time you saw their faces on a billboard, you couldn’t believe your own eyes. And after that they just kept popping up; perhaps because you only watched the TV channels that you knew showed their latest commercial or because you kept driving past the big screen that showed their faces, even though it meant being a little late for work.

“I will always love you all,” you whispered into the night, and even though it was impossible with all the screams in the huge arena, you couldn’t help but think that maybe they heard you. And perhaps they really did, judging by the small, calm nods and big smiles they sent out to the crowd a few seconds after your proclamation. And perhaps you were crazy, or perhaps some things just happen although they’re anything but logical, but you could have sworn that you heard them all whispering your words back when they went for a short break behind the scene.