Caleb!mc first birthday without him was depressing to say the least. She woke up in the darkness of her room to complete silence, after all her best friend, the man of her life was gone. She stood up and stared at herself in the mirror, a slime figure resembling a cadaver that had began to rot, and yet she is sure Caleb would have found her beautiful.
It would be the first time since she could remember that Caleb was not celebrating with her. Well, she couldn’t let that happen. So she would get all dressed up and then drive towards the graveyard, where she would sit by Caleb’s grave.
summary: death follows you closer than a stray dog follows a hot dog cart. your touch brings destruction to the people closest to you, but what happens when a certain someone (caleb) doesn't believe in your curse? is he the exception?
content: PLEASE READ!! ANGST, gore, death, blood, suicide (i've added a bar of red text before the suicidal thoughts/ actions start, the story can absolutely end before it!), suggestive content (no smut), talk of curses and gods, there is NO happy ending. i think there is probably more, please tell me if there is. if these subject unnerve you, skip this one!! <3
wc: 6,642
a/n: if there's any editing mistakes i'm sorry! i had a roughh time editing this. if you happen to see any words randomly in all caps, i missed it while editing and it's supposed to be in italics :) before you guys read this and get mad at me, i love youuuuu🫶🫂
impending doom: a medical symptom that consists of an intense feeling that something life-threatening or tragic is about to occur, despite no apparent danger.
everything you touch is doomed. at least, that’s what you’ve always been told- by the group of women dressed in black, their grip a little too tight on your wrists as they drag you away from the closed casket you’d tried to pry open. “how many times do you have to be told to stop touching things?” one lady hissed at you, her heels clicking on the bathroom tile as they drag you inside, biting your lip to hold back the sobs clawing up your throat.
another woman, maybe the first woman's sister if you were judging by their matching scolding tones, snaps her fingers in your face and points at you, manicured nail inches from your eyes. “the reason that your grandmother is in that casket is because you couldn’t listen and you just had to touch things. you will live with this for the rest of your life, you hear me?”
you stare up at the pair, nodding and trying to stop your body from shaking.
the first woman scoffs and digs in her purse, touching up her lipstick in the mirror and muttering just loud enough to make sure you hear her. “that child is cursed.”
the other woman hums in acknowledgment and you want to disagree. that isn’t true! you aren’t cursed at all! it was just an accident, you hadn’t known that your grandmother would try to go down the stairs while you were playing.
you’d stacked a line of blocks at the top of your home’s staircase, wanting to build it up tall so you could push it over and watch the blocks tumble down the stairs. after you lined up the first row your mother called you down for dinner, so you hopped over the blocks and ran down the stairs.
dinner was interrupted by the loud crash of your grandmother falling down the stairs over your blocks. the fall likely wouldn’t have been life threatening for a healthy adult, but for an elderly woman with fragile bones and health issues it was.
being the middle child, you’d never been the favorite by a long shot, but after that day your family hadn’t ever looked at you the same. they acted like you were contagious, like if they got too close or laughed too hard at you, you’d turn into a demon: like your eyes would turn black and you’d start draining the life from them.
the second time it happened, you were in middle school. your friend was supposed to spend the night at your house, but at 2 am she decided she wanted to sneak out. go to the gas station down the street and get some snacks, maybe splurge on a slushie. you knew your parents would be furious if you snuck out, so you tried to convince your friend to stay, but she was determined to go. she’d always been more adventurous than you.
reluctantly, you agreed to help her get out and back in your window. she had only brought slippers, and knowing it was cold out, you gave her a pair of your sneakers to borrow. they were a little bit big on her, her heels popping out of the back of the shoe at every step. you’d both laughed at it, giggling at how silly she looked tripping over herself.
to make matters worse, the laces were too long and dragging. you tied the shoes for her and stuffed the extra bits of laces into the shoe so she wouldn’t trip on them. with a brief hug, you watched her climb through your window and walk towards the gas station down the street. you could see the glowing sign from your window, it wasn’t a long walk, so you’d estimated she’d be back within fifteen minutes.
ten minutes pass and you hear a siren go by your house. no biggie, you lived near a hospital so sirens were a normal sound to hear at night. another minute passes, another siren. you perk up a bit, realizing that the sirens seem to be stopped not too far away. another minute passes and four more sirens pass your house.
curious, you look out your window to see where the blue and red lights were stopping at- near the gas station.
surely nothing happened to your friend, right? you texted and called her, anxiety prickling over your skin when the calls don’t connect.
you throw caution to the wind and hop out of your window, going to investigate. your parents couldn’t fault you for sneaking out, not if it was to make sure your friend was okay, right?
after a short three minute walk, you finally aproach the ambulances and police cars. paramedics are on the road, huddled around a form laying in front of a car.
it’s only when you step closer that you realize it’s your friend. your very mangled friend- limbs bent unnaturally, blood staining her hair that you’d braided earlier in the night. your shoes lay on the sidewalk tipped over, not on her feet.
a policeman is listening to the very shaken up driver as he fumbles over his words, shock evident on his face. “i-i didn’t even have time to stop, she just- she just tripped over nothing and fell into the road right in front of me-”
the shoes. she’d tripped because of your shoes. your friend was bleeding out on the pavement in the cold because you lent her your shoes- you should have tried so much harder to convince her to stay home.
the only place that rumors travel faster than light itself was a middle school. it only took a day for your peers to learn why your friend died, and it only took an hour after that for them to start outcasting you.
there were no apologies for losing your friend, there were no shoulders to lean on, and there certainly weren't any friends for you to talk to. who would want to be friends with the girl that got her other friend killed? no one was eager to become your next victim.
high school was no different. you’d help someone up after they fell and the next day they’d get sick. you would bump into someone on accident in the hallway and they’d fail their next test. the few friends you had left started to ditch you quickly, one after another, so fast that by week three of freshman year you were eating at a table alone every lunch.
your life continued like this all through highschool- you were ignored, avoided, and whispered about in the hallways until midway through your senior year.
you’d been eating alone at a corner table, poking at the food on your plate when someone sat a tray down opposite you. you looked up, expecting to be asked out as a joke again by some sports player, but instead saw an unfamiliar face looking at you- no, smiling at you. how long had it been since someone had smiled at you?
“hey, can i sit here?” the guy asked you, voice lacking any hint of mockery. his purple eyes looked at you, regarding you as if you were his equal and not someone that had death creeping over their shoulder.
you nod slowly, skeptical. “um.. sure. why would you want to sit with me?”
the guy tilts his head, biting into a sandwich. “why not? you looked lonely and i’m new here, i figured we could be lonely together.”
after that lunch you and the guy, caleb, were lonely together for the rest of the school year. word about your ‘curse’ eventually made its way to caleb, especially after he got popular, but he never spent less time with you and he definitely didn’t treat you differently. he was curious, but didn’t pry.
caleb ended up asking you to be his date to prom, and you accepted. you’d spent the night dancing and carefully tiptoeing around him. when he’d try to hold your hand to lead you through the crowd, you only shook your head and tucked your hands tight to your side. when he moved to rest his hands on your waist to slow dance with you, you’d jumped back and bumped into a couple dancing and making out behind you- they’d been less than pleased, the girl screaming about how she was probably in danger now that you’d touched her. embarrassment flooded your being and you fled, like you always did when something like this happened.
caleb found you sitting outside of the prom venue picking at the skin around your nails and hiding from… well, everyone, given that no one at school liked you. except for him.
“hey, figured i’d find you out here.” caleb says with a grin, sitting down beside you but leaving a gap between. not for him, god, if he had it his way he’d be glued to your side, but he knew you wanted the distance, so he respected that. “i got you some punch, no alcohol in it. i checked. at my old school, some students used to spike it.” he laughs quietly at the memory. “it was terrible.”
you smile at his story and take the cup of punch, avoiding his fingers. “thanks. i heard they spiked it last year. must’ve been the seniors that graduated already.”
caleb chuckled and leaned back against the wooden exterior of the event center. “yeah, the seniors this year are all bark and no bite. figures that they wouldn’t spike it.”
you sip the punch and think about his words. he was right, of course. for years now they’ve talked terribly about you, but they’ve never had the guts to do anything to you physically. maybe it’s because they’re too scared of what would happen if they did.
the music thumps from inside, the bass making the wall you’re leaned against rattle a bit. your classmates sing along to songs and some even squeal. it sounds like they’re having fun, and here you are outside in the humid air, just… sitting. and you’ve drug caleb into this too.
you look over at him sitting beside you, looking out at the scenery and your heart aches.
“go back inside, caleb.” you say quietly, the words painful to get out.
“why?” caleb asks, face turned to you now, questions filling his eyes.
you shrug. “you should be having fun like everyone else. i should have never agreed to be your date, not when you had a dozen other girls waiting for you to ask them.” you shake your head, your hair coming loose from where it was pinned earlier in the day, a sad attempt to make yourself fit in with the others. a failed attempt at normalcy. “your presence is wasted on me. just being associated with me is ruining your reputation, you should just… go, now, before it’s unsalvageable.”
caleb listened and digested your words, watching the tears well in your eyes before speaking. “i’m not leaving your side. everyone in there is fake and miserable, but you’re real.” he shakes his head and inches his hand closer to where yours rests on the rough sidewalk. “i’d rather have a ruined reputation with you than be the most popular person in school with those losers.” he cocks his head towards the venue, smirking playfully.
you huff and look away, trying to will him away with your mind. and you think, when he finally stands up, that your pleading to the universe finally worked.
“c’mon, up ya go.” caleb stands in front of you, extending a hand.
you roll your eyes and give a half hearted glare, standing up without his help. “where are we going?”
“nowhere. i just thought we should dance at least once tonight, y’know, to say we fully did prom?” caleb asks, a smile on his handsome face. it makes your heart ache.
yes, you want to say, yes, please dance with me. spin me around. make me forget what it feels like to be a liability. but you can’t- how could you when every time you’ve touched someone, something bad has happened to them? maybe he would come down with something as simple as a cold, but maybe he would come down with something much worse. no, you couldn’t risk it. couldn’t risk the one person who sees you as more than a threat.
caleb sighs and looks at you, sadness etched into his features. “i don’t believe what they say about you, y’know? none of it’s true anyway- that kind of stuff isn’t real. if you would just dance with me, you’d see that nothing bad will happen.”
you shake your head and worry your bottom lip between your teeth, arms wrapping around yourself protectively. he didn’t understand. caleb has always been so happy go lucky, going through life without looking where he’s stepping because he just assumes everything will go his way. because everything does always go his way. so… maybe he was right? after all, nothing bad ever happens to caleb. maybe you’d try to shut him down one more time…
“caleb, you don’t get it because you transferred to our school after everything happened- you didn’t see and hear what everyone else did. they’re not just making things up for fun, everything you’ve heard is true.” you try to explain, tears spilling down your cheeks. “something bad will happen.”
caleb takes a step closer to you, holding out his hand. “well if something bad happens to me, then you can say ‘i told you so’ allll you want, because i know nothin’s gonna happen to me. you could never hurt me.”
the challenge in his voice and the tingling of your skin aching for touch begged you to give in. let yourself have this one thing, let yourself have a good prom. you’d already messed up all the other monumental high school moments, so why couldn’t you at least have a good prom?
with a slow nod, you released your arms from around yourself and held them out for caleb to wrap around his neck.
caleb smiled and took a step forward, his fingertips ghosting against your wrists. the slight touch made panic rise in your throat, ripping your arms back to yourself. “no, stop- fuck, i’m sorry. i’m so scared.” you say, voice shaky.
he watches you like one might watch a scared deer, trying to calm you so you don’t flee. “it’s okay, yeah? i already touched you, and see?” he spins around so you can see all of him. “i’m perfectly fine- not a scratch on me.”
you look him over, searching for any hint of blood on his suit, or any scratches, but find nothing. caleb was right, he had touched you and he was fine.
“you’re alright.” you mumble to yourself, the words an attempt to convince yourself more than anything else.
caleb hums in agreement and steps closer to you again so that his breath fans across your forehead. “can i dance with you now?”
you flush slightly and nod, holding your arms out again and letting him gently guide them over his shoulders. his hands settle on your waist gently, moving you both back and forth in rhythm to the slow song playing faintly inside, the sound bleeding through the closed doors.
finally, a smile finds its way onto your face. you’re unable to fight it or dim it in the slightest- it’s there, bright and uncontrollable, and so is the rapid beating of your heart. you laugh in both surprise and overwhelming joy. you were touching someone- you were dancing with your crush and he was perfectly fine.
caleb laughed along with you, speaking to you quietly, teasing. “see? perfectly fine. nothing bad could ever happen to me when i’m with you.”
the two of you dance until the song changes, a song with a heavy bass replacing the slow song. you both laugh and seperate, though caleb reaches to intertwine your fingers together.
“lets go inside, yeah? you’re out of punch.” he says, guiding you to the side entrance to the event center.
as he reaches to open the door handle, the door slams open when a group of rowdy football players rammed into it in an attempt to… you didn’t know, maybe be destructive? their actions had never made much sense to you.
well, destructive they were. the door slammed right into caleb- your poor prom date got a metal door straight to the face and his nose was gushing blood.
you hadn’t helped him, too scared that touching him again would make things worse- like maybe a comically large piano would fall out of the sky and crush him just to mock you.
caleb ended up getting a concussion from the door and missed a week of school, which was plenty of time for the partial truth to spread through school. “she forced caleb to dance with her, and then he got a concussion.” “she’s still cursed.” “i knew it was only a matter of time before she drug caleb down with her.”. for all you wanted to disagree with them, you couldn’t. the only part that wasn’t true was you forcing caleb to dance with you- infact, you’d tried to convince him not to dance with you, but in the end it was your fault that you gave in.
god, how stupid were you to think that you could have something, even as small as a dance, for yourself? you should have known by now that nothing was destined for you. not a kiss goodnight, not a warm hug after a long day, and especially not a slow dance at prom.
you didn’t talk to caleb for weeks after, though caleb certainly tried talking to you. you’d started eating lunch in the bathroom to avoid him, taking different routes to your classes, and swapping seats with someone in the one class you had together, ensuring that he wasn’t close enough to talk to you.
caleb didn’t seem to take the hint, though. he didn’t grasp the severity of the situation. the exact thing happened to him that he said wouldn’t: you touched him and he got hurt. it was as simple as that. it was black and white, despite how hard he was trying to make you see the grey area.
unluckily for you, after graduation, you and caleb got accepted into the same college.
a fresh start- no one there knew you. they didn’t know about the baggage your name held or the death etched into the cells of your skin.
after only a month into college, you and caleb managed to find your way back to each other. caleb called it fate, you called a tragedy.
over the next four years, you grew closer than you had throughout high school. you spent days together at a time, lounging in caleb’s apartment and studying, or eating cheap ramen on the floor of your dorm.
neither of you got into relationships, too busy with classes to worry about romance. or at least that’s what you told yourself, but the same sense of endearment and yearning burned in caleb’s chest the same way it did yours.
the first time caleb asked you out, it was a week before valentine’s day. you’d thought he was joking, like it was one of those situations where friends hang out on the holiday just because they have no special person to spend it with, but he’d been serious.
“do you have any plans on saturday?” he asked, watching you jot down some notes from class.
you shrugged, quickly flipping through your mental calendar. “nope, i just have to do some cleaning, why?”
caleb hummed and tossed his pen up in the air and catching it. a nervous habit he had. you’d picked up on it immediately, suspicious about what his next words would be. “wanna go to your favorite restaurant that night?”
you snickered and leaned back in your chair, stretching out your tight lower back. “that’s valentine’s day, it’s probably all booked.”
“it is. and yet, i have a reservation, soooo wanna go?”
your eyebrows wrinkle in confusion. he had a reservation already? why? did he ask someone else and they declined?
you set your pen down and look at him suspiciously. “am i your second choice for this?”
caleb shakes his head and you catch a glimpse of what looks to be offense in his gaze. “ouch, i’m wounded that you’d think that of me. you’ve always been my first choice.”
warmth spreads across your cheeks and you try to will it away. you could handle the thoughts of loving him when they were tucked away in your mind and he had no idea they existed, but you couldn't handle your feelings physically manifesting where caleb could see.
you decide to answer, hoping that would distract him from the obvious blush on your face. “um, yeah sure, i’ll go with you. no sense in wasting a reservation, right?”
the dinner goes well. too well, in fact. you’d just gotten a passing grade back on an important exam, so caleb decided it was cause to celebrate. you’d gotten a bit too tipsy from the wine he ordered, something dry and almost bitter, but addicting nonetheless.
your favorite restaurant had gone fancy for valentines day: a pillar candle was lit in the middle of the table, they had the lights dimmed, and low romantic music was playing through the speaker system.
all around you, couples giggled and doted on one another, feeding each other pieces of cake or whispering in the other's ear. you’d been able to drown it out when you were sober, but now that the buzz of alcohol was over your skin, you couldn’t ignore the ache that the scenery gave you.
you wanted this. the simplicity of it, the romance. hands brushing over hands when pouring your lover a glass of wine, a hand on your back while your lover guides you to your table, or even the casual innocence of playing footsie under the table.
you’ve yearned for it for years, but the ambiance and wine made it fester into something rotten.
and caleb, god, caleb. he was making it so much worse just by being himself. he kept prompting you to talk his ear off over dinner, kept laughing at your jokes and teasing you. when he noticed you getting uncharacteristically flushed and giggly, he poured you less and less wine, which you didn’t notice.
when you left the restaurant, you found yourself a bit unsteady. caleb didn’t grab your arm and didn’t guide you, he just hovered in case you needed him to catch you, knowing you didn’t want to be touched.
“i’m not gonna fall, caleb, i’m a very capable person.” you mumble, walking down the sidewalk that suspiciously keeps rocking back and forth in your vision.
caleb hums and walks slightly ahead of you, opening the passenger side door of his car for you. “i know, i know, you don’t need caleb to help you. i’ve heard it a million times already.”
once caleb shuts your car door, the emotions from earlier come back at full force and you find yourself tearing up. love was something impossible for you, but yet, selfishly, you yearned for it all the same.
you hadn’t even heard caleb get in the car, but all at once he was comforting you. “hey, heyy, shh. what’s wrong hon?”
you covered your face with your hands, refusing to let him see you in this condition. “i want to be loved so badly it hurts.”
caleb’s face softened and he sighed, watching you cry from behind your hands. his hand hovered over your shoulder to rub it, but he clenched it and set it down on the center console of the car instead. “you are loved. i love you so much.”
you groan and shake your head. “but you love me like a friend. i want to be loved like a girlfriend, and then i want to be loved like a wife, but it’s not possible.”
“why don’t you think it’s possible?”
“you know why- because everytime i love someone they get hurt. i couldn’t handle it if something happened to you again, caleb.”
caleb turns the car on so you can warm up as he collects his thoughts. “you cant handle it if something happened to me? soo, you love me?”
you pause your crying and process his words. “how do you know that?” you accuse, your mind moving at too slow of a pace from the wine to comprehend.
caleb smiles a bit and looks at your angry face. “because you said… it doesn’t matter, alright? i feel the same way about you. i love love you, and not just as a friend.”
you recoil at his words, terror gripping you before happiness can. “take it back. you don’t love me- you can't love me.” the words fly out of you, desperately trying to shove his words back into his mouth in case whatever being cursed your touch decides to curse this too. “i’m not good for you. i’m the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you-”
caleb shakes his head and furrows his brows, frustrated. “stop talking like that, it’s all nonsense. you’re not cursed, okay? accidents happen all the time, so what if you’ve seen more accidents in a fraction of your life than most people do in all of theirs? it’s purely coincidence.”
he holds his hands out in front of you. “please. hold my hands and if nothing bad happens to me in the next week, you believe me and we try to make something work between us. i can’t just let you go because you’re terrified that you’ll hurt me.”
you immediately shake your head at the idea, your stomach churning uncomfortably. “it’s not worth it, i can’t. i need you to be alive, caleb, and… and i can’t guarantee that you’ll stay alive if i do this.”
caleb squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to tell you that you’re being ridiculous and overly paranoid, because he knows that no matter how insane your words sound to him, they’re still very real for you.
you continue on, anxiously rambling. “my love for you is spiraling out of control, but so are my thoughts about you dying. god, caleb, i’ve wanted you for so long but i can’t have you.” you shake your head and grip your hair, frustrated. “i don’t know what to do-”
“then let me help you. let me carry the burden you feel.” caleb tries gently, eyes locked on yours, so full of wanting to help you.
“let me love you, please, let me love you the way you deserve to be loved. i’m begging you to let your guard down again and let me show you that letting in won’t ‘doom’ me or whatever it is you think will happen.” he holds his hand out for you again, whispering. “please let me in again.”
you bite your lip and wonder if things could work out in your favor this time. maybe this time would be different… you’d never ‘doomed’ the same person twice, so maybe it only happened once per person?
looking at caleb, you knew that you wanted him so deeply that it burned in your chest. you wanted late nights cuddles together on the couch, wanted to laugh together and play fight. it could be a reality if you just take his hand.
so, you do and immediately regret it. your hand grips his loosely and he sighs in relief, reaching across the center console and pulling you into a desperate kiss by the nape of your neck.
hours later, the two of you lay tangled together naked in caleb’s bed. he traces shapes over your shoulderblade and mouths at your neck, making sure all of his skin is touching yours to make up for all the times he’s had to keep to himself.
you lay on him, face buried in his hair, inhaling deep breaths of his shampoo and committing it to memory. deep down, you knew this was a bad idea. for all of caleb’s reassurances and logical thought processes, you could feel the familiar sense of unease that’s been following you since you were a child. the unshakable sense of impending doom.
you speak over the soft wet sounds of his lips on the column of your throat, your voice low and defeated. “this is going to blow up in our faces.”
caleb hums and gives your neck a slow lick before resituating you so that you were face to face. he gently cradles the side of your face and you find yourself leaning into it, craving the touch.
his eyes trail over your features, softened with the afterglow of sex, and he smiles, pressing a kiss to your lips. he mumbles against them. “i promise i won’t let that happen. you’ll see, give it a week and i promise nothing will happen to me.”
an entirely normal week passes. well, normal except for the affection that caleb was now giving you- seriously, he clung to you like a koala at every given chance.
with every hour that passed that caleb wasn’t injured, your worries subsided little by little. maybe he’d been right. maybe whatever cruel being that cursed you decided you’d suffered enough, that you deserved love after starving for it for so long.
caleb had tempted the universe by saying if nothing happens to him for a week, then it’s safe to be with you. and after seven long, blissful days, he’s come away completely unscathed.
once those seven days were up, you felt on top of the world and lighter than you’d felt since before your grandma’s death. nothing could break your smile and caleb teased you about it.
“i’ve never seen you so happy. it was worth the risk, right?” he asked you the morning of the eighth day. you’d just smiled wider and nodded, kissing him through a fit of giggles. caleb had been your everything for so long and now he was entirely yours- yours to love, yours to touch, and yours to keep forever.
reluctantly, caleb put an end to the shenanigans that you both get up to in the early morning hours in favor of getting ready. he was graduating from his piloting program. he, along with a few other classmates, were selected to fly in an air show for the community.
he looked adorable in his blue and orange flight uniform, so professional that it made you giggle. once at the air show, before leaving him to his classmates, you had him pose for a few pictures with his small plane.
“hmmm, maybe lean against it? yeah, like that! blow me a kiss.” you tease and blush when he actually does it, snapping a picture.
“you want me to take a picture of you two?” a deeper voice asks from behind you, one of caleb’s classmates, judging by the matching outfits.
you nod and hand him the phone. “that would be great, thanks!”
caleb puts his arm around you for a few pictures, kissing your cheek and giving you bunny ears in other ones.
“c’mere, i have an idea.” he says, smiling, before lifting you up and sitting you on the edge of one of the plane’s wings.
you laugh and lean down to cradle his cheeks, throwing your legs over his shoulders as he faces away from you, towards the camera. “is this even allowed? what if i break it?”
caleb tilts his head back to look at you and gives a lopsided smile. “yep, people take pictures like this alllll the time. you couldn’t break it even if you tried, pretty girl.”
a whistle was blown, signaling to the pilots that it was time to get into positions for the show. caleb helped you hop down off of the wing, kissing you slowly in a goodbye.
you melt into his touch and get lost in the kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck and feeling the warmth blossoming in your chest. you feel it curl around your heart and wind through your ribs, trying to breach through your skin to reach caleb’s heart.
you’re forced apart by the shrill sound of the whistle a second time. you giggle and pull back, about to speak but caleb beats you to it. his words are quiet, meant just for you despite the crowd growing in size, but not lacking any conviction.
“i’m so in love with you. i’ve never been this happy in my entire life.” he nuzzles his nose softly with yours, his eyes closed in joy.
you smile again and hug him, whispering back. “i’m in love with you too. thank you for.. thank you for trusting me again. believing in me. showing me that i’m not cursed, or doomed, or any of those things people used to say. i love you, caleb.”
caleb smiled back and kissed the tip of your nose before pulling away. “i’ll see you on the ground, yeah?”
you giggle and nod, taking your phone from his classmate and blowing caleb a kiss. “i’ll see you on the ground, captain.”
half an hour later, you’re watching the show from the stands, surrounded by a crowd of ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s. you’d been watching caleb's plane the entire time as it spun and flipped in the air, smoke following it.
the tricks were beautiful and flawlessly executed, the arcs smooth and fluid, and the spins mesmerizing in a way. it was easy to tell that it was choreographed, each plane mirroring another. the pilots clearly had control over their planes, the moves controlled and in sync with each other.
it was beautiful in a way, watching the smoke create patterns and watching the planes twirl in unison. it reminded you faintly of an old jewelry box you had as a child, with ballerinas that twirled together. a pang of sadness hit you then, remembering how one of the ballerinas broke and your parents threw the box away, saying it was defective.
you snapped out of the memory as the grand finale started. what a silly thing to think about during an air show anyway. you pulled your phone, smiling at the picture you’d just taken of the two of you on your wallpaper, before opening your camera app and quickly started recording. you knew that caleb would want to see the video later and talk your ear off on the ins and outs of what he was doing inside the cockpit to make it look so pretty, and you couldn’t wait to hear about it.
the group of planes flew up, up, up into the sky, then killed their engines and fell down towards the earth in daring, graceful spirals. except the plane all the way to the left didn’t look graceful at all.
it looked rigid, floundering around in the air like it was a tennis ball being hit back and forth with a racket. where the other planes were spinning like ballerinas, the one on the left looked more like the defective ballerina from your jewelry box.
when the side of the plane briefly turned towards the crowd, you saw the big “5” printed on the side- caleb was flying plane number five. caleb was in the plane that was thrashing around mid air, pummeling towards the earth like an asteroid. surely this was part of the show, right? nothing bad ever happened to caleb- that was like, his whole thing. a week had passed and nothing had happened to caleb, nothing was allowed to happen to caleb because the universe finally forgave you for everything. the stars, or the gods, or whatever being had cursed you had finally allowed you to be happy. you knew this because caleb said if nothing happened to him in a week then you weren’t cursed, and caleb never lied.
these were the thoughts running through your head rapidly as you watched the other planes pull up, going nose first back up into the sky.
i've killed him was the only thought in your mind as you watched plane number five crash nose first into the concrete runway below at an unfathomable speed, bursting into a flame larger than you’d ever seen. the heat reached you from where you stood in the stands. the crowd around you screamed in horror and ran, but you stood there, staring at the flames through the screen of your phone, still recording.
regret washed over you, thick and gripping and unshakeable. if you’d just told him no that night in the car, caleb would still be alive today instead of in pieces surrounded by rising flames: a spectacle in the worst possible way.
(if you don't want to read the s*icide part, stop here)
i killed him. he's burning alive right in front of me and i can't do anything about it. no, that’s not true. you could save him- you just had to get through the flames and get to him.
you drop your phone on the stands and run, fingers and feet searching for purchase in the chain link fence as you climb it. you ignore the barbed wire at the top that cuts into your legs and arms, throwing yourself over and onto the concrete below. it scrapes your skin, but you get up and run, your lungs burning as you breathe in the smoke. the fire burns your eyes, heat curling over your skin as you almost reach it- almost reach him.
god, if the heat is this unbearable to you, how bad must it be for him at the center of it? your poor caleb, he must be in so much pain, if you can just get to him you can fix it-
you gag at the stench of oil and burnt rubber, falling to your knees near the wreckage and beginning to crawl into the fire.
it licks over your skin and hair, the pain intense but not unbearable. no, what was unbearable was the thought of caleb dying alone in a fire that you caused. you might not be able to save him from the fate you subjected him to, but you would make sure he died in your arms with his head cradled against your chest hearing the apologies you murmur to him.
you collapse, unable to bring oxygen to your lungs, reaching out to touch the edge of the plane. your singed fingertips grip the scorching metal, crying out something that is supposed to be caleb’s name, but is closer to a garbled whimper.
the last thing you remember is warmth. not the kind of warmth you’d grown to love: caleb’s body on yours, his hand in yours, or the warmth that spread across your skin when he kissed you. no, it was the same warmth of shame you felt when those two women reprimanded you in the funeral home bathroom, or when your best friend's parents snarled at you at the hospital, or even when you saw the blood on caleb’s tuxedo at prom.
you’d always heard death was peaceful, that you felt no pain and only an overwhelming sense of happiness, but that wasn’t true. or maybe it was true, but reserved only for the good people in the world, not the ones who end up killing everyone they love.
memories rolling in your last seven minutes wasn’t a lie, though you didn’t get any reprieve there either. they showed you no memories of caleb, only of the misery and devastation you’ve caused the people unfortunate enough to know you.
you’d never deserved caleb, not in the slightest. letting yourself succumb to the same flames that seared his flesh off of his bones was the only ending you deserved. close to him, but so far away.
a/n pt2: okayy this is gonna be a long one!! i was very proud of the foreshadowing i did in this and i wanted to point it out because, well, i’m proud of it :D first, i constantly made reader feel heat on her skin, and as we know, poor girl burns to death. second, reader says that her love for caleb is spiraling out of control but so are her thoughts of him dying, and caleb’s plane spiraling out of control leads to his death! third, caleb never said that he would be immune once the week passes, he just says that nothing will happen to him DURING the week, and he’s right! he dies on the eighth day. fourth, the people that reader ‘kills’ only die after she touches something that they then touch. caleb doesn’t die after she touches him, just gets hurt, same with the people in school. he dies after she sits on the wing of his plane that he then gets into and crashes. (that one wasn’t really foreshadowing, just something i thought was cool :D) fifth, caleb and reader say they’ll see each other on the ground after the show, and they do!! just not in the way they hoped. not foreshadowing, but he was plane number 5 because he's LI number 5. giggles. oh alsoooo caleb was 'lucky' number 3!
EDIT: i remembered another!! reader tells caleb that them being together will blow up in their faces, and well...... it did. literally.
hmm i feel like there was more… i’ll come back and add to this if i remember anything else!!
