Calum's PoV

That evening was one of the worst of my life. I lay on Ashton's sofa, my mind whirring through the scene again and again. I'd caused so much trouble by getting involved with her family, yet part of me still felt like I had the right to know. I'd text her a few times, desperately hoping to catch her at a good moment where she would respond and we could figure it out but each time I sent a message, she had left me on read. It was heartbreaking, yet in the back of my mind I was beginning to get angry. How could she shut me out like this when I was just trying to help? Even if she loathed her family she still should have told me about them!
I sighed inwardly as I turned onto my side, my arm getting squashed under my body. This was nothing in comparison to being in bed with Poppy. We'd always sleep beside each other, my hand on her stomach as the baby moved about and we laughed quietly until we fell asleep. I was missing out on that right now. I was laying here whilst my wife and baby were elsewhere. All because of that family. They came in unexpectedly and they screwed everything up. Just like Naomi. Just like Kyle. Just like everything in our lives, always getting messed up by other people's involvement.
I was no innocent party, and I knew that, but these things always had a way of starting off small and building. I always seemed to make it worse. Even when Poppy's life came back to haunt her and I had only just started dating her, I still put that target on her back. I still tried to help but made a mess of it and she had ended up wounded. That time she laid on the floor outside the arena with a stab wound bleeding through her fingers - that still haunted me. Those images once again flashed into my mind and caused my heart to speed up. I never wanted to see her like that again. Then I had to watch her, wires all over the hospital room plugged in and monitoring her to make sure she survived the surgery. The images began to make me nauseous. I needed to push them back down, just like I'd done a few times already. She was okay, alive and healthy now, I reminded myself, despite being alone. At least she was okay.
On the other side of the coin though, she'd also seen me in a bad state. She's never spoken to me about it, but I recognised that fearful look as the same one I'd tried not to let her see me make. Dave told me that I was pretty much dead when that lorry struck us thanks to my awful ex. He told me she'd needed to do CPR and that something had changed in the way she looked at me from then on. Yet here we were, still going through struggles. Thoughts rushed back of every argument we'd had, how much animosity was between us when Naomi came back, arguments that happened between the band when Poppy was keeping Crystal's pregnancy a secret, the cancer. It was all too much. How was it that we could survive those but we couldn't survive her family visiting one time? I used the term 'family' loosely as I knew neither of us associated them with actually caring for her or about her life. Her brother was so cocky and confident, thinking their parents were amazing when we'd literally heard them behaving atrociously to her, even my mum hearing it from the other end of a video call.

I couldn't sleep.

I sat up, running my fingers through my hair, now beginning to curl, and sighed. I needed to fix this. I needed to prove myself to Poppy and there was only one way I really knew how. I snuck through the house and found myself in Ashton's music room, with soundproofed walls and every instrument I wanted I knew this was going to be how I put my feelings out there for Poppy. I was going to do it musically. I'm not talking about some cheesy serenade with an acoustic guitar, I'm talking about a song. One that could end up on our newest album and everyone would listen to it and know it was about the two of us.
The world was going to see and hear my feelings for her, how the two of us worked so well together but got caught up in other people's problems. I was going to bear all in a song that would hopefully remind both of us exactly what we have.
I sat down at the piano and struck a few chords, hoping that something would spark the inspirational flame that would get this going. Usually this was work done by the four of us together, working off each other's energy and ideas. It would normally start with some chords or a line or two of lyrics and suddenly we all knew what we needed to do. Sometimes the songs were written in minutes, sometimes hours or days. This felt like it'd take years.

"Trouble sleeping?" Ashton's tired voice projected from the doorway, where he was stood leaning against the frame. I sighed down at the piano keys before turning towards him and nodding.

"Yeah, sorry if I woke you." He could tell instantly from my tone and body language just how badly I was doing.

"Poppy?" He asked simply and I nodded instantly, unable to form the words I wanted to. "I'm sorry, man. I can only imagine how tough this is. I felt bad and I was only in the room." I let out a sorrowful laugh.

"Yeah, it fucking sucked." I finally said. "I don't know how to fix it." I ran my hands through my hair.

"Let her know what you're thinking too. I love Poppy like a sister but you know as well as I do that sometimes she doesn't wait to see someone else's point of view. She's mad because you brought her brother into it at a bad time, her parents had already shown up without warning and pissed her off. She's hormonal, tired and still trying to work and balance everything. I think she needs to see that someone is noticing that, but she also needs to see that withholding that kind of stuff isn't healthy for a relationship..."