A Girl Like Her

Chapter 19

"Beware the person who stabs you and then tells the world they're the one bleeding" ~ Unknown

Song: Trying My Best by Anson Seabra

By the time I got back to my house, the nerves that made the hair on the back of my neck never left. There was this eerie feeling that clung to me, causing my heart to nearly beat out of its chest. My fingers held onto the wheel for dear life and even as I pulled into my driveway, the familiar Devil that was fear kept chasing after me.

As if the day couldn't get any weirder, I nearly froze up at the site before me. Sitting on my front porch, legs crossed over one another, smoking a damn cigarette with that familiar lazy smile of hers. I stared. My car was put in park but I didn't dare leave my car.

What in the hell! How did she- how did she get here?

Ages seemed to pass. Her just staring at me without a glimmer of nerves in her eyes, and I just sat in my car. Were my eyes deceiving me? Was this real? Was she really here? Was I hallucinating?

Finally, she stood up, slowly, almost tauntingly, and dropped the bud to the ground. Stepping on it as she made her way over to my door. Her steps were slow, assured, determined. Her skin seemed even paler with the dye of black staining the strands. The skeptical blue of her eyes didn't waver, didn't falter as she stopped in front of the car, a hand on her hip, as if to say Well, aren't you gonna get out?

And finally, all at once, I snapped out of it. I blinked rapidly, my seat belt clicked out and I hesitated to reach the handle of the door. When I pulled it back, I didn't have time to take it back if I wanted. In no time, the door was yanked from my fingertips, and I was pulled out of my seat and into the arms of the one person I'd thought had forgotten about me for certain.

She breathed in, her arms squeezing me so tight I thought I'd suffocate. Her hair smelled of smoke, the grey, worn down jacket of overused perfume trying to mask the scent of weed, and her breath smelled of the use of alcohol. The only thing about her that's changed is her hair. Her black hair used to be so blonde and shiny. It always looked so healthy but now, the dark comparison made her look all the more sick.

"Layla Adams!" She pulled back, yellow stained her toothy smile and she leaned back to look at me some more. It seemed as if her eyes held no judgement, yet I could tell that was exactly what she was doing- sizing me up. Looking at how much I've changed over the short amount of time I'd been here. When she seemed finished with her investigation, her smile faltered just the slightest. Finally, she spoke. "You seem tanner," was her only note of observation.

She was right, I had gotten more tan. I spent more days outside then I ever did back in Georgia. The sun had warmed me, consumed me, made me feel safe in its warm embrace.

"Melanie, what- how did you..."I trailed off, not understanding how she was even here. I never told anyone where I was moving, just that I was leaving. I didn't want any reminders of the past. I didn't want to keep in contact with anyone who knew the Layla then. I wanted a clean slate. A new life. Another chance to be happy. To be somebody damnit!

Melanie squeezed my shoulders, a cocky grin on her thin, chapped lips. "You didn't think you could hide from me forever, did you?" She laughed. But it was forced. "Honestly, Lay, I got to admit, I'm a little hurt. Not even a postcard? No phone calls? No FaceTime? Not even a damn letter?" I could hear the hurt in her voice, as hard as she might have tried to hide it, it was there.

I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't really have anything to say to her. She left me there. She left me at that party that night. After that, I never wanted to see her again. I was so mad for so long. After that night, I was blaming everybody but myself. No one could have predicted what was bound to happen, except for me. There were signs I never took seriously. Red flags I blatantly ignored. A whole damn drink I tipped back without so much of a question to its concoction. I didn't push hard enough. And I paid the price for it. None of it was Mel's fault. But hell if she didn't bring back those memories all at once.