I turned away when I saw tears glistening on her cheeks. "I told you that you didn't want to know." I muttered.
The bed groaned as she sat up. "Trey, that's not it at all." she said softly. She got up and came around to stand in front of me before putting her knees on either side of my waist and sitting on my thighs. One hand threaded through my hair, her delicate fingers gently sifting it through them, and the other hooked around my neck.
I looked up at her, drowning in her emerald eyes. She blinked and fresh tears rolled down her face. Our faces were so close that I could have counted each individual freckle on her cheeks and nose, so close that I could see tiny droplets of moisture clinging to her full, dark lashes. I reached up to cup her cheeks almost hesitantly, as if she would break if I was too rough with her, brushing away her tears with my thumbs. "Then why are you crying?"
There was a moment of silence in which the only sounds were our shallow breathing and the steady, rhythmical beating of our hearts.
Her hand slid from my hair to my neck, bringing herself so close to me that our chests were flush against each other. "Because I know you blame yourself for all of it, when it wasn't your fault." I let out a ragged sigh, leaning away from her.
Did she even know what she had just said? It was my fault. The evidence was all there.
I was suffocating, drowning, dying in that moment, and when had it gotten so fucking hot in here?
I was burning, smoldering, ripping apart from the inside out.
My eyes burned. My heart ached.
It was my fault. No matter what anyone said, it was all my fault.
If I hadn't yelled at him, he would've still been here! If I had just kept my anger in check, Jade could've grown up with a father! And if she didn't hate me for it now, she would later.
"Shh," Melody's voice was soothing and full of light, and I shied away from it in the dark corner of my head that I had sunk into. "I'm here for you." Soft hands caressed my face, anchoring me to reality.
I blinked and I was back and I was still Trey, and Mel was there, constant and strong. I was so utterly lost, and I registered the tears that were slipping down my face. "You-" my voice was hoarse, the word cracking as I forced it past my dry tongue. "You can't say that it's not my fault." My tone was doubtful, almost accusing.
She did not cringe or turn away. Instead, she said, "Yes I can."
"Why?"
I felt so small, like I was a little boy again hiding behind my mother's skirt as a few different nurses rushed around my father to hold him back as he had another seizure in his hospital bed. "He's okay, Trey," she would say, "He always comes back to us."
"Because you are a good person, Trey." Mel answered. "And I'm sure that your dad knows that you didn't mean it. I promise, he doesn't hold it against you. Your dad loves you."
I couldn't think of anything to say to this beautiful, amazing girl before me. She stood by me no matter what, encouraging me to be the good person she could see hidden deep inside of me. I felt that same wave of longing that I felt at the hospital when I saw her lying unresponsive in that hospital bed, the ache to be that person. For her. For Jade, my mom.
For myself.
I felt something stirring inside of me and realized that my cold heart, frozen over for so long by self-hatred and sadness and anger, had finally been thawed out.
I leaned forward and nudged her nose with mine. "What would you say," I murmured, "if I were to ask if I could kiss you?"
She only tilted her head upward, her lips connecting with mine in response. And unlike our first kiss which had been fused with desperation and haste, this particular one was slow and gentle. I wanted to show her rather than tell her how much I cared about her, how thankful I was for her.
I could feel her wet lashes brush against my cheeks, taste the saltiness of her tears and possibly my own. I smiled against her lips as I felt her pull closer to me before deepening the kiss. My tongue caressed hers, and I could feel my conscience disappearing in a thick haze as the succulent smell of oranges filled my brain.
"Trey, I-" she broke off, biting her soft bottom lip and looking away.
I could tell that whatever it was that she had been about to say was something important to her. I wrapped my arms tighter around her waist, pulling her impossibly close. "What is it?" I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fluttering around like a hummingbird.
She shook her head. "I-I'll tell you some other time." There was vulnerability in her eyes, mixed with a raw emotion that I couldn't quite place, but I could tell that it was a particularly strong one because her eyes were brighter than I'd ever seen them.
I smiled and gave her a soft peck on the lips. "Okay."
And then I saw the locket again, completely visible and hanging out of her sweater. She must have noticed what I was looking at because she said, "It was my mom's."
I reached out and held it in my hand, feeling the cool, smooth metal beneath my fingers. I moved to open it but stopped, looking into her eyes first.
She gave me a sad, almost tired-looking smile. "Go ahead."
It clicked open and I saw a picture in each of the tiny circular windows: a man's smiling face on the left and a woman who looked exactly like Mel holding a baby on the right. "It's your parents." I said, looking up again.
"Yes." She whispered.
I glanced at the pictures again. Her dad had dark hair, almost black, and a warm, open smile. I noticed that his eyes were the exact same color as Mel's: bright emerald green. I assumed that the baby in her mom's arms was Rachel based on how young her mom looked.
"It was my mom's." Melody repeated, breaking the silence. I closed the locket, letting it fall back to rest on her chest again before looked at her to make sure she knew that I was giving her my full attention. "My dad gave it to her when Rachel was a few months old." She picked it up and turned it over, and I could see something engraved on the silver surface. "It says, 'I love you, forever and always.'" I nodded and looked closer at it.
"Wait," I said, "there's a name here, too." It glittered in elaborate cursive script. Daniel.
"Yeah," she said, "my dad's."
"What happened to him?"
She took a deep, shaky breath before speaking, but she still wouldn't look me in the eye. I didn't question it. "He...left." she paused, as if debating on whether or not to add anything. "Rachel was eight years old, but as for me," she glanced up at me for a second before staring at her hands. I could see tears brimming in her eyes. "I was about a month old."
I was shocked. That man in the picture didn't look like the kind of guy who would just walk out on his family like that. He had a trustworthy smile like Mel's. He had smiling eyes like Mel did. "Do you know why?"
She shook her head slowly. "No, not really. Rachel said that he and Mom fought a lot during her pregnancy with me, and when I was born it only got worse. One day she got home from school and he was gone. All of his stuff and everything-just like that. Mom hasn't been the same ever since then, throwing herself at her work and shutting everyone out. Rachel said that she used to smile all the time when dad was still around, but it's hard to believe when she hardly ever does at all now."
"Where did he go?"
She shrugged. "Who knows. My whole childhood was a mess of stories that Rachel would tell me about our dad, and she'd always make up some kind of cool adventure he'd be on when I'd ask him where he was. And because Mom was at work most of the time, Rachel was the one who took care of me and raised me." She said.
I was genuinely surprised by what she had just told me. Her mom hadn't struck me as the type of woman who would do something like that when the going got rough. The smile-lines on her face the crinkled edges of her blue eyes projected an image of happiness. She looked like the kind of person who had reserves of strength deep within her, like Melody.
I guess in the end, the only person who had ever really been strong in her family was Rachel, and I was thankful that she had taught Melody that quality. It was something I had always lacked, and another reason why I hadn't liked Mel when we were kids; she was always so strong, so happy. How wrong I was to think that she was living a perfect life while I suffered in silence.
"It was always Rachel." she continued, oblivious of the thoughts that were running rampant in my head. "She tucked me in at night, read me bedtime stories to get me to sleep. She was the one who would put a Band-Aid on my scraped knee. The one who I went to at night when I had a nightmare."
"How did you get the locket, then?"
She finally locked eye contact with me. "I found it one day when my mom was at work behind the couch when I was playing hide and seek with Rachel." She stopped briefly to rub her thumb absentmindedly over the locket. "I showed it to her and she told me about it. She told me to put it back where I got it from, that if mom saw it she'd be upset and probably be gone more than she already was, but I ignored her. Instead, I tucked it away in a roll of socks in my room. I forgot about it for a while, but I found it again when I was middle school and after that I wore it every day. I guess I thought that if I wore it enough, eventually he'd come back for it. For us. For me."
She sighed and looked away. "I don't know. It's stupid, really." But even as she said it, I could see how much she had meant her words before.
My heart softened and I pulled her in for a hug. "It's not stupid if you believe in it." I said. "And as long as you believe in it, I believe in it, too."
Her arms wound around my neck. "Thank you, Trey." Her warm breath tickled my neck.
"You're welcome." I whispered into her hair.
And we stayed like that for a little while longer, saying nothing, until Bryson began to cry again and Melody went to tend him.
--
"Oh my God." Melody murmured, her eyes wide. We were standing in the kitchen.
I crossed my arms, smirking. "What?" I asked, even though I was highly aware of what had caught her attention.
"You brought chocolate?" She inched forward toward the counter with my care package on it, Bryson cradled in her arms. Three shiny Hershey's milk chocolate bars sat with the giant brown Hershey's logo facing us.
My smirk only grew. "Obviously." I said, gesturing lazily to it.
She crept forward another few tiny steps. Bryson looked at me with his big brown eyes over her shoulder, his face turning red in fear. Help me, his face almost could have said. Poor kid; it looked like he knew how dangerous it was to be held in the arms of a chocolate-craving female.
Or maybe he was just dirtying up his diaper.
"Are they..." her voice was a theatrical whisper. "Are they for me?"
I took a few steps toward her, fully aware that her eyes were zeroed in on me. "What do you think?" I asked, stepping between her and her precious chocolate bars.
"Yes...?" Her eyes were round and bright with excitement, like a giddy child opening their most anticipated present on Christmas. Oh, this was just too good...
"Well," I leaned downward, cupping her face with one hand, the other slipping behind my back. Her eyelids closed slowly, and I was merely a hairsbreadth away when I whispered, "that's just too bad."
Her eyes snapped open and I pulled back, holding the candy up in the air victoriously. Her face transformed from childlike to calculating. "Now, now," she said slowly, a too-sweet smile on her face, taking a step toward me, "we wouldn't want to do anything rash, Trey."
I raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. "Whatever do you mean?" I asked innocently.
"Just hand over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt." She said, taking another step forward. I took two steps back, chuckling.
"Oh really now?" I asked. She was really getting desperate now; I could see it in her eyes. "And how do you plan to go through with that?" I gestured to the baby in her arms.
She shifted Bryson to one hip, her lips forming a disheartened pout. "Please?"
No, Mel, no! Anything but the pouty-face!
I could feel my resolve starting to slip when her lip quivered.
"Oh, c'mon, Trey!" she whimpered. "I've been craving chocolate!"
I could feel myself starting to give in, my arm lowering. Her eyes brightened.
No, Trey! You must resist her powers of persuasion!
My arm went behind my back. "I don't think so, miss."
She was really losing it now, but all of a sudden her composure was back and she started stalking toward me with a predatory glint in her eyes. I tried backing away from her but then my back hit the cabinet. I looked around myself helplessly and found that I was stuck in a corner. "It would be a real shame if you didn't get to kiss your girlfriend for a while, wouldn't it?"
My eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't dare."
She smirked at me in a way that was scarily similar to my own. "Oh, you and I both know I would." Damn, she was a fast learner, wasn't she?
"How long would you hold out on me?" I questioned her.
She looked at her fingernails, smirk still firmly in place. "I dunno. A week? A month?"
A month. Now that was a scary thought. We'd be graduating in a month.
I couldn't let her win, though. "Fine. I could go a month without kissing you."
"Really?" she reached into a pocket I hadn't noticed before on her sweater and pulled out a tube of lip gloss. My hands started sweating as she slowly applied it to her lips because I recognized that particular one.
Peach-flavored. Coincidentally, it was my favorite.
She rubbed her lips together, twisting the cap back onto the tube. Then she moved closer to me, and I could smell it strongly. Peaches and oranges. Her delectable lips glistened in the light.
I swallowed audibly.
"R-really." My composure was starting to cave.
"Hmm..."
I tried to think of anything else besides her sweet peachy-flavored lips. Why would she even be carrying that in her sweater anyways? Girls didn't wear that stuff at home that I knew of.
This was reminding me of an episode of Drake and Josh, the one where Josh grew a mustache and his girlfriend, Mindy, refused to kiss him until he shaved it off. He had almost fallen for her apricot-tasting lips, but he resisted.
But this wasn't a TV show. This was real life. And this was something a little more difficult to ignore. I looked at little Bryson, who was observing the situation quietly. What I wouldn't give to be you right now, I thought.
A few hairs had slipped out of Melody's bun and framed her face beautifully. I could see that her emerald eyes were hopeful, expectant. And her lips...
Oh, they looked so good with that silky stuff on.
I could feel sweat beginning to bead around my brow because of how hard I was concentrating on trying to keep myself from jumping her bones right then and there, shoving her against the counter (getting the baby out of the way first, of course) and-
Holy fucking shit. No. No, I most certainly did not want to-
My eyes looked longingly at her lips, and my tongue darted out to moisten my suddenly dry ones. They quirked upward, shimmering at the movement.
Fuck. Yes, yes I did.
"Fine!" I shouted, shoving the chocolate bars into her hand.
She smiled happily, laughing her bubbly little laugh. "Thank you very mu-"
I cut her off before she could finish that sentence by tackling her with a kiss, a growl rumbling through my chest as I did so.
She broke off, laughing. My breathing was heavy. "What?" I demanded.
"You're too cute, Trey." she said once she caught her breath, leaning forward and kissing me once before walking out of the kitchen.
"Cute?" I groaned, trailing after her.
She laughed in reply, which in turn made me smile. And before long, we were both laughing hysterically about nothing in particular.
*
*
*
Hello, everyone! Man, these past couple of weeks have been unbelievably hectic. Between marching band practice starting back up, my job, and a week at youth camp, I've been so busy that I've barely been able to keep up.
This is going to be a double-post because I feel like you guys deserve it. I'll post chapter sixteen tomorrow or Sunday, depending on when I free up some more time.
Anywho. Thoughts?
What do you think about Mel's backstory? Is it at all what you expected?
And what about the chocolate fluff at the end? (That scene was so close to being cut, but I decided to keep it for kicks and giggles. I hope you don't mind.)
I'll see you guys very soon, and that's a promise! Now I'm off to bed because I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.
-Caitlyn