On The Edge

Prologue

SEVEN YEARS AGO…

“Hey man,” I call, tipping my head in greeting to my best friend Kai as we approach the band room to pick up our friend , Melody.

Calling her my friend tastes like ash in my mouth .

I want her to be mine. I wish she was mine.

And unfortunately, so do my best friends; Markus, Adam and Kai.

It’s no secret between us just how much we each want her.

I try not to snarl at the memory of Markus picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist, ‘all for the game’ we were playing one night. Fucking prick.

After Mel left, Markus and I got into a fist-fight that almost ruined our friendship. I threw the first punch, and I’ll own it, but he knew I don’t like them touching her.

But I can see the way her eyes light up when it happens. She looks the same when I do it.

And that makes my chest hurt. Because it means on some level… she might want one of them more than she wants me.

So after Kai and Adam pulled Markus and I apart, we made a pact to let her choose which–if any–of us she wants. We can’t try to sway her to pick or ask her on dates, but if she actually makes a move on one of us, the rest have to bow out.

But that doesn’t mean that we change anything now.

We still all hang out pretty much twenty-four/seven; we still take care of her, hold her hand, hug her; she still comes to all our concerts in my garage and cheers us on.

She smiles at each of us like we’ve hung the moon and makes it impossible to not crave her more and more each day.

Kai and I usually pick her up after her last class of the day on Fridays, choir in the band room, and then we all pile into Adam’s beat-up old truck and drive out to my house to practice our music for the band we’re starting.

“Hey, Reisyn, how was class?” Kai asks. I shrug and lean back against the white-painted cinderblock wall, stuffing my hands into my pockets and crossing my legs at the ankle, my black boots knocking together.

“Shitty. I can’t wait for us to be done with this fucking town and finally go to New York.” I shake my head, running a hand through my shaggy black hair in frustration.

I want to get the fuck out of here. No one, not one person around us, understands why we love rock music.

My family doesn’t understand me. More specifically, my mom doesn’t.

She thinks Melody is the devil come to tempt me away from heaven, and she’s determined to tell me exactly how I’m wasting my life writing poetry and songs.

My favorite phrase of hers is, “If you don’t learn a practical skill, you’re going to be out on the streets and I won’t have a son that isn’t successful.”

All she cares about is image and money. Oh, and forcing her religion on everyone she meets.

She barely contains her disappointment for me when I leave every morning wearing ripped jeans, black shirts and black boots, my hair ‘unacceptable’ and the promise of sin in my smirk.

I’ve long since given up trying to be the perfect poster boy for her, no matter how many light colored polos and khakis she buys for me. They all end up in the same place: the trash.

No, I actually give them to the school for others that might need clothes, or I strategically leave them places—the locker room, the gym, or the donation pile.

Kai, Markus and Adam are the same. Their parents are a little more understanding, but… we live in Oklahoma. In the Bible Belt. So no one really understands.

No one except her.

Melody.

She understands. She understands and she sees us. Sees me.

“I know, same. I would leave tomorrow if we could take Mel with us. The year after graduation is going to fucking suck, but then…” He sighs happily, his light green eyes sparkling with excitement. “Then, we’ll all be together.”

“You think she’ll actually move with us?”

“Hell yeah I do. Melody said she doesn’t want to stay here either, and New York City is closer to Connecticut than Oklahoma.”

Melody moved here two and a half years ago, in the beginning of her freshman year.

We’ve all been inseparable ever since this little beautiful sprite sat down at our lunch table–the one the other students usually gave a wide berth because they think we’re fucking weird–and told Adam she wasn’t going to leave, and for him to get the hell over it.

All while pointing at him with the end of her plastic knife.

We all nearly fell to our knees right then.

“True.” I nod, turning to stand a little closer to the door. What the hell is taking her so long? “Do you think she’ll be mad that we’re planning on sticking around until she graduates?”

Kai stands on the other side of the band door, arms crossed across his chest as he sighs heavily. Knowing exactly how Melody’s going to take the news.

Badly.

She doesn’t want to “hold us back from our dreams,” but there’s no way in hell that we’re leaving without her.

Kai shakes his head and glances down. He looks the opposite of me; blonde hair, cut shorter than he’s said he wants but did it so his mom would stop complaining, light green eyes and sharp jaw, with an insufferable smirk that makes most of the girls around him want to fuck him in secret.

Not that he’d ever give a girl other than Melody the time of day, but there’ve been some obsessive ones.

The guys and I… we know our effect on girls. We’re the ‘bad boys’ of Haven High School, so even if they swear up and down that they would never want us, they always slide into our DM’s asking if we want a handjob.

That’s a real quick no.

There’s only been one girl who sees us for more than just looks, more than just what we are or aren’t. One girl who is enough to make all four of us take on the whole school to keep her protected.

“No, I think–” he starts to say, but is cut off by a very loud, very fake laugh from inside the room. “The fuck?”

I push off the wall and turn, looking into the room through the small window of the thick door. Melody is standing there with one of the chicks who obsesses over Kai. She’s got plain brown hair, plain features, and really… that’s the only thing I can think of when I see her. She’s just plain .

But then again, all the girls I’ve seen around look plain when compared to Melody.

The girl looks like she’s trying to be friendly to Melody, but when I look at Melody, all the color has left her face.

My internal sensors are going off like they always do when she’s talking to someone I don’t really know. Not only that, but Melody looks like she’s seen a ghost and is putting on a fake smile to keep it happy.

“Oh god, that girl,” Kai groans, rolling his eyes. “She won’t leave me alone and now she’s talking with Mel?”

“Who is she?”

“Hell if I know. She’s in my gym class and gets way too fucking close to me.

I’ve tried being nice about it, but she won’t take the hint that I absolutely am not interested.

” He shakes his head. “But if she brushes up against me, tits first, one more fucking time, I’m going to snap. And I told her as much.”

I internally sigh and want to bang my head on the wall. So she’s probably all catty about being rejected.

“Let’s go get her,” I say, opening the door just enough that I can hear their voices, but the way they’re positioned they can’t see the door open.

“Don’t you want them? You do, don’t you?” the girl drooling over Kai asks incredulously, crossing her arms with a toying smirk on her face.

Melody straightens her shoulders then smooths out her features in a way I haven’t seen from her before. It’s cold, calculating, void of any part of the girl I’ve come to know. And then she opens her mouth.

“I don’t want any of them. They’re nothing to me.

Nothing. They’re not successful, and we all know they won’t be.

Especially not with that band we all know isn’t going anywhere.

They coast by on their looks and charm.” Melody shrugs with a cruel laugh, looking down at the floor.

I wish it would open up and swallow me whole.

But she keeps fucking talking. “They’re like my brothers; it’s sick to think of them like that.

I’ll tell you the truth, they latched onto me and I’ve been reaping the benefits.

No one but your dumb ass messes with me.

Talk about using them to make my life better. Maybe that’s why Kai doesn’t want you.”

I close the door, having heard enough. This… No, I…What? My thoughts are racing so fast and it feels like my brain can’t actually comprehend what she’s saying. What those words mean.

But then I look at Kai and it’s like the world snaps into place. I understand. And I think I actually feel my heart break.

Rage .

Anger.

Heartbreak.

Denial.

“That… What?” Kai asks, turning to face me but I can’t see him. Not really.

My entire world just turned upside down in an instant. Everything I’ve ever wanted, the one person I thought saw me , was just using me. Using us.

“She–” Kai shakes his head but I cut him off.

“She’s nothing to us now.” My voice comes out stronger than I feel inside. The agony threatens to pull me under, but I can’t let it show.

“Maybe we heard wrong.” Kai’s reaching, refusing to see Melody for the snake she is.

“No, we heard her clearly for the first time,” I snap, storming away from the door. “She showed her true colors, Kai. Now we know. Let’s go.”

“Wait, we’re just going to leave her?” Kai asks, his eyes drifting from me to the door and back like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Yes!” I turn and hiss. “Yes, we’re going to leave her. Didn’t you hear what she said? She was using us, Kai. She doesn’t care about us.”

His eyes drop, his chest deflating as my words ring true in his ears.

Kai looks devastated, and I know exactly how he feels. I want to cry, I want to rage, I want to… I want to leave.

“Let’s go,” I say again, hoarser as I try to hold my emotions back. “She’s nothing but a liar.”