Chapter 9
NINE
They’re all acting like I’ve done something horrendous.
If you think about it, all I really did was give them what they really wanted. Her.
I cross my arms and look away from them, from her, and try to close my eyes to get some rest. They’re all pissed off at me and I’m not going to apologize for doing it.
I didn’t want to hear her excuses, or worse–understand why she’d said those things.
I just want to get home.
Thankfully, everyone else stays quiet too so I can let my mind drift.
There’s no denying that our music has taken a bit of a turn recently, all sad and dark love songs rather than the angry and upbeat singles people correlate with our sound.
I just… I haven’t been inspired to write any new music.
Kai and Markus give me tunes sometimes, and it’ll spark some flicker of inspiration, but then before I can create a whole song, it dies out.
We all write songs, but I’m really the one to flesh them out and curate them. So it’s almost impossible when all four of us are depleted.
Adam has been in a funk for a long-ass time. Pulling away from us all more and more over time. Lately, I’ve gotten the feeling that the music–the reason why we started this group–isn’t enough for him anymore.
As for me… Well, I’m just angry. I’ve been angry and hyperfocused on proving her wrong for seven back-breaking years.
What Kai and I heard, well, that was the last straw.
But I’d heard rumors going around. Other girls tried to make me jealous by saying that Melody would never want me and that she was using us to fit in, to pay for her lunches and dote on her (which we did).
That she thought we were all suckers just falling for a pretty face as she strung us along.
They told me that they’d heard it from her directly.
The first time someone told me that I punched the guy out, figuring he was just a jealous fuck. Melody was ours, and everyone knew it.
The second time, it was one of the girls that was a little too into musicians and wanted us to run a train on her.
Secretly, of course, because she’d never want to sully her reputation by associating with us heathens.
As intriguing as that idea was to me, I pushed her away at the bonfire and said no.
She threw her hands up and yelled out that vile shit at me about Melody, and it stopped me in my tracks.
I couldn’t hit a girl, but I made it perfectly fucking clear to not say that shit again.
The final time was when Kai and I were going to pick Melody up from the band room and we heard her. “They’re nothing to me. Nothing.”
Her voice screams those words in my mind every night. Every night I have the same nightmare, and Melody is always at the forefront of the horror show.
The guys and I are playing at a sold-out show. I’m singing and the guys are playing behind me, we’re rocking the show fantastically like we always do. Just as the last note rings out… there’s no applause. No cheering.
Just silence.
The silence stretches on for a beat too long before the ‘boos’ start.
Thousands of people screaming at us, throwing things at us on stage, but I can’t see any of them.
The stage lights are too bright and blinding.
There’s no security so people start rushing the stage and take us down.
Mobs of people attack my best friends and I.
In the dream, I’m always knocked down as I try to protect the guys, and right before I pass out from the agony of the mobs fists and kicks, I see Melody.
Smirking and standing over me telling me I’m nothing, we’re all nothing.
And she spits on me before turning her back on us.
Then I wake up. Every night.
Every. Night.
My face scrunches up as I try to shake the nightmare loose to actually get some rest.
I’m sure there’s some psychological bullshit that I need to talk to someone about, but instead, I think that having Melody see just how much we’ve accomplished, how successful we are, and how little she means to us, to me, will help that. Fix whatever part of my psyche she broke.
I just need to see her jealous. I need to see her hurting. I want her to feel how I’ve felt for years. The sleepless nights, the torment, the anger.
I need her to know that she’s the cause of it all.
My chest heaves with my need for vengeance, for retribution, even if the others don’t feel the same way. I didn’t tell them everything, just what Kai overheard. They didn’t need to know just how awful she was . Is.
My eyes flash open. I look over at the girl who’s responsible for all my strife and for the briefest of moments, it all goes away.
When I look at her sleeping face, she looks just like she did in high school. Trusting, kind, sweet. She used to look at me like I was her savior. Like she might’ve loved me.
One of the big problems was I saw her look at the others like that as well.
Melody’s eyes are covered with heavy make-up that looks so much harsher in the bright light of the plane. She looks older, like we all do, but her lips still look so pink and plush. I used to have the filthiest fucking dreams about her lips.
Secretly, I still fantasize about her on her knees, sucking my cock like she’s done it for years. Gets me off every single time.
But I’ll never tell anyone that.
Kai’s looking at her too, like he doesn’t know what to believe–or if he even cares about what happened anymore–and his hand rests on her upper thigh.
My eyes narrow as I watch his fucking pinky slip just under the hem of her mini-skirt.
I take a deep breath in through my nose as the familiar, and totally un-fucking-welcomed right now, possessiveness engrained in me for her comes flaring back to life.
“Kai,” I snap through my teeth. He looks at me lazily, like he already knows what I’m going to say, but doesn’t move his hand. “Stop touching her.”
Kai just rolls his eyes. And doesn’t move.
Scowling at him, I wince in pain. Reaching up to touch my eyebrow, I sigh in relief that there’s no blood. But I’m sure my fucking eye is probably black now thanks to Adam.
“How can you just forgive her? Did she even apologize to you? Or are you just giving her your loyalty blindly like a good dog?” I turn my head so I’m looking right at Adam, and readjust into my seat.
His eyes narrow at me and the fire that has been missing from him for so long is back. With a vengeance.
“Why are you being such a dickhead?” His stare looks extra menacing because of his eyebrow and lip piercings, but I’ve known this little shit since we were five years old, so he doesn’t scare me.
“Because!” I yell, banging my hand down on the armrest, and they all look at me with frustration.
I do my best to take a deep, regulating breath and try again, my voice softer and more confused this time.
“Because…she was just using us. And really, do you think it’s a coincidence that she’s come back into our life now, right when we’ve got tons of money and fame?
She’s going to use us again. Mark my words. ”
“You’re the one that drugged and kidnapped her.
We’re crossing state lines by taking her to New York.
This was your choice, and again, the three of us just went along with it like idiots.
” Markus puts his head in his hands. I know he’s at his wits end, but I’m not getting over this. “Fuck, we’re all accomplices.”
“Yep, you are. So better get good with it fast.” I lean back in my chair and look out the window at the blinking lights of the city below. “She and I have unfinished business.”
Kai raises an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“That little miss Melody has some explaining to do and some trust to earn. How she does that is completely up to her.”
It’s fucking four in the morning by the time we actually roll up to our penthouse. It’s this gorgeous skyscraper with a doorman and round the clock security. I love living in the heart of the City. It’s freeing and energizing.
Or at least, it was for a while. Recently, it’s slowly been losing its luster.
The guys all climb out of the SUV and Markus helps Kai maneuver Melody into his arms. The asshole looks happy about the fact that she’s cuffed to him and has made no move to take it off.
The clean parking garage underneath and the well-lit elevator are a big change from when we first got to New York.
We decided to all live together when we moved to New York City simply because we were technically still in high school, absolutely no money, and we had left on a whim after I got us the bus tickets.
It was a long few days; getting to New York and trying to just survive, but we figured it out.
How we’ve grown. Cue the sarcasm . Now that we are financially able to live on our own, we decided to keep living together. We’re pretty much brothers, after all.
Our apartment is a fucking mansion; huge, floor to ceiling windows that show all of the city spectacularly, clean and spacious. It’s our safe space. The place we can be ourselves without putting on the masks we do for the outside world. And we work really fucking hard to keep it that way.
One of the first rules we made when we started living together was no bringing girls back to our place. We made that pact when we lived in that shitty shoebox we first rented, and we’ve kept it the whole time.
We don’t want any of the outside world to know where we are, except for the few necessary people that have to. So bringing Mel here… It’s a big deal.
I brought up the idea of the pact when Kai and Markus were trying to “acclimate to the city, and all its delights”, is how Markus phrased it.
They were bringing home a girl every night and would fuck behind one of the sheets we used to determine “rooms” in the small-ass space.
Adam and I were sick of being kicked out of our own apartment at all hours of the night. Kai and Markus didn’t see an issue.
We figured it out. Eventually.