Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
There’s a fly in here, I think as I stare blankly up at the ceiling. The buzz of the annoying insect flying over me. My eyes crack open as I try to find the bug that I want to smash with all the anger I wish I was feeling.
I see it land on the empty coffee table and… I just don’t care.
I know I smell. I haven’t showered since I was let into my old apartment.
I know I’m hungry. I don’t remember eating… ever. I know I must have, I’m still alive.
I know I’m in gross clothes; I haven’t changed and don’t have the energy to.
I made it through the flight, through getting the keys from my old—well, now current—landlord and that’s it. I set my stuff down, locked the door, and fell asleep on the couch after crying myself out of tears.
My chest… It feels like I can’t breathe. Like I’m having a perpetual panic attack and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. My whole body feels heavy, drained yet too full at the same time.
Heartbreak.
I’m used to it by now, but I’m so surprised by the intensity I’m feeling.
Well, I guess I’m grieving four relationships, not just one.
That’s what we were. Together, in love, in a relationship this time. Even if it was just on my end. Last time, it was young love, a crush mixed with hope and wishes for the future. When they left me the first time, I hurt, I grieved, but I knew I’d survive. This time… This time I’m not so sure.
No one really ever truly stays. But what hurts more is that I let myself believe they would stay. That this time, with all our truths out in the open, they’d stay. Want me. Want to keep me. But I guess that’s not in the cards for me.
I turn on the couch, pushing my face into the cushion and forcing myself back to sleep.
Oblivion is better than reality.
Boom, boom, boom!
The sounds of a fist on my door pull me from sleep. My whole body is stiff, like I’ve been sleeping for too long.
Wha…
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Melody!” a beautiful booming voice yells through my door. I’m 98% sure I’m hallucinating.
Maybe if I turn my back on the door, the hallucinations will go away.
“Mel!” Boom, boom, boom! “Please, baby, let us in!”
“Sync!”
“Echo!”
“Songbird!”
“Reverb!”
The voices start mixing, adding into the reverberating knocks that won’t stop. There’s no breaks, no pauses.
Is that part of a hallucination? I haven’t had one in a while that wasn’t due to getting high or drunk.
Is this what it feels like normally? Not that hallucinations are ever normal.
“Sync! Get your ass up and open this door or I’m breaking it down!”
Kai?
“Just do it, she’s not going to be here much longer anyway,” one of them says loud enough that I can hear.
“What?” I croak out, my voice hoarse from days of disuse.
“Stay back, baby!” one of them yells, Markus I think, before the cracking of wood and the thundering of footsteps.
“Oh god, Echo,” Adam says softly as he stops at my side and rolls me onto my back. When his hands touch my back, I fully realize that I’m, in fact, not hallucinating.
“Adam?” I dry whisper.
“Yeah, baby, I’m here.” His pale eyes meet mine and the light glints off the eyebrow piercing I’ve been missing.
“Mel?” Kai comes to kneel by Adam and those piercing eyes stare me down, cataloging everything in my features to make sure I’m okay.
Newsflash: I’m really not.
Despite how fucking bone tired I am, the rage overtakes my body and my eyes shoot fire at them.
“How fucking dare you ?” I seethe, the rasp in my voice making me sound even worse.
“You’re okay, thank god.” Markus comes around quickly, standing at the back of the couch where he puts his hand on my arm.
“Okay? Okay?! ” I can’t believe this shit. “Are you serious right now?”
“Melody—” Reis' voice swims in my ears and my anger intensifies.
“Get out. All of you, get out.”
“What?” Adam asks breathlessly, like he can’t understand me.
“GET. OUT! Get out, get out, get out! I don’t want to see you!” I insist louder, forcing all the anger into my voice. I push myself into a sitting position and my vision swims.
The whole world tilts and I fall back against the couch as I pass out.
“Melody?” A gruff voice laced with worry fills the space quietly. “Come on, baby, open those pretty eyes for me.” It sounds like Kai, but that can’t be right. They sent me away. I had to come back to Haven, was informed that my company was no longer mine, and then stayed still forever.
Until the knocks.
One eye cracks open and I see the worried gaze of four tired rockers staring at me.
“Why are you still here?” I croak out.
“Fuck, you’re okay,” Reis groans softly, running his hand through his hair.“Stop fainting on us!”
“It’s not intentional.” I close my eyes again, ready for them to leave me alone.
“Melody, god, I’m so sorry,” Adam says softly, bringing our clasped hands together. Before he can press his lips against the back of my hand, I pull my hand away and watch the disappointment fill his eyes.
Fucking good.
“Melody, love, we need to tell you what happened.” Markus steps up and starts the conversation, but I can’t.
I just can’t.
“What part are you guys not fucking understanding? I’m done.
I don’t want to hear your excuses, I don’t want to talk about it.
You broke me, are you happy? Congratu-fucking-lations.
Now for your prize, get out .” My voice drips with venom and I want to do nothing but go back to sleep.
I’m losing energy and I’m losing it fast. I want them out of here before I crumble.
Seeing them again… It’s done nothing but make my nerves fray like a live wire. I don’t want to look at them too much because I’m acutely aware of how much it’s going to hurt when they walk away again.
“You don’t mean that.” Markus shakes his head slowly, his chest rising and falling quickly, but I can’t look at him too much. It fucking hurts. Remembering how I thread my fingers through his long hair as he smiled at me while we laid in his bed in New York.
“I do .” I push as much anger into my tone as I can, but in my chest, it feels like the cavern is widening.
“Let us explain, please,” Reis falls to his knees at the foot of the couch and my eyes start to burn.
The one that decided he knew better than to ask me what I meant after overhearing a conversation and left me.
And now he’s here, on his knees, asking me to let him explain after he abandoned me a second time?
How many more times do I need to be discarded by these guys for me to realize that they just don’t actually love me?
This was it.
“Please, Sync, we didn’t know.” Kai puts his hand on my thigh and I try not to flinch or melt under his hand.
“You didn’t know?” I tilt my head, the blackness edging my vision still present but fading as my need for closure and vengeance helping me power through. “I saw the goddamn message. ‘ Get her out of here, you were right .’ Ring a bell?”
“That wasn’t me, baby, I swear,” Reis pleads with me, setting his hand on my ankle, squeezing just enough that I know his heart is tightening in his chest.
“I fucking saw it!” I scream, pulling my leg from their hands. “Stop touching me!”
“We saw it, too. And it was a message he doctored to look like I’d sent it.
We found the original on the tablet and the different versions he’d saved before making the one you saw as the tablet background.
Louis was a cunning motherfucker but we figured it out, Songbird,” Markus quickly explains, running his hand through his hair, all while staring at me with those big brown eyes.
My heart beats uncomfortably.
Like it desperately wants to believe what they’re saying.
They must read my hesitation after that because they all start talking.
“We tried to cancel the rest of the tour to come get you, but management had our hands tied,” Reis starts.
“We tried contacting you, stalking every single social media account. Going so far as to use Paul’s social media to try and keep tabs on you. You were so quick to block us, but we needed to know you were safe,” Markus adds.
“We fired Louis, kicking his ass on the way out. He won’t work in the industry again. I’m so fucking sorry we didn’t do it sooner,” Kai murmurs, looking down at his hands.
“We love you. All of us . We love you so fucking much. We feel like we were lost without you. If Paul hadn’t told us that you didn’t want to leave, we might have believed you wanted to go like Louis told us.
But Paul clued us in, and we knew. We knew you didn’t want to leave.
But by the time we could get to you, you were gone.
We were blocked. We called everyone to try and get eyes on you.
Please, believe us when we say we love you so much it fucking hurts.
” Adam breathes in sharply through his nose and his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard.
“How can I trust that? How can I trust that you aren’t going anywhere?
Huh?” I look at each of them pointedly. “Each time we’ve come to a turning point, I’ve been dropped.
Discarded. How can I trust that you actually love me and that the next time something happens, I will be held instead of pushed aside? ”
They all look at me with a mix of heartbreak and determination.
But I cannot care.
I can’t.
“We didn’t?—”
“Please, leave.” I can’t do this.
I can’t.
I can’t.
“Sync, Melody, stop.” Kai’s voice cuts through the voice in my head. His hands come up and grab mine as I finally feel my fingers pressing into my eyes painfully.
“Please leave,” I whisper.
“Melody–” Reis starts, but I throw my arms up and push out of the couch.
Fuck fainting this time; I’m going to do this by pure spite if I need to.
I stand up, stepping to the other side of the wall of men, and stand as strongly as I can.
My legs wobble and my knees feel weak, but I’m going to do this. Prove to them—and myself—that I can.
I lived without them before, I can do it again.