32. Smoke
32
SMOKE
“ Y ou left?” Quinn says.
The two words are spoken in a wash of incredulity and hurt.
Quinn’s pain hits my skin as certainly as the fire did on that mountain.
Melody shrugs. “I did.”
“You fucking bitch,” I say, unmatched fury pulsing through my veins.
Melody looks up at me and blanches.
“You know I was bored, Ronan. You were meant to be my walk on the wild side, but all you ever did was talk about the club all the fucking time.”
Her use of my name feels wrong.
“Not sure how you go from being a miserable eighteen-year-old to thinking, fuck it, I’ll just abandon my family and leave them thinking the worst for their entire lifetime.”
Quinn shivers next to me.
I can only imagine the feelings she must be having right now.
Got to be honest, Melody is like a ghost rising from the dead.
Got no fucking clue about the stats, but I have to believe that close to a hundred percent of the people who have been missing as long as Melody are dead.
I’d long since made peace with the fact she was probably gone.
As opposed to those first couple of years when I kept expecting her to turn up in the bakery.
“I wanted to get out of here.” Melody turns to Quinn.
“I tried to talk to Mom and Dad about a month before I left. I enjoyed baking, but it was just a hobby. It was more that I liked spending time with Mom, puttering in the bakery, but as soon as it became my job, I started to see the lather, rinse, repeat of it all.”
I scoff at that.
“Everybody’s got to make a living.”
Melody shakes her head.
“It wasn’t even that. I was bored. I wanted bright lights and big cities. I watched a movie about a journalist who went on tour with a band, and it was hedonistic and wild.” She sighs, as if recalling a fabulous memory, then shakes her head.
“Anyway, I knew our parents wouldn’t let me leave. So, I made it look as though I was taken and disappeared.”
“You ruined us,” Quinn says, and I put my arm over her shoulder.
Tugging her to me. “Why couldn’t you have just left a note? Told us you were going and not to bother coming to find you? Everything fell apart because you were gone. Mom killed herself, Mel. Killed herself, because she couldn’t live with it anymore. She gave up on me and Dad and withdrew until…”
Melody’s mouth opens wider and wider as Quinn speaks.
“Oh my God. No.”
I find it hard to have sympathy for the tears that spill over her lashes, but it’s the first sign of anything emotionally real since she arrived.
“Tell her all of it, sugar.”
Quinn takes a deep breath.
“When you left, Mom and Dad spent the first year giving every minute of their day to finding you. Checking in with police, using social media. Surely you saw it. Did you never even check?”
Melody takes a deep breath.
“I came here to ask for help. I have a daughter.”
I tense for a second, praying to God it isn’t mine.
“She’s six,” Melody says.
“Her name is Liberty Ann, and she needs a stem cell transplant because she has leukemia.”
It hits me why this is relevant before it hits Quinn.
“You came because you’re looking for donors since, for whatever reason, you aren’t a match. You barely acknowledged what Quinn just told you about what happened since you left. Your mom is dead because of your actions, you selfish bitch.”
Melody gasps, then faces Quinn.
“Please, Quinn. I know there’s so much that I can’t fix or bring time back. But Liberty shouldn’t be a victim of it all too. The doctors suggested both me and Jack, my husband, and our families get tested. Jack and I are half-matches and could do a haploidentical transplant, but it’s better if they’re a full match. No one in Jack’s family is. Nor is anyone on the register.”
“You wanted me, Silas, Mom, and Dad to test, in case we were better matches?” Quinn says finally.
“I’m sorry,” Melody says.
“What I did was reckless and foolish and irresponsible. I guess, at eighteen, I thought I had all the answers.”
“Was it worth it?” Quinn asks, and I take a hold of her hand.
Her fingers are ice cold.
“The first few years were a blur. I became an addict. To be expected, really. You ask if I saw Mom and Dad’s social media, and the honest answer is I barely remember anything about those years. It felt fun. And then, I overdosed three years after I left. It was a wake-up call. I got clean. Sobered up. Got a job and met Jack.”
Melody smiles softly at that.
“Here,” she says, grabbing her phone from her purse.
“That’s Jack and Liberty.”
Quinn and I both lean forward a little to get a better look.
A cute kid with dark hair and dark eyes like her dad.
“You ask was it worth it?” she says.
“Based on those first few years, no. But if I hadn’t been going to my AA meeting, I wouldn’t have met Jack on the subway.”
I think about that movie Quinn mentioned, how the rest of your life could depend on whether you make it onto a subway train or not.
Silence blankets us all.
Quinn leans back against the sofa.
I keep my arm tight around her shoulders.
And Melody puts her phone away.
“I understand that all this is my fault. I’m sorry I left the way I did. I’m sorry I stayed away. And Mom…” Melody starts to sob.
“That’s my fault too.”
And even my ice-cold heart thaws a little.
Can’t imagine having a kid, let alone one with leukemia.
Can’t imagine being an addict and overdosing.
Can’t imagine learning your mom killed herself because of your actions.
That’s some fucking heavy shit to process.
“Mel,” I say finally, “you’ve got to get some help with that load. I know what it feels like to carry responsibility for that kind of shit.”
She huffs a sad laugh.
“I’ve been in therapy for the last four years.”
I shake my head.
“Then you need a better therapist.”
“I need some time to think about it,” Quinn says.
I can see Melody mentally deciding whether she should push or not.
“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. It used to be a needle into your bone marrow. But now, it’s preferred that you get a series of injections over a few days, and then you go onto a machine that collects the stem cells from your bloodstream. It’ll mean coming to New York for four or five days.”
Quinn sighs.
“I’ve never left Colorado.”
“Oh my gosh, there’s a whole world outside this state. You’ll love it. Air travel. Bright lights. I?—”
“I didn’t go anywhere because Mom drilled it into us that someone had to be here, at the bakery, in this goddamn apartment, the whole time. So, whenever you were found, if you ever found your way back to us, one of us would be here. You think I wanted to be a baker? And yet, somehow, I’m still here. I gave up my life for yours, Melody. Please don’t add insult to injury by telling me how much I’ve missed out on because I did as she said.”
Melody looks utterly wrecked.
Perhaps, in her mind, she’d reconciled the past. Thought that everything was okay now.
“Mel. You’ve come in like a wrecking ball with zero comprehension of what it’s been like. People in this town think I killed you. Do you know that? I’ve lived with the suspicion since it became apparent I was one of the last witnesses to see you alive. Me. A biker in an outlaw motorcycle club. I spent weeks trying to find you, to follow leads. The club organized full searches of every gully and ravine this side of Denver, because we thought we were looking for a dead person or a hostage, not someone running away. You plowed through all our lives like a tornado. And while I’m so sorry your kid’s sick, this hasn’t solved things. You have to know that.”
Her smile turns watery.
“I’m sorry. I’ll keep saying that until you believe it. And I’ll keep showing you both for however long you all need. But my daughter doesn’t have that long. We need to decide whether to give her our half match and hope it works or a full match if we can quickly find one.”
“I’ll go get Dad’s number for you,” Quinn says, quickly jumping up.
I hear the pad of her feet as they head to the kitchen.
“What you did to your family, me, and the people of this town who dedicated chunks of their lives to finding you is horrific, Mel. I don’t want your apology. I don’t want to know you. And if it weren’t for the fact there’s a kid in the middle of this, I would have kicked you out so fast, you bounced. But let me assure you of something: I’m not that twenty-one-year-old punk who thought with his cock anymore. I’m the road captain of the Iron Outlaws Motorcycle Club.” I stand, bringing myself to my full height.
“So, this is the only promise you will get from me. Half this town already thinks I killed you. Now, I’m actually capable of it. You fuck with Quinn, you hurt her, pressure her, guilt her, or do absolutely anything to interfere with her happiness, I’ll make you disappear for good. You will not fight for a share of the bakery, the apartment, or your mom’s things. You won’t take a single thing from her, because if you do, I will have zero compunction in taking your life to make up for it.”
Shellshock etches her features.
I’ve seen it on firefighters’ faces when they return from a catastrophic fire.
And it’s written all over Melody’s face, now.
But I don’t have any compassion to offer her.
Instead, I leave Melody sitting in the chair and go find the only woman I actually care about in this whole shit show.
I hear her muttering and slamming drawers.
“Where are my pens? And why don’t I ever seem to have a piece of paper on hand when I need one?”
By the time I get there, I find her, head bowed, hands white knuckling the edge of the marble counter.
It’s an ugly peach-and-brown-veined slab that was probably cool in the eighties.
When I woke this morning, before all this shit went down, I was determined to help her start making this place her own.
It came to me, sometime around one, when I was wide awake and Quinn was cuddled up against my side, that she’d need to tear this place down to be able to move on.
Even if she stays here, she needs to remove every trace of this period of her life.
Now, I’m even more sure of it.
She needs to shed this place like it’s a second skin.
A tear splats on the shitty marble I fully intend on taking a sledgehammer to.
Gently, I place my hand on her back.
“Hey,” I say quietly.
“Take a breath, sugar.”
She looks up at me and swipes beneath her eyes.
“I didn’t think it would be like this.” Her words are quietly whispered.
“In every variation I’ve ever thought about, this was not what happened that night. How could she be so cruel?”
“I know.” I pull her to me, and she buries herself against my chest. I wish there were a way I could carry some of this for her.
I wish I could kiss courage and strength into her to bolster her when she’s trying to be so brave.
I press a kiss to the top of her head.
“It’s okay to feel everything you’re feeling.”
“I wish I could put into words what all those feelings are.”
I look at the list on the countertop, her plans to move forward with her life and decorate this place.
“We’ll make a list.”
She huffs a laugh at that.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask.
“If you want Melody to stick around because you need to know more, I’ll go tell Kinsey you won’t be down to help for a while in the bakery. Do you want some space, or do you want me to come back upstairs?”
“I want Melody to leave. I want her details so I can do some research about giving stem cells. But I don’t think I can talk to her again.”
I kiss the tip of her nose, then hand her a takeout menu.
“Just write your Dad’s number on this. Then go get in the shower, and I’ll make that happen.”
Plus, I’ve got another long-overdue phone call to make.