16. Chase
16
CHASE
I stare at Melody’s sleeping form, memorizing the shape of her body. Longing for someone who can never be mine. I pour that angst into every note. Composing a symphony of heartache that she inspires. My forbidden muse.
She thinks I hate her, but I don’t. I hate that we cannot be what I want. That I can’t walk over to her right now and take her in my arms. Cradling her body to mine.
There is no us in the future as long as our parents are together. And even after, the stigma of our stepsibling label would follow us. I don’t give a fuck about those things, but I couldn’t taint her like that and have her resent me. It would be a cancer on our relationship. Eating away like a malignant tumor and dooming us from the start.
I don’t know when it happened. This obsession with her. I only know that when I look at her, my heart sings and my brain scrambles to capture the music she brings.
Staring at her like this is as close as I can get to her lately. She’s been avoiding me, and I don’t blame her. The clock is ticking on needing to turn our project in, but with her not even wanting to be in the same room as me, it makes it a little difficult to finish the song. While I could easily do it on my own, it doesn’t feel right to. Maybe if it was someone else, I wouldn’t have given a shit and just done it. But with her, I can’t do that. She deserves to have her voice stamped on our work. I want her fingerprints all over it, seeing what that brain of hers comes up with.
She turns in her sleep with a whimper on her lips and a frown etched between her dark eyebrows.
I wonder if she’s dreaming of her dad again and I wish I could sink inside her psyche and fight off her demons for her, or even just to be there with her so she wouldn’t feel so alone. It’s clear Melody’s had to do a lot on her own, and she shoulders that in the way she attacks life. She’s already caught up in her work and has her professors eating out of the palm of her hand. Even Maestro loves her. She’s easy to fall for, I realize. Which is why it’s infuriating to know that the people who were supposed to love her the most, have caused her such harm.
If she were mine, I’d cherish every fucking moment I had the honor of calling her that.
* * *
Mardi Gras is in full swing, and there are beads and boobs everywhere I look. This school acts like they live on Bourbon Street, and not like they’re a boring school nestled in the middle of Vermont. Briar House is bursting with drunk party goers, as James and I finally show up. I debated if I should even come, but I’ve been moping about for long enough. It’s time to let loose and forget.
My eyes scan the room full of sweaty bodies, hoping or maybe not hoping to see Melody. If some guy was all over her, I don’t know how I’d react right now. I’m strung tight, ready to snap. The further I sink into the house, the rowdier the party gets.
“Watch out!” Someone yells as they come sliding down the banister, nearly missing my head with their incredibly high red heel.
Irritated by almost getting impaled by footwear and in need of a drink, I head into the kitchen to find myself something. Thankfully, there’s a keg set up right in the middle.
I grab a red solo cup and fill it with room temperature keg beer. It might taste like piss, but it helps take the edge off.
I heard from the detective on my mom’s case today, informing me that they were officially closing the investigation. I knew it was coming, but it’s news I didn’t handle well. In fact, I punched a hole in my fucking wall. My hand is still smarting from that stupid decision. My knuckles are swollen and painful, streaked with red cuts along the skin.
James gets lost in the crowd as music pulsates against the walls. It’s loud as hell, but there’s really no one out here that’s going to make a noise complaint. Our closest neighbors are a bunch of moose and maybe a lone bear. It takes over an hour to drive into town, but Langford likes the isolation. I think it makes them feel even more elite. Their way of thinking is if it’s hard to access then it must mean it’s inherently better.
As I drink the warm piss flavored beer, a pair of hands snake around my middle from behind.
“Hey, stranger!”
That voice. I pull out of her grip and turn around to find a slightly unhinged looking Jenna.
“Hey.”
“You haven’t called me.” She pouts poking my chest with her pointy fingernail.
“Jenna, look, we had our fun, but I’m not really interested in pursuing anything further.”
My words settle and she goes through a myriad of emotions before settling on pissed off.
“You fucking asshole!” she screams. I don’t have enough time to react before she hurtles her nearly full cup at me, soaking me from my head down to my feet. She stomps off leaving me in a puddle of sticky beer.
“Bathroom?” I ask one of the guys hanging out in the kitchen.
“Up the stairs. Third door on the left.”
“Thanks.”
I maneuver my way through the crowd, regretting my decision to come at all. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. This isn’t my scene anymore. When I first started attending this school, I couldn’t get enough of the parties. But with my mom’s death, the allure quickly faded. I became angry. Fighting or fucking anyone that crossed me and garnering a reputation. I didn’t give a fuck. They can all think what they want. Some saw it as a challenge, and some avoided me at all costs, too afraid of what I might do.
The bathroom has a line wrapped around the hall, so I go in search of an alternative. The first few doors are occupied, but at the end of the hall, there’s another set of stairs that leads up to an empty room. Tucked in the corner is a bathroom. I head to the sink when I hear the small sniffle from behind me.
“Sorry, I didn’t—” My eyes land on a distraught looking Melody and my entire body is on full alert. “Who hurt you?” I ask, rushing over to where she’s perched on the edge of a white ceramic bathtub. Her eyes are rimmed red, and the tip of her nose matches. It’s clear she’s been crying for some time up here and fat black mascara marks line her cheeks. I take her in, making sure she’s not physically hurt anywhere, but all I see are miles of unblemished skin on display since she’s wrapped in the world’s smallest black dress. It hugs her curves like it’s been painted on.
“No one. Nothing, it’s fine. It’s stupid.” She waves me off, not looking up into my eyes.
“Melody, if it’s making you feel like this, then it most definitely is not fine.”
“What do you care? You hate me. You’re always tormenting me, trying to make me feel things for you.”
I blink slowly. “I don’t hate you.”
“Yeah. Okay,” she scoffs, blowing her nose into a wad of toilet paper. I sit next to her, and she finally takes me in. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I pissed off Jenna.”
“Shocking.”
I peel my shirt off and throw it into the tub, running the water over it. Then, I stand and remove my jeans.
“What are you doing?” Melody asks.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t like sitting in clothes that have been drenched in beer.”
She stands and turns around as I strip down to my briefs.
“Tell me what happened.” I wring out my shirt and jeans and hang them on a hook to dry.
“Rhonda thought it would be a good idea to dress up slutty and come out tonight.” She sniffles and I catch her eyes looking at me in the mirror. “Liam came over and it was clear he’d been drinking. He wasn’t happy about how I left our date. So, he tried to grab me, and when I pushed him off me, he called me a gold-digging whore just like my mother. He said I didn’t deserve to go here, and I know I’m just overreacting, but it wasn’t his words that made me freak out. It was the way he grabbed me. I felt like I was a little girl all over again. Ready to take a beating from my father.”
“That’s not stupid, Melody. That’s PTSD.”
She turns around and looks at me. I mean really looks at me like she’s trying to figure me out. I couldn’t see before, but she’s cradling her arm and rubbing small circle on her skin.
“Is that where he grabbed you?” I ask, pointing.
She nods, her pink hair tumbling about her shoulders.
“Can I see?”
She hesitates, before extending her forearm out to me. The water from the bathtub keeps running in the background as I gently hold her arm. She watches as I bring it up to my mouth, placing a soft kiss on her skin.
Her mouth pops open and her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
“I should get going,” she says, pulling back her arm, and running her hands down the sides of her dress. “You should shower. You smell like stale beer.”
She goes to leave, but I can’t stand to see her like this.
“Melody, if you wait for a minute, I can walk you home.”
For a moment I think she’s going to shoot me down, but then she nods. “Okay.”
She shuts the door and I hear her the springs groaning as she sits on the twin sized bed.
My clothes are still soaked, so I turn the knob, so the water goes from a bath to a shower. I wash with the soap provided, scrubbing the sticky liquid off my skin.
There’s a stack of towels propped up on a rack situated over the toilet. Once I step out of the shower, I grab one to dry off. But it’s still going to be awhile for my clothes to finish drying. I step out into the room with the towel wrapped around my waist and find Melody waiting with a stack of clothes in her hands.
“I found these in the closet. I figured you might be needing it.”
She unveils a crimson sweatshirt and an unfortunate set of shorts that I assume will just cover my ass, and not much else. Melody must see the expression on my face because she says, “It’s all they had. I mean I could give you my dress, but I don’t think you’d fit.”
I grunt and grab the clothes. “If I’m getting you out of that dress, it won’t be to put it on myself, I can guarantee you that.”
She blushes as I pull on the ill-fitting apparel. Once I’m situated, I grab my still wet clothes.
“Let’s get you home.”
She smiles up at me, and my heart flips in my chest.
“Those shorts really are something.” And that smile is worth how uncomfortable I feel wearing these. I’d wear them all day just to get her to look at me like this.
While we leave, people stop and stare at us. I can overhear some of them as we pass. I don’t give a shit what they think, but Melody doesn’t deserve their scrutiny. I protectively grab her by the wrist, glaring at anyone that dares say anything about us leaving together.
“Isn’t that his stepsister?” Jenna asks her friend with her obnoxiously loud voice. Her hands dig into her hips as she stands between us and the way out.
“Keeping it in the family, huh Milford?” Someone else comments.
“Hey, nice shorts!” Another voice calls out.
That small town feel is eating away at me and I’m ready to snap. The only thing keeping me grounded is the feeling of Melody’s wrist in my hand.
“Don’t listen to them, they’re just miserable bitches with nothing better to do but try and bring someone else down,” I say to Melody, pushing past the small group.
To Melody’s credit, she seems to be completely unaffected by the heckling. Or just really good at pretending.
“You good?” I ask once we’ve made it outside.
“Yeah. Let’s just get home.”
So, I do just that.