Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MELODY
“Melody??”
My eyes fly open as I’m pulled from my nightmare, and Traeger’s face hovers in front of my face. I blink, and the room seems to spin. I’m covered in sweat, my hair stuck to my temples and back my neck with it, but so cold that I’m shaking, my teeth clattering so hard my jaw hurts.
“Fuck,” he grates. “You’re burning up. Why didn’t you tell me??”
How long had I been asleep? I was supposed to take watch so he could nap, wasn’t I?
Fuck, he must be so exhausted. I know that I’m not supposed to care, that I’m supposed to hate him, but right now, I can’t really remember why.
Everything is fuzzy, my head feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton and the size of one of those big balloons people ride in…
what are they called? Why can’t I think of the word?
It doesn’t matter. My head feels too big and too blurry and all I know is that I don’t want to push Traeger away right now.
No, I want to pull him down to lie next to me, want him to wrap his arms around me and pull me in tight against his chest, want him to kiss my forehead and chase the nightmares away.
I blink, trying so hard to force everything into focus, but it won’t cooperate.
Everything stays a little wobbly, like she I’m looking at everything through water.
“I’m…fine…” I say. Or try to say. I can barely keep my eyes open and I’m honestly not sure the words I’m thinking are actually making it out of my mouth right.
There’s a very good chance that everything is coming out as slurred, garbled nonsense.
God, I’m so hot, but somehow freezing at the same time. How does that work?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I fucking knew that something was wrong, I should have pushed more, I should have…” he trails off and I hear him digging around in the cabinets in the kitchen, but somehow a heartbeat later, I feel the mattress sink beside me when he sits down on the edge.
What the hell? Had I fallen asleep again?
I swear I just blinked. I don’t know what’s happening.
I’ve had the flu before but never this bad.
“Melody, listen to me. I need you to open your eyes and take this medicine, alright?” I manage to pry them open again and he helps me rise enough to get some pills down. “Christ, Melody, I get that you’re mad at me, but you could have told me you were fucking sick.”
Mad? Am I mad at him? Why would I be? No, that doesn’t seem right. I think I’m the opposite of mad at him…
“…mad?” I ask, but the word is slow and slurred. A few seconds later, the darkness jerks me under again.
I wake up later having no idea how much time has passed.
I feel much better than I did before and I know my fever has finally broken, but my memories of the last…
however long are distorted and convoluted.
I’d seen Gabby, over and over, a thousand memories flashing through my mind like a flipbook.
Some were real things that had actually happened—her first day of preschool, smiling like a ray of sunshine in her yellow polka dot dress; passed out cold on Mitch’s shoulders after a very long day at Disney; learning to swim in the lake; catching her first fish.
But others were scenarios that I wished we’d gotten to experience together, Gabby at ages she never made it to—Gabby learning to drive a car; Gabby going to her first prom; moving into her college dorm; walking down an aisle in a beautiful white gown; glowing as she held a newborn in her arms. I’d been so happy in the false memories, but I was also screaming in utter agony, knowing it wasn’t real, clawing at my chest trying to rip my own heart out. How could dreams hurt so fucking much?
The past and the present all melded together in ways that I knew couldn’t be real, but all seemed like they were.
They seemed so fucking real. I saw Mitch and Jonah and Sean and Mulligan…
and Traeger. Traeger always seemed to shine brighter in every single image in my mind, like a spotlight followed him through the ever-changing scenes.
He always seemed to be drifting away from me though, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t call out to make him stop.
The others encouraged me to go, to run after him before it was too late.
It’s time, Mel. You need him, Mitch had said with a smile, giving me a playful shove forward.
Go, mommy. Go, Gabby said, letting go of my hand just before I pried my eyes open.
I finally understand where the term fever dream comes from. I’d always kind of thought it was bullshit, but now I get it. I sit up groggily and shove hair from my face, grimacing. I feel sticky and grimy with sweat and I’ve never wanted to brush my teeth more than I do in this moment.
“She lives,” Traeger’s voice rings out from somewhere behind me.
I turn to find him walking back into the living room from the kitchen.
He hands me a cup of water and I empty it in three long gulps, gasping quietly when I’m done.
I probably should have taken that a little easier, but my throat feels raw. Had I been screaming? Fuck.
“How long was I out?” I ask, voice raspy.
“Couple of days.”
“Days?” I repeat, eyes bulging. He must have woken me several times for more medicine—another thing Uncle Charlie had stocked, thank God—but I have zero recollection of it.
“Days,” he confirms, eyeing me.
“Wynn and the others?”
“They’re alright. Ran into a bit of a snag with a washed out road, so they’re a little behind schedule, but they’re good and still trying to find their way here.”
I nod and we sit in silence for a few minutes.
“Who’s Gabby?” he asks finally and my breath catches in my throat.
“You were saying her name over and over when you were sleeping. Screaming it sometimes,” he adds softly.
He keeps his gaze trained on me, that calculating look in his eyes that always makes me feel like he sees too much, but right now, it makes me feel like he can see straight through to the very darkest parts of me.
I clench my jaw and let him know silently that I won’t be answering.
I might have been debating on axing this whole hating him thing, but right now I’m too exhausted and raw to let him into this part of my life. Maybe never. I haven’t decided yet.
He hikes a shoulder, letting it go for the time being, and I relax a fraction.
“I was busy while you were out,” he says leaning back in the chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him, the picture of ease. “Do you want the good news, the bad news, or the other good news?”
“Bad news sandwich, I guess.” His lips curl and I give him a half smile in return.
“Good news: I got the solar panels back up and running. Bad news: looks like Uncle Charlie was replacing the HVAC system when the world went to hell, so still no central heat, but,” he rises from the chair and moves to the wall beside the doorway, “good news: we got this.” He flips the switch on the wall and lights flare to life.
We’d been relying on firelight and a few camping lanterns he’d found down in the workshop until now.
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Yep. Shower is working too. It’ll be pretty cold still, but it’s running water at least. Looks like Uncle Charlie and whoever lived in the big house before it burned were kind of off-the-grid survivalist types. Solar panels, their own water system, all that good stuff.”
I grin but the familiar war starts up inside me again, despite everything: hate him, hate him, hate him. Love him, love him, love him. Because yes, I could love him…maybe even already do. He seems to see the inner battle, to see me pulling down the barriers between us again.
“Come on, Melody.”
“What?”
“Are you seriously going to keep doing this? Hasn’t it been long enough? Jesus, haven’t I been punished enough?”
I shoot up off the mattress, the rage suddenly boiling over, honestly surprising me.
I guess I’ve been keeping it all bottled up for too long, never really addressing anything.
I don’t know if it’s the fever I just got over or the pain now radiating up my ankle and making me grit my teeth to keep from crying out, but whatever the reason, I’m apparently done keeping everything in.
“Enough!? Never. You will never be punished enough! Jonah was hurt, he could have died, and I wasn’t there! Because of you!”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!”
“What!?” I bark, incredulous.
“Even if you had been there with him, Jonah still could have been hurt in that building! You could have been hurt right beside him. You could have fucking died. Who the hell knows! This is the world we fucking live in, Melody. Hell, it was the world before, too. You couldn’t protect everyone all the time! There were no guarantees!”
I know he’s right, but I refuse to let logic enter the conversation. Or screaming match, I guess is more of an accurate description.
“I should have been there! You took me away from him!!”
There it is. I guess everything’s coming out. All of the fear and anger and resentment and sorrow from all these months, back to the beginning. It’s all coming to a head now.
“I’m fucking sorry!” he roars. “Actually, you know what, that’s not true.
I’m not sorry. Not even a fucking little bit!
” I blink, unbelieving he’s really saying this shit.
“I’m sorry that you had to leave people that you care about, but I’m not fucking sorry that you came to FOS, because from the minute I fucking met you, I knew there was something between us.
And you fucking know it too. You can’t deny it, Melody.
You’re just scared. You’re scared shitless to admit it, for reasons I don’t fucking know because you won’t tell me anything about your past—and that’s fine.
I get it. But you’re afraid of letting yourself be with me, of seeing what this could be.
So you jumped at the chance to have something to hold onto, a reason to hate me and put up this wall back up between us, because you knew that things were moving somewhere new and serious and fucking good.
It could be so fucking good,” he says, huffing out an almost hysterical laugh before shaking his head.
“But it’s a bullshit reason and you fucking know it! ”
I stand there, breathing hard, not able to say a word because I have no idea what to say.
I want to argue. I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that every single thing he said is wrong, but I can’t.
I can’t say or do a damn thing because he’s fucking right.
Every damn word out of his mouth was right.
I am scared. I did use Jonah as an excuse.
And it could be good with us. It could be great. It could be damn near perfect.
He runs his hand roughly through his hair and shakes his head, clenching and unclenching his jaw.
“I’m going to check the perimeter. Take a shower. There’s cooked rabbit on the counter.”
With that, he yanks a coat off of a peg on the wall, tugs a ballcap on is head roughly, and pulls the door open. He pauses and without looking at me says, “You were saying my name over and over too, you know.”
I inhale quickly but he stalks out, slamming the door behind him.
I stand there, staring at the closed door for a long time after he leaves, his words echoing in my ears.
I eventually let out a long, shuddering breath, and grab my pack, digging around for clean underwear.
I hobble to the bathroom, wincing as I put weight on my foot.
My ankle is still hurting, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was…
fuck, how many days have we been here now? Three? Four?
There’s shampoo, conditioner, and soap in the shower already, and though the water is definitely cold, I don’t mind.
It helps clear my head. I scrub the sweat and grime away and wash my hair, all the while thinking about everything Traeger said.
I am afraid. I’d been afraid before, but had decided to leap…
and just after, I’d found out about Jonah and it had felt like a sign—or an excuse, really—to cling to the fear.
If I never actually jumped, I couldn’t fall, and if I didn’t fall, I couldn’t get hurt.
And that’s the real issue.
Because if I’m being honest with myself, really, completely honest for the first time in a long time, I’m terrified of loving Traeger because I know if I lose him, it’ll be a hurt I can’t survive.