Something We Both Loved
The private suite at St. Augustine’s Hospital was quiet except for the steady beep of the monitor and the soft rustle of the doctor’s coat.
Melody lay pale against the white sheets, IV line in her arm, fresh bandages covering the carved word on her inner thigh and the reopened stitches on her abdomen.
Her face was swollen... cheek purpled, lip split, and what remained of her hair stuck out in ragged, uneven tufts, blood crusted at the roots.
Christian stood at the foot of the bed, coat still on, hands clenched at his sides. Dr. Maxwell, family physician to the Holts for over twenty years, had just finished the initial exam and was writing notes on his tablet. The room smelled of antiseptic and the faint metallic tang of blood.
Dr. Maxwell looked up, face grim. “The thigh wound needs sutures. Deep enough to require them. There’s moderate blood loss, early signs of infection in the abdominal incision, and she’s severely dehydrated and malnourished.
She’s stable now, but this was deliberate.
This is assault, Christian. Multiple counts. I have to report it to the police.”
Christian’s head snapped up. “No.”
The doctor paused, pen hovering. “Excuse me?”
“No police.” Christian’s voice was low, strained, but absolute. “Please.”
Dr. Maxwell set the tablet down slowly. “Christian… this isn’t a household accident. Someone carved the word ‘killer’ into her thigh. Someone beat her. Someone cut her hair off like an act of war. This is felony assault. Possibly attempted murder. I’m mandated to report. It’s the law.”
Christian stepped closer, hands raised slightly as if pleading. His eyes, red-rimmed and haunted, locked on the doctor’s.
“I know what the law says,” he said quietly. “I know what this looks like. But I’m begging you, Doctor. Don’t make it a police case. Not yet.”
The doctor exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re asking me to break my oath. To cover up a violent crime.”
“I’m asking you to give me time.” Christian’s voice cracked.
“This is my family. My mother. My… ex. They did this. And I let it happen. I threw her to them. I thought they’d punish her, not—” He gestured helplessly at Melody’s broken form.
“Not this. I need to handle it myself. If the police come now, it’ll destroy everything.
Symphony’s life, the company, all of it.
Please. Just… treat her. Let me take responsibility. ”
Dr. Maxwell stared at him for a long moment. Then he looked at Melody... unconscious, fragile, barely breathing without the help of oxygen.
“She could have died,” he said softly. “She still might if infection spreads.”
“I know.” Christian’s voice was hoarse. “I know.”
The doctor closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, the reluctance was plain.
“I’ve known you since you were a boy,” he said. “I’ve known your family longer. I’ve watched you carry more than any man should.” He paused. “If I do this… if I log it as a private domestic accident and keep it off the official report… you have to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“You get her out of that house. Permanently. And you deal with whoever did this.”
Christian nodded once. “I swear.”
Dr. Maxwell exhaled heavily, shoulders dropping. “Fine. I’ll treat it as complications from a fall and self-neglect during recovery. No police. But if she worsens, I’m calling them myself. And I’ll testify against you all.”
“Thank you,” Christian whispered. The words sounded like they hurt.
The doctor turned back to Melody, adjusting the IV drip. “She needs rest. Fluids. Antibiotics. And someone who actually gives a damn.”
Christian sank into the chair beside her bed. He reached out and gently took her hand. Her fingers were cold, limp.
Outside the window, the January sky was turning dark.
Inside the room, a broken man kept vigil over the woman he had almost destroyed.
And in the Holt mansion, two women waited for the storm they had unleashed to finally reach them.
×××××××
Melody woke slowly, dragged up from the heavy fog of sedatives and painkillers by a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Her head felt light. Wrong.
She lifted a shaking hand to her scalp.
Her fingers met jagged, uneven ends... short, brutal tufts where long waves used to fall.
The realization hit like a physical blow.
She sat up so fast the IV line tugged painfully in her arm. Monitors beeped in protest.
“No…” The word came out small, disbelieving. Then louder. “No, no, no—”
Her hands flew to her head, clawing at the ruined strands, pulling, as if she could force them to grow back by sheer will.
“NO!” she screamed, voice raw and shattering. “MY HAIR—MY HAIR!”
Tears exploded from her eyes. She thrashed against the pillows, ripping at the short ends, sobbing so violently her whole body shook.
Christian, who had been dozing in the chair beside her bed, jolted awake. He stood immediately, hands hovering.
“Melody—”
She whipped her head toward him, eyes wild, face streaked with tears and fury.
“YOU!” she screamed, voice cracking like glass. “This is YOUR fault!”
He flinched as if she’d struck him.
“You threw me to them!” she cried, voice rising to a hysterical wail. “You let them do this! You let them cut my hair! My only thing, my only belonging! And you weren’t even here!”
She tore at the short strands again, sobbing harder. “I loved it! I took care of it! Every Sunday, every night! 100 strokes! I counted them like prayers and now it’s gone! They took it! They took everything!”
Christian stepped closer, face pale, eyes wide with guilt and something close to fear.
“Melody, I didn’t know... they weren’t supposed to—”
“LIAR!” she shrieked, lashing out. She swung her arm at him, weak but desperate, nails scraping his forearm. “You knew! You knew what they were! You threw me to your mother and left so she could punish me! You wanted me dead before you came back!”
He caught her wrist gently, but she yanked it back, hitting his chest with her open palm... once, twice, weak and shaking.
“I hate you!” she sobbed. “I hate you for letting them do this! I hate you for marrying me! I hate you for making me love you when you only ever hated me!”
Her voice dissolved into wrenching sobs. She curled forward, hands covering her ruined head, rocking back and forth.
Christian stood frozen, arms half-raised, as if he wanted to hold her but knew he had no right.
“I didn’t want this,” he said hoarsely. “I swear to God, I didn’t want this.”
But the words sounded hollow even to him.
Melody didn’t answer. She just cried... loud, broken, animal sounds that filled the sterile room and made the monitors beep faster.
She cried for her hair.
For the girl she used to be.
For the love she’d given him when he never deserved it.
Christian sank back into the chair, face in his hands, shoulders shaking.
He didn’t touch her.
He didn’t speak again.
He just sat there, listening to the woman he had broken cry out every piece of pain he had helped create.
×××××××
The mansion was unnaturally quiet when Christian returned. The foyer lights were dimmed, the grand staircase shadowed. No staff lingered. No sound from the upper floors except the distant tick of the grandfather clock.
Sally waited at the foot of the stairs, small paper bag in her hands, eyes red from crying. She stepped forward the moment he entered.
“Mr. Holt,” she whispered.
Christian stopped. His coat was still on, collar up against the cold he still felt in his bones from the hospital. He looked at her, then at the bag.
She held it out without a word.
He took it slowly, fingers trembling as he opened the folded top.
Inside: every strand. Dark, glossy even in the low light, some long and perfect, others short and jagged from the shears. Sally had gathered them all from the blood-stained floor, cleaned them gently, placed them in the bag like fragile relics.
Christian cradled the bag against his chest.
He didn’t speak at first. Just held it. The weight was nothing, but it felt like everything.
He loved her hair as much as she did.
He had never told her. Never admitted how he used to watch her from across the office when she’d let it down at the end of a long day, waves falling like black silk, catching the light, making her look untouchable and soft all at once.
He’d memorized the way it moved when she walked, the way it brushed her shoulders, the faint scent of coconut and something floral that lingered after she left his office.
He’d hated how much he noticed.
Hated how it made him feel... soft, hopeful, human, when he was supposed to be angry.
So he buried it. Deep. With the rest of the things he couldn’t let himself want.
Now he held the ruins of it in his hands.
His throat closed. Tears slipped down his cheeks and fell onto the paper.
Sally watched, eyes glistening. “She used to brush it every night,” she said softly. “I heard her counting the strokes sometimes. One hundred. Like a ritual.”
Christian nodded once, unable to speak.
He turned away, walking up the stairs without another word.
In his room, he sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bag again.
He pulled out a long strand, intact, shining even in the dim lamp light. He wrapped it around his fingers, over and over, until it formed a small coil.
He pressed it to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against the dark silk. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
He stayed like that for a long time, cradling what was left of her hair, tears falling freely now, shoulders shaking with the weight of everything he’d destroyed.
×××××××