What Can I Say?

“Fate seems to recreate, I just cannot escape, something holds me down and makes me act a way I can't explain. Even now I can feel it coming over me choking me, as I'm falling behind. You can say you know me, but you have no clue what my dreams could show you. And darkness is fading in, and darkness is real.” – Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Melody sat in the car that would take her to her first TV appearance on Good Morning LA. Melody was full of nerves as she watched the passing cars in the early morning traffic. She was glad to finally arrive at the studio where the show would be taped live. It was still surreal to be at an actual news studio. She was quickly ushered into hair and makeup. She had yet to see Nick that morning but it was only a matter of time until she saw him. As she was finishing in hair and makeup Nick walked in the room.

“Good morning.” He said as he walked by Melody.

“Morning.” She replied quietly.

After hair and makeup she was sent to a waiting room to wait until it was their segment. Nick soon followed her into the room. He sat across the room from her typing away at his phone. Melody watched the TV set up in the room. After a few minutes her phone rang loudly in the almost silent room.

“Sorry.” Melody said glancing at Nick.

She quickly hit the green talk button. “Hello?”

“Good morning, a babe.”

Melody’s body tensed as she heard Brad’s voice. The night before they had had another fight; that resulted in a big black and blue mark on Melody’s back to form. She glanced at Nick again before replying.

“Good morning.”

“I’m waiting to watch you on TV.” Brad said proudly.

“Alright.” Melody said not really caring but too scared to say anything else.

“I wanted to call and talk about last night.”

“I’m busy right now, Brad.” Melody said irritated. “We can talk later.”

“You don’t have to be such a bitch. I just wanted to apologize.”

Melody glanced at Nick again. “Ok. I’m sorry too.”

“Good. I’ll let you go. Have fun.”

“Ok, thank you.” Melody said glad the conversation was over.

“I love you.”

“Love you too.” Melody said quickly then hung up the phone and turned it off.

Nick watched as Melody lay back against the couch she sat on her eyes closed. This was his chance to finally get a good look at her without her noticing. She looked the same as she did all those months ago, still beautiful. He wanted to join her on the couch but he knew that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“I can still tell when you’re staring at me.” Melody said without opening her eyes.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nick said quickly picking his phone up again.

They were interrupted by a producer telling them it was time for their interview. Melody’s nerves came back with enough force to make her sweat like crazy.

“Don’t worry; this will be a piece of cake.” Nick whispered reassuringly to Melody.

She only nodded in response.

They took their seats next to each other and waited for the news anchors to take their seats as well. Finally it was time for the interview.

“Good morning. We are here today with Nick Jonas and the song writer who helped him with his soon to be released CD, Melody Crenshaw.” The anchor man said before turning to us. “How are you this morning?”

“Fantastic.” Nick replied with a smile.

Melody nodded with a smile. “Yep, fantastic just about sums it up.”

“Good!” The interviewer said enthusiastically. “So tell us about the CD.”

“It’s basically songs I wrote when I was going through a tough time so they are a lot darker then some of the other music I’ve written.” Nick said smiling.

“We tried to keep the music as real as possible. No sugar coating on the situation.” I added.

“That’s great. It sounds like this is a very serious album.”

“It is. All of the songs I put my whole heart into them. When you’re at a place in your life that is really life or death you see the world differently, and my music reflects this.” Nick said. “A lot of the songs have a mature sound to them and that was really important to me to sound older.”

“And how much of the songs are written by you, Melody?”

“I didn’t write much of it. I let Nick do most of the work and only stepped in when he needed me to.” Melody replied with a small smile. “When I agreed to work with Nick I knew I wasn’t going to be writing all of the songs. That was never my intention.”

“Nick, you recently went through some rough patches, as you said earlier, what helped you recover from that?”

“My music helped and in all honesty Melody helped a lot too.” Nick said glancing at Melody. “She didn’t let me get away with anything. She’s been an amazing friend.”

Melody’s smile grew as she added to what Nick said. “Nick was definitely hard to work with at first, but he came to his senses and we were able to finish the songs.”

“Alright let’s get to some less serious topics.” The interviewer said smiling wide. “Are you two single?”

Melody was taken aback by how blunt the question was.

“No, I am currently dating someone.” Nick answered. “Her name is Grace Weston.”

“That’s wonderful! What about you Melody?”

“I have a boyfriend.” I said not giving anymore explanation.

“Alright so now to some fan questions.”

The interview was almost over and Melody couldn’t be happier it was ending.

“The first one is from Samantha, are you guys excited to be going on tour together?”

“We are. It’s great to get to talk to the fans and explain the album to them.” Nick answered.

“And the last question we will have time for is from Alicia, were any of the songs inspired by Melody?”

“Some of them were. I’ve known Melody for a while and because I was around her so much
while we were writing these songs the feelings I had for her did go into some of the songs.”

“Oh so you had a crush on her?”

Nick smiled and glanced at Melody. “Yeah, a little crush.”

****

“Brad, please listen to me!” Melody said as tears ran down her cheeks. “He said it not me!”

Brad glared at the crying women in front of him. He was too angry to listen to reason and too stubborn to believe he was wrong. “You still have feelings for him!”

“No!” Melody cried.

Brad pushed her back into the couch, his hand around her throat. “Don’t lie to me.”

Melody struggled to breathe as Brad added more pressure to her neck. She tried in vain to pull his hand away from her throat.

“He’s a piece of shit that’s broken your heart too many times.” Brad growled as he finally released Melody’s throat.

She gasped for air and coughed as her throat began to sting. She glared up at Brad; he was still standing over her his fists clenched. She knew what she was about to say would earn her more abuse from him, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“He’s more of a man then you’ll ever be.”

****

Nick lay in bed his arms wrapped around the women next to him. When Grace first came over to his apartment she surprisingly wasn’t mad about what Nick had said during the interview. She thought it was all for publicity. Nick wasn’t sure if that was true or not, he had been told to make it look like there was something going on between them. Some part of Nick hoped something would happen between them.

Nick had finally gotten to sleep when his cell phone rang loudly from across the room. He groaned as he threw the covers off his body and stumbled to answer his phone. Grace hadn’t heard the phone but she felt Nick move.

“Nick, what’s going on?” She asked as she sat up in bed.

“My phone is ringing.” He mumbled.

He checked the caller ID and quickly answered the call. At three in the morning he knew something had to be wrong for her to call him.

“Hello?”

“Nick, I need help.”

Nick couldn’t breathe as he listened to Melody’s hoarse voice. All he could comprehend was she needed him and she sounded hurt.

“Where are you?” He asked already walking to his dresser to find some clothes.

“At my apartment.” Melody gave him her address. “Nick, please hurry. I don’t know when he’ll
come back.”

“Who is coming back?” Nick asked panic starting to form.

“I’ll explain when you get here.” Melody said with a groan. “Please hurry.”

She hung up the phone leaving Nick to run around his room franticly. He grabbed his coat and exited his bed room.

“Nick, where are you going?” Grace asked as she followed him out of the room.

“Melody needs me. I think she’s hurt.” Nick said as he grabbed his keys and opened the door. “I’ll call later.”

Nick left without saying anything else and raced to Melody’s apartment. There were so many different things going through his mind as he tried to figure out what happened. After arriving to her building he quickly ran in it, taking the stairs instead of the elevator to reach her floor. He found her apartment and knocked loudly.

“Mel?” He called through the door. After no response he tried the door and found it unlocked.

When he entered the small apartment he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. He only hoped he wasn’t too late.