The Roots That Tied to My Feet

Melanie played with the sheets on the edge of her mother’s bed, watching her sleep soundly. Her cuts were healing finally after a few days of bed rest. Tubes were hooked up to her body trying to save her frail being. It was hard to watch.

She listened to the door swing open from behind her but she didn’t turn to acknowledge the presence in the room. A hand was being held in her face and in it was a cup of coffee. She took it graciously from the manicured fingers with a small ‘thank you’ and pressed it to her lips.

Haley took a seat from across the bed and looked at her worriedly, “Melanie, are you okay?”

Melanie shook her head as if to say ‘no’, but she didn’t verbally respond. She kept her eyes down on the bed, holding her mother’s hand in her own. Everything was going wrong; her mother was sick, her fiancé left her, and she was in love with another man. Things never were okay for her—they could never just be simple.

“I heard you and Ben the other night, Melanie. What’s going on?” Haley asked, apprehensively.

“He left,” Melanie replied shortly, not wanting to talk about it.

“Okay…and?”

“And what Haley? I don’t want to talk about this,” Melanie spat angrily.

“You need to talk to John, sis,” Haley said simply, ignoring her sister’s irate tone.

She sighed, “I don’t need to do anything.”

“Melanie, I know what you want. You know what you want. You need to tell them what you want because it’s not fair stringing either one of them along. They both love you and would rip out their own hearts for you. You need to make a clear decision. This is your life we’re talking about,” Haley responded wisely.

Melanie sat silently, letting her sister’s words soak in. She was right, completely one hundred percent correct, but she didn’t want to admit it. The second she admitted her sister was right would be the same moment that she had to break someone’s heart. She had to stop running and hiding and make a choice—and the look in his eyes when she didn’t choose him would break her as well.

Melanie and Haley both looked over to the opening door and watched as their father walked into the room. He stared quietly at their mother, love shining throughout his eyes. The three were silent for a few moments, all absorbed in their own thoughts.

“Melanie,” her Dad spoke softly, “Can I talk to you alone for a moment, dear?”

She nodded her head gently, following him out of the room. They walked down the hospitals hallways and into an elevator that lead to her father’s office. The sat down on the plush brown couch silently, before her father grabbed her hand in his own.

“Melanie, what’s going on, honey? I’m really worried about you,” he spoke nervously.

She kept her eyes on the floor, refusing to look into the same shade of blue that she had for eyes. She wouldn’t be able to lie to her dad and she knew it. She would let her heart fall open and she would cry like a baby--which she expected.

“Ben is leaving me I think,” Melanie said softly at last.

She listened to her father’s breathing catch in his throat, “Why dear? Are you two in a fight?”

“I—I uh,” she tried to speak but she was far too nervous. She didn’t want her father’s judgment on the girl she was becoming. “I cheated on him.”

Her father was quiet after that. You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. Melanie refused to look in his direction. She didn’t want to see his disappointment—her father had always adored Ben and thought he was best for her.

“With John,” he spoke gently and unexpectedly, he didn’t sound surprised. He didn’t sound angry either—he spoke as if it wasn’t a matter of what, but when.

“How did you know?” Melanie asked softly, almost rhetorically. Everyone knew it would be John—it had always been John.

“Who do you love more?” He father asked.

For once Melanie couldn’t answer. She loved them both for different reasons. Ben was the sweetest boy ever. He loved her more than life itself and it was easy. They had a routine that worked for them and they meshed perfectly. He knew what she needed when she needed it and he always was there when she needed someone to cheer her up or be her rock. They just seemed to work.

But John, God, John. John was different. John was the boy who knew how to make her angrier than anything. He knew what to say to just set her off and make her feel like throwing things or punching him, but that was thing—he made her feel. She felt all of the things that couples were supposed to. They were in no way perfect and they had to work to be together but that just made it so much stronger and made them mean so much more to her. John had always been there because of their parents but even if he had the choice to leave he wouldn’t had. He knew her like the back of his hand.

“That’s not even the question for me, Dad. The question is: who is better for me?” Melanie responded simply.

“Who is best is not what the correct choice is always though, honey. I wish it was, but it’s not. The best choice is the decision that isn’t always easy to make, and more often than not it’s the hardest decision you’ll ever make. Someone is going to be hurt, Melanie, but there is one of them that need to be hurt. Who is the one that you can’t live without?”

And as his face came into her mind she knew what she needed to do.
_____

Melanie knocked on the white door in front of her confidently. She shifted her weigh from foot to foot as she listened for any sign of movement behind the door but she couldn’t. Was he really not home?

Melanie listened as a car door shut from below her on the stairs and she heard voices coming up towards her. His familiar laugh rang out through the air and she felt her heart drop as she realized he wasn’t alone.

“Melanie?” Lucy asked, her smile fading into confusion.

“What are you doing here?” John asked apprehensively, his worry laced throughout his voice. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh—uh yeah, I just needed to talk to you, but I’ll just go,” she said softly, her confidence fading.

“No, uhm, Lucy I’ll call you tomorrow?” John said suddenly. Lucy looked somewhat nervous, but Melanie figured she knew about her mother and would think that’s what this was concerning. Lucy gave John a kiss before waving goodbye to Melanie and walking down to her car.

John looked at Melanie nervously, before scratching the back of his neck and walking over to her. He opened the door to his apartment and they walked in. John slid his leather jacket off of his shoulders leaving him in a tank top with an American flag on the front of it. He turned on the kitchen light and looked at Melanie.

“Is everything okay, Mel?” John asked simply.

“Why the hell did you call Ben, John?” Melanie asked, frustration in her voice.

He sighed and ran a hand though his hair, “I don’t know, Melanie, maybe because he’s your fiancé.”

“I never asked you to call him! If I needed him here I would have called. I didn’t need him here I had you,” she argued, her voice rising.

“Yes Melanie you had me, but then what? Ben comes back in a week and you drop me again? Melanie, do you understand how hard it is to have you love me and then leave me for another guy? I can’t do it again. If I hadn’t have had called him you would have torn me to pieces when he came back and you let him replace me,” John sighed, burying his face in his hands.

Melanie sat down on his couch as her next sentence slipped through her lips, “He left me, John.”

“Oh my God,” he gasped. He walked over and sat next to her on his couch. “Why, Melanie?”

She moved her blonde hair on her neck and showed the small mark that was still there from John’s lips. “It was a lot worse three days ago when he was here.”

“Jesus…” John mumbled, running his fingers delicately over her neck. “I’m sorry, Melanie.”

“Why? I’m not,” she spoke confidently. “I don’t regret it, John, I don’t. I don’t at all.”

“How do you not regret it, Melanie? This is ruining your marriage,” he spoke unsurely.

Melanie looked at him, her heart softly breaking, “You regret it?”

“Of course I do, Melanie! I’m tearing apart a marriage. I’m tearing apart Lucy and I—and she’s been the only other girl besides you that can make me happy,” John said letting all of his emotion out. “Melanie, it took me three years to get over you.”

“John, I’m still not over you,” Melanie whispered.

John stared at her and all she wanted was for him to lean forward and connect their lips in a much needed and overdue kiss. She searched his eyes for any emotion but he was blank. There was too much going on for her to read him and she hated that.

“Melanie—

“Look, you don’t have to respond right now, okay? But, John, if you’re ready…I’m ready. Meet me tomorrow night in the tree house at eight if you want this to happen,” she said gently, letting her nerves shake her voice.

“And if I don’t come?” John asked softly, her heart lurching.

Melanie closed her eyes and stood up walking to his door. She opened it and then turned around, “I’ll just pretend.”
_____

Melanie stood on the grass looking up at the brown wooded tree house that sat in her backyard. She hadn’t stepped foot inside it in over three years now and she was honestly scared to. The tree house held so many of their memories. She began climbing the ladder carefully.

When they were little they used to take markers and right on the walls of the house. They would document their days—good and bad. Their words used to cover the walls. They would write notes to one another, their dreams, the people they had crushes on, they wrote it all on the walls of the house. Melanie knew before she stepped inside that the walls would be blank because the original house was ruined—that much she was prepared for. She wasn’t prepared for what her eyes met though.

The walls weren’t blank. They were painted white and with different colored markers they were covered. There were notes written all over the walls in John’s scraggly hand writing. There were lyrics to songs that Melanie recognized but there was one phrase that was repeated overwhelmingly: I love you.

Melanie sat on the wood of the tree house and started reading a passage.

December 18, 2008. You’re gone, Melanie. You’ve been gone for five months now. Did you know that I rebuilt this house? No. Did you know that I cried myself to sleep for three months? No. Do you know that the only way I sleep now is by drinking myself to sleep? No. You don’t know any of it, do you know why? You left.

I wish I could say I hate you, but it’d be a lie.

Melanie bit her lip to hold back her tears as she kept reading. She glanced at the clock quickly, seeing John still had twenty minutes before he was expected to be there.

February 23, 2009. We visited Seattle on tour a week or so ago. I don’t know why I expected to see your face out there. I knew you wouldn’t come and you didn’t. But, baby, I wanted you to. I wanted you to hear the words to ‘You Left Me’ and come find me after the show to slap my cheek, because then that why I’d know that it still hurt you. I’d know that my opinion still mattered. I’d know that my words still meant something to you—because then you may just believe me when I told you that I love you.

April 17, 2009. I saw England last week and I thought about you. I wondered if you’d been yet. I always knew you wanted to be there. I met a girl there who looked just like you. I tried to pretend she was you as I sang that night forming every single word perfectly so that maybe when I did finally see you again someday I may know what to say. Maybe if I knew what to say I’d call you. You didn’t call me though so it’s apparent that you’ve forgotten.

Do you know how badly I wish that was true? Maybe that’s what hurts the most, The fact that I know you haven’t forgotten. I know you haven’t, because neither have I. I know that you wake up every morning thinking of me. I know that every lip that touches yours never holds the same amount of raw emotion in it. I know that you still love me.

Melanie didn’t even know when the tears started falling from her eyes; all she knew was that they didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop them even if she wanted to. John had been experiencing every emotion she had for the three years. John had loved her as much as she had loved him for all along.

November 12, 2010. You’re back. You came to our show the other night with your sister. I wondered how you felt about her dating Garrett but I couldn’t ask. I didn’t want to ask. For the first time in three years my wish was granted—I was able to hate you that night. I sang “You Left Me” and you left crying. You didn’t come slap me. You didn’t even speak to me. You just left.

I was pissed. But I officially hated you tonight, when you came to Kennedy’s get together with Ben. Ben, who the hell is Ben? So many questions ran through my mind. But when I saw the way he made you smile, and the way he was so easily able to calm all of your emotions even though I sat right across the room glaring at you I understood. He saved you from you.

You need him. It kills me to say that, but you do. I can’t intervene, though God I wish I could. He completes you more than I can. He can give you more than I can. He can give you the unconditional love without the fighting. He can give you a stable family. He can give you the safety you need. And plus—he’d always be there.

I’m on tour all the time. You couldn’t come with me; you’d have a life back home. I’d be gone, Melanie. I couldn’t protect you from the big bad world. I couldn’t protect you from yourself. I couldn’t protect you from anything besides myself because I wouldn’t be there.

I wouldn’t be there to kiss you every night and tell you I love you. I wouldn’t be there to hold you when you were scared—or when you were crying from your nightmares. I wouldn’t be there more than three months out of the year and you don’t deserve that.

You deserve him and that kills me.

Melanie felt her cheeks become sticky from the dried tears and every single emotion was running through her veins. She was more confused than ever and she wondered if she was even making the right decision by being here tonight. But then she realized the time, and the fact that for the past hour she had been sitting alone even though he was supposed to be here.

So Melanie did what she had promised him and closed her eyes, pretending that he was there.