The Roots That Tied to My Feet

Melanie walked down the dark road quietly, letting the chill from the cooling autumn air cover her skin. The moon was shining down on her brightly, lighting the path she walked. She had excused herself from dinner—where her and Ben had announced their engagement to her family, and began her stroll as her father and Ben headed to the hospital for the night.

The grin on her mother’s face was stained in her mind; she was so proud of Melanie. Moments after the boys had left her mother had taken her up into the attic where her wedding dress laid from her and Melanie’s father’s wedding.

It was beautiful; the straps were thin and there were patches of lace across the tight bust line. Melanie may not use the entire gown but she would certainly be using parts of it for her veil—saving the majority of the dress for her younger sister.

The wedding was real now. It wasn’t just a piece of jewelry that sat on her finger anymore, now it meant something. She would soon be someone’s wife. Soon, Ben would be coming home to her every day with a smile on his face saying hello to the rest of his life. Melanie smiled at the thought.

She let her feet carry her into her destination’s gates as she walked around the small area of the yard. She knew it was a bit morbid to be in a cemetery at night but she didn’t want to be seen here during the day—it would make too many questions arise.

She walked through the graveyard silently, making sure not to step on any fallen headstones out of respect for the dead.

She walked to the headstone she was looking for before she sat down on the damp grass. There were flowers in her hand and she set them fall to the ground softly. She stared at his gravestone silently with so many emotions running through her mind.

This one single person had changed her life so much even though he was in it for only a maximum of three hours. He had altered her in so many ways without even knowing. Melanie never had believed that everything happened for a reason until the night of her graduation; the night Jeremy raped her.

She felt her body begin to quiver as tears ran down her cheeks slowly letting out all of the repressed hurt and anger she had always continued to feel after that night. Sure, therapy had helped but she was never fully able to forget—she wasn’t sure that she ever would.

She clutched her jacket closer to her body as her tears began to dry. Her body became rigid as she heard a twig break from behind her. She clutched her pepper spray tightly in her hand before turning around and seeing a solemn figure.

His eyes shone brightly in the moonlight. He had his hands in his pockets and he leaned against a tree just staring at the small girl. Melanie turned her eyes back to the grave in front of her.

She was silent for a few moments as was he, before she broke the tension. “Did you stalk me here or something?”

“It’s not safe for a small girl to be walking the neighborhoods alone at night, you of all people would know that,” he said quietly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, O’Callaghan?” Melanie said bitterly.

“Exactly what it sounded like,” John replied. “You know what happens when a guy twice your size gets a hold of you.”

Melanie laughed sullenly at the irony; but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t be angry—not here. If she would be angry at anyone it would be the man who lay in the ground under her feet. “Yeah, I would,” she said softly, sadness overcoming her body.

“Jeremy Cook,” John said aloud, reading the engrained words in front of Melanie. “He dies the night you left.”

Melanie noticed the resentment in John’s voice as he spoke but she tried to ignore it. “What happened to him?”

“Drug shooting; he owed some guys money they came in his house and shot him dead. It was all over the news, but I mean, you wouldn’t know that.”

Melanie stood up and looked at the boy behind her. She looked at his appearance. He was wearing dark black jeans that fit his body tightly, a white shirt, ad a black leather jacket. His hair was messy but made his look complete. “You changed a lot,” Melanie said quietly.

“So did you,” John replied, his voice softening. He ran his hand through his hair as he leaned against a tree that was behind him. “Why are you here?”

“As in Arizona or the cemetery?” Melanie asked, unsure.

John shrugged, “Both.”

“You know my mom doesn’t have much time left John, I need to see her as much as I can,” she began. “And well, I knew Jeremy.”

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he said sincerely, the first genuine word he had said to her at all in the time she had been home. “It’s been really hard on your dad.”

Melanie felt guilty as she remembered that she hadn’t been here for her family in the past three years. They were dealing with so much and she was in Seattle pretending her past didn’t exist. “I-I just wish I had been here,” Melanie said quietly, trying to stop the tears that were forming in her eyes.

She turned her baby blue iris’s to John green emerald pools and stared into them for a moment as he spoke, “I wish you had been here too.”

Melanie gulped in a breath of air as a rush of emotions ran through her. She wanted to cry, she wanted to yell, but most of all she wanted to take back every decision she had made in ignoring Tempe, the pace that held the people she had thought she needed most.

“I’m not sorry I left you, John,” Melanie began. “I am sorry I never called you though.”

“I don’t understand why-

“It was in the note I left you,” She said confidently, not wanting to have this conversation and trying to avoid it at all costs.

John chuckled, and reached into his pocket pulling out a folded piece of paper. He dwindled it between his fingers.

“You still have it?” Melanie gasped.

“I read it three times a day for two years. It’s not like I even need it anymore,” John revealed honestly.

She stared at the boy as he opened his mouth to speak, his gentle voice filling the quiet cemetery.

“John,” he began, tucking the letter back into his pocket. “This is the hardest thing I have ever had to write—but know that I’m not doing this because of you. I know, I know, the cliché it’s not you it’s me thing but in some ways that saying is more true than it is given credit for. I’m leaving. I’ll be gone by morning, but I want to thank you. Thank you for being my childhood and thank you for teaching me to love. I’m not coming back, John. So move on. I left you like you left me, but this time I’m making it stick. I’m not going to wait around for you—I’ve waited too long. John, you were my first love and I’ll never forget you but I need to try. PS. Karma’s a bitch, huh.”

Melanie stared at her feet as he recited her poorly written teen hormone filled letter. “Ben and I are engaged.”

John chuckled and she could hear hurt in his voice, “Figures.”

She watched as he turned his back on her and began walking out of the cemetery. “I told you to move on, John,” she called after him.

He turned around and Melanie watched as a single tear made its way down his cheek, “it’s hard to move on when you’re just trying to pick up your pieces.”