Melody's Melodies

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They have thirty minutes to spare before the bell rings for classes begin, because the school bus always gets there early. They go by the glass front office and Devin receives his schedule. The lady at the front desk comments on his absence and Devin just shrugs and they walk out. Melody shows him around, shows him all of her classes, the lunch room, the library, then she helps him find all of his classes. They find out that they have English and Psychology together. Melody is the happiest she’s been all week, the only thing that makes her sad is that it’s Friday, which brings the weekend, which brings her staying home and which brings her father being off for two whole days.

They sit in the lunch room together, it’s only the third time Melody’s been in there, she’s a senior this year and she’s only attended Ridgeway. She usually sits outside of the library against the wall and when she’s done eating, she goes into the library, because it’s quiet.

Devin is sitting across from Melody, poking at the dry lasagna the lunch ladies served for lunch with his plastic fork. Melody giggles at him and pulls out an apple from her brown paper bag.

“Here you can have my apple and half of my sandwich,” she says passing the apple over to him.

He doesn’t take his eyes away from the lasagna as if he’s expecting it to move.

“No, it’s okay, I’ll take the apple though.”

The apple plops into his hand, leaving hers and then he looks up at her.

“Thanks. . . This school’s no better than my old one,” he takes a bite out of the apple, juice running down his chin.

He wipes the juice away with the back of his hand and Melody smiles.

“So um, why did you transfer here?” she asks, pulling her sandwich apart.

He sighs, “the people at Crossington were complete assholes. They tried to screw me over and keep me from graduating on time and all of this other shit, then once that was fixed; they managed to find other crap to bother me with. So I transferred here, I wasn’t zoned for that school anyway, I’m zoned here.”

“Where do you live?”

“Two neighborhoods away from you, it’s about three blocks down from where you are. You know where I’m talking about?”

“Sugarville?”

“Yeah,” he nods, biting a chunk out of the apple.

“That neighborhood’s very nice.”

“Yeah, so is the one you live in.”

Melody doesn’t want to think about where she lives. She has ripped her sandwich into twelve little squares, and she pops one into her mouth.

Devin notices her mood change, just like before at the field.

“Do you. . . Wanna do something after school?” he watches as relief lightens her face.

“Like what?”

“Whatever, what haven’t you done in awhile?”

“Um, I- I don’t know.”

A smile spreads across his face. “We can go see a movie tonight, maybe hang out before then?”

She nods, “that sounds like fun.”

She doesn’t know how her father will like it, but she likes it enough for the both of them.

“Alright,” he smiles, he loves to see her in a good mood.

They finish their food, talking about random things and when it’s after school, they take the bus back to the bus stop, but then walk downtown.

“You want to get some ice-cream, since the temperature has warmed up a bit?” Devin asks.

“I don’t have any money.”

“It wouldn't have mattered if you did, I’m paying.”

She doesn’t know what to say; of course, like always he has surprised her with his kindness. He smiles and eases his arm around her waist. It makes her stiffen up, but then she slowly relaxes, leaning into him as they walk.

They go get ice-cream from Benny’s Cold Treats, a little local ice-cream shop that’s not too far from either of their houses. They walk around, his arm remaining around her waist and when they’re done with their frozen treats they find a bench to sit at next to a tree, in front of a strip of stores. Melody has been careful keeping her hair in front of the left side of her face, but she makes a slip up.

He reaches for her sweater sleeve, there’s a string hanging from it and it’s bothering him. His hand brushes too roughly against her arm and she quickly pulls away, only making the pain worse.

A whimper escapes from between her lips and she holds her arm close to her stomach. Then she realizes it’s too late, he’s concerned, normal people don’t flip out in pain when someone lightly bumps into them.

He has a worried look on his face, “are you okay? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to.”

She tries to erase the look on her face, but it doesn’t work very well.

“I’m okay.”

“No you’re not; I can see it on your face.”

“No I am.”

“Is it broken?”

“No,” she says all too quickly.

She doesn’t actually know, she wouldn’t be surprised, the same night the bottle was smashed into her head, while she was lying on the kitchen tile Griffin stomped on her forearm with as much force as he could, wearing his work boots. But she doesn’t want to worry Devin about it, she’ll get over it, it’ll heal. She always heals.

“Let me see,” he says.

She only shakes her head.

“Let me see, I’ll be able to tell you if it’s broken.”

“What are you a doctor?” trying to distract him, to tell her something about his parents or something, anything to spare her some time to pretend that she’s okay.

“No I’m not, but I’ve had a few broken bones, I’d be able to tell you if you do.”

She softly rubs her arm, it tingles and she shakes her head again. He’s quiet, he stares at her as she is leaning over, holding her arm close to her stomach.

“What happened?” he says softly.

She’s silent.

“Mel, what happened?”

“Nothing,” it’s obviously a lie.

“Tell me,” he demands.

The hard tone and demanding voice is all too familiar and it hurts her to hear, he sounds like Griffin.

“Please don’t make me,” she cries quietly looking over at him with tears in her eyes.

Her pain hurts him. Why is she in so much pain? How can a delicate little flower be allowed to be battered and stomped all over so badly and left for dead? It pisses him off.

He stands up, takes her gently by the arm that’s not hurt and he swiftly leads her to his home. He needs to talk to her in private and he doesn’t know if he can talk about something so heart wrenching without getting upset and loud. He doesn’t want to create a scene and make her even more upset.

She doesn’t know what he’s going to do; she just knows she’ll be safer with him right now than with her father on any given day.

Once they appear at his house which isn’t far at all, Melody hesitates at the front door.

“It’s okay,” Devin’s voice is hoarse. “It’s just us.”

They walk in once Devin unlocks the door. Melody takes the scene in; the living room has a blue hue to it. The curtains cast a blue light over the room, the furniture is blue, the wooden coffee table is covered in Food magazines and cup coasters. The TV stand is decorated with DVD cases and a 14’ flat screen. There are shoes next to the threshold leading to the hallway which leads to the kitchen and the rest of the house.

Devin takes her backpack carefully, sitting it next to his next to the door and then he looks at her with a look she wishes she could remove.

“Who is hurting you?” he asks in a pained tone.

“Wh- what are you talking about?” she’s panicking.

“I know someone’s hurting you.”

“That’s a pretty big conclusion to jump to,” she says weakly.

He looks at her desperately, then slowly he touches her face then swiftly he moves the hair in front of the left side of her face, tucking it behind her ear. She staggers away, turns away, but it’s too late.
He’s seen it, he has seen the ugliness on her face and she feels gross and ashamed. The blue and black mark could be a branding for all she cares, it’s horrible and she knows he’ll be upset.

“Melody,” his voice is so quiet, she’s not sure she heard him correctly.

She’s in tears, bawling and he takes her in his arms, holding her as close as he can. She lets him; for once she lets someone attempt to hold her together, when all she can do is fall apart.

She cries hard and long. Devin doesn’t stop her, he doesn’t try to hush her up he only holds her, because he knows. He’s too familiar with pain like this.

When she’s done wetting up his shirt, she wipes the wetness away with her sleeve. Devin, caresses her face gently in his hands, lightly grazing his thumbs along her cheeks and softly he kisses the bruise under her eye.

“Who’s doing this to you?” he asks lightly.

Her eyes are only filled with sadness as she looks up at him.

“Just tell me,” his tone never changes.

“My father,” she mouths.

He shakes his head, and places his forehead against hers.

“I’m so sorry, you’re going through this. I am so, so sorry and I’m going to do everything I can to get you out of it. No one deserves to go through the pain you’re going through. It’s not right and it’s unfair. I promise to keep you safe.”

In her mind she doesn’t want him to promise her that. She doesn’t want him to promise her a promise he can’t keep.

Another tear slips down and he kisses the tear stain away and then presses his lips against hers.

The kiss lingers.

Melody likes it. Devin likes it.

In such a small amount of time, who knew they could mean so much to each other and who knew pain could bring them so close?