Melody's Melodies

►

It’s sixth period, Melody’s sitting in the library at a table by herself, staring at pages she’s been staring at for five minutes, but she can’t seem to help it. She can’t stop thinking about Devin. He’s in her mind nonstop, it’s been like this all day and she hopes to see him again. She just wants to see his face and his beautiful green eyes again, hear his smooth soft voice say her name again.

Melody sighs, look down at her blank paper that’s normally filled with notes, and she tries to pay attention to what she’s reading. Ten minutes go by and she’s starting to lose interest, thankfully the bell rings, to go home, she’s never been excited for that bell to ring, until today.

Melody rushes out of the school, pulls out her iPod, stuffs the buds into her ears and walks slowly to waste time. Twenty minutes of walking and she ends up at the park she’s never taken the time to go to, that’s just outside of her neighborhood. She doesn’t want to go home, not today. She just wants to run away, far away. She finds a bench that’s next to a few trees. She sits down and with her mood, and the score from, “Where the Wild Things Are,” playing in her ears, she gets overwhelmed and begins to cry.

Melody doesn’t like crying anywhere other than her room, but this time she can’t control herself. Her cries shake her whole body, making the ear buds fall out of her ears and she leans forward, covering her face in her hands, and letting out her sobs through sound and tears.

Someone passing by could mistake her sounds for laughing, but Melody prefers it that way, no one needs to know the pain she’s really going through.

Then she feels the presence of someone. Melody sniffles and sits up to see Devin standing about four feet away from her, holding an unopened Red Bull can and Snickers bar in his left hand and his right hand in his pocket.

“Melody?” he’s just as surprised to see her there as she is seeing him. “What’re you doing here?” he asks.

She stifles her cries and swallows, not knowing what to do, or say she’s so embarrassed. This is exactly why she only cries in her room. When he sees the puffiness of her eyes and the redness of her eyes, the wetness of her cheeks, his face softens and he takes long strides over to her.

“Hey you okay?” he asks and sits next to her, Melody notices he smells of mint gum.

“Yeah,” she lies.

“You don’t look like it,” he responds bluntly.

Devin puts his things down next to him, picks up Melody’s iPod that has dropped in the dirt, wraps it up in the headphones, and places it next to his things. Melody wipes underneath her eyes and sighs.

“Sorry,” she says quietly.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” Devin asks.

“I guess. . . Crying.”

To Melody’s surprise, Devin lets out a short laugh. “Crying is nothing to be sorry about; it’s definitely okay to cry. If anything I’m sorry for coming up on you like that. . . It seems that I’m always around when you least expect it.”

She nods, and smiles realizing he’s completely right about his timing.

“You okay now?” he asks.

“Well, I’m a little better.”

It’s his turn to nod and then he pulls his beanie off and runs his fingers through his hair. Melody watches him from the corner of her eye and she sees that he has small white gauges in his earlobes.

“So, how come I’ve never seen you out here before?” Devin asks.

“I’ve never come out here,” she shrugs.

“Really, don’t you live out here?”

She nods.

“What, you don’t get out much?” he asks jokingly.

And she shakes her head, then there’s an awkward silence between them and Melody looks at the ground.

“Sorry,” Devin says softly.

“No it’s okay, I understand it was a joke. . . So what are you doing out here,” she asks, changing the subject.

He looks grateful for that, “not much, just hangin’ out. I was going to go walk back there, there’s a trail.”

He turns around and points far behind where they’re sitting, Melody turns around looking where he’s pointing, but all she sees is trees.

They turn back around and Devin’s leg starts bouncing.

“You wanna walk the trail with me?” he asks, looking at Melody with his head tilting to the side, like before, as if he’s trying to figure her out.

“Uh, I- I don’t know if I should,” she says meekly.

“I’m not going to hurt you if that’s what you think,” Devin says defensively.

“No, no it’s not that . . . It’s just my dad he might want me home.”

“Well,” Devin reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone checking the time. “It’s only 4:12, I’ll have you home by six, how’s that sound?”

Melody, isn’t sure about it, but she likes Devin, so she decides to go, she knows that she’ll be beaten whether she does something she wants to do, or not.