Back Into Your Arms

We were finally out of the airport, I had my dad pick us up since my car was at home. I was afraid as to how my dad would react, I hadn’t mentioned she was the one coming with me.
He pulled over and unlocked the car doors.

“Wait here, I’ll reintroduce you guys right now” I said to her as I grabbed our suitcases and put them in the back.

She waited there obediently but my father got out of the car and walked towards her.
I quickly closed the door and walked over to them. My father was speechless and in shock. She just smiled politely.

“Melody this is my dad”

“Hi there, good morning, um thank you for picking us up” she said shyly.

“Melody Riley, it’s so nice to see you again” my dad said to her and sincerely smiled. He looked emotional.

“I’m sorry about everything that happened in the past sir, I’m happy you remember me in a good light or have come to forgive me, I wish I could remember you sir, so I do apologize for that too”

Always as proper as ever.

“You weren’t at fault Melody, we are happy to see you. We hope you can join us for dinner while you are here”

“That would be nice” she nodded.

“Shall we go?” my father asked me. I nodded and opened the door for Melody to sit down.
Melody went on talking with my dad like if they had known each other all along. She talked about New York and her cooking classes. I just watched them.

“We’re here” my dad said as he parked outside my driveway.

“You live here?” she turned around and asked me.

I nodded.

“All by yourself?”

“Well I mean, my guitars and music equipment keep me company” I joked.
She laughed. I finished getting the suitcases out of the car.

“I’ll see you both around later” my dad said to Melody and me. We both waved as I led the way to the front door of my house.
I was about to ask her to pardon the mess when I opened the door and the house was clean.

My mom had come to clean the house. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and Melody turned to look at me wondering what had made me laugh.

“Welcome to my home”

“You really do have a lot of musical equipment” she said already beginning to look around.

“I am well, in a band”

She laughed.

“Ah look an infamous keyboard, I can’t even play that” she joked.

“I’ll teach you later, trust me you’ll be playing again by tomorrow”

She just smiled and rolled her eyes as if not believing me.

“C’mon let’s go, I’ll take you out to breakfast, my treat” she said walking towards the door.

How could I say no?

While we were eating we got into the topic again.

“But what reason did my brother give your parents?” she asked me.

“His reasoning was that I had caused you a lot of pain, a lot of stress and had even ruined the family bond, if they were to reintroduce me into your life it would just add unnecessary stress that would setback your recovery. He warned us that if we didn’t willingly agree to stay away they would submit a restraining order”

“Oh gosh, they really went that far” she said taking a sip from her juice.

“Yeah, and we were left in shock. My mother, my sweet mother had even knit a blanket for you and asked your brother to give it to you but he refused saying that they didn’t want anything to do with us. My mother was so upset she wanted to call her own lawyers and settle things but we knew your parents would find a way to beat us. Only a month had passed and you guys had already moved somewhere else and I had no clue where they had moved you. I went crazy looking for you until I found the house you guys had moved into but when I looked for you the neighbors mentioned you had moved to New York or New Jersey, they weren’t sure where but that you had been sent there by your parents. I felt so defeated Melody, how was I supposed to find you in such a big city?”

“How did you find me again John? I would have thought you would have moved on quickly and forgotten about me”

“I never did forget about you Melody but after we got signed as a band, we got really busy. I started seeing many other girls, I made a lot of mistakes. I tried so hard to forget you, I fell into depression for the second time, I started smoking and drinking…but one day, while touring, we did a show here in New York City we went out to eat after the show, and as I watched the people walking down the street through the window I saw Julie”

“Julie?”

“Julie, walking down the street and I kid you not I got up and ran after her, when she saw me she almost passed out on me and I asked her if she still talked to you and she looked scared to even talk to me, she said she didn’t and that she had to go. So I let her go but I knew she had to have stayed in contact with you. So I looked for her on all social media and If found her on Facebook, I scrolled through everything but I couldn’t find you until I saw a post where she was advertising her friends cooking school”

“My cooking school”

“Yes, your cooking school and it had a link, your website led me back to you, in the About section it mentioned you and the address for the place”

“When did this happen?”

“2 years ago”

“So why did you barely confront me now?”

“I was afraid; trust me I want to so badly when I first found out but I held back. When they were deciding where to go write our new album I was the one to suggest Brooklyn, and I suggested it because I wanted to see you, I thought 10 years were enough”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that just to find me, and that my parents caused you so much pain. I still don’t understand why they would go so far just for one person. I mean if you were some crazy teenager who was trying to get me into drugs and lead me down the wrong road then I would have understood them at least a little bit but the way it sounds to me; you were just an 18-year-old who was-who was in love with me...”

She stuttered at the last words. I could only imagine how weird it would be to be in her situation. Having a stranger show up one day and say they were your first love you had forgotten about.

“Yeah, but anyways tell me, how was it for you after you lost your memory, what happened? You didn’t go to Columbia, then what did you end up doing?”

“Oh it was terrible John, at the age of 18 years old and with disabilities I was sent to live on my own with Julie”

“That’s insane”

She nodded.

“I was so upset with my parents, I had still not fully recovered and they were sending me far away with a person I hardly knew. My parents were so different than I had last remembered. They were paranoid and were stricter than ever before. They packed all my things and sent us out on our own to New York”

“New York at 18” I whispered as I thought about it, it sounded scary even to me now.

“It was fun at first, it was a new place, a beautiful and exciting city but living on our own was scary. We were two 18-year old’s, or more like an 18-year-old who had the mentality of a 14 year old and her roommate. While Julie was going to college, I was stuck at home getting tutoring three times a week”

“Tutoring?”

“I had forgotten all my memories from high school including what I had learned, no college wanted to take me in because of that”

“So you didn’t end up going to Columbia anyways huh?”

“Nope and my parents were furious about this. It was only a matter of time before I had fallen into depression. I couldn’t get out of bed, I was in constant tears. Julie had to have so much patience with me. She would try to take me out but my anxiety was strong. I would call my mom begging for her to let me come back home but she would always refuse. I think she was afraid we would meet if I went back to Arizona”

“That was very cruel of her”

Melody nodded.

“Oh it was, but she said I needed to face the real world and recover in New York. How was I supposed to recover in a place I didn’t know, without the support of my friends and family right? Well she finally let me visit home when I turned 19. It was then that my father noticed I had fallen into depression and set up an appointment with the doctor. They got me on antidepressants and sent me back to New York. But the antidepressants really helped and they got me back on my feet. I finished my private tutoring and I began to take cooking classes they offered in New York City. Before you know it I was certified and I began teaching cooking classes myself”

“That’s actually what you wanted to do originally” I confessed to her.

“Is that right? Well that makes sense now, because my mother was so upset when I gave up on trying to get into Columbia again, funny how life works”

“So, does Julie still live with you?”

“Oh no, Julie started seeing someone and before they knew it, she was pregnant. They got married and she moved out and I was left alone again”

“Ah, she’s married now, wow” I said not being able to imagine Julie married with kids.

“What about you, why didn’t you marry?” I asked her, she sighed.

“I have only dated two guys in the 10 years since you last saw me. I dated a guy for about a month and then recently I met Alex at a party and we dated for 6 months and well you now know how that ended up” She said giving me a look.

She was referring to the roses and her boyfriend getting mad.

“I’m really not sorry about that” I said and laughed, she laughed too.

“So anyways, what were your plans for today? Were you going to go confront them today or tomorrow?”

“I don’t think I can do it today yet. I’m actually really scared, I was wondering if perhaps we could break into our old high school and you could show me around” she suggested.

“Well I don’t think we need to break in, we can simply get visitor passes”

“Ah right visitor passes… well anyways, I think we should go there if you don’t mind”

“I don’t mind at all, I haven’t been back there in a while myself”

“I haven’t been there at all”

“At all? Since the accident?”

“Yup, so lead the way O’Callaghan” she said and then began to laugh.

“Did I call you that before?”

“O’Callaghan?”

She nodded.

“All the time”

“That’s funny, some things remain the same”