She hates me.
She hates me.
A sob pours out of me, and I don’t even notice the train has passed, even when cars begin to honk from behind me, demanding I move. But they don’t know that I’m frozen, suspended in disbelief, so I just reread her message over and over again, crying harder, sinking further into darkness and self-loathing.
I’m a wicked girl.
Horns blare, people yell through their windows, cars swerve around me, but the only thing that registers is my cell phone vibrating in my grip when her name lights up the face.
She’s calling me.
And I know I’m in no state to answer. I’m parked in the middle of a rainy highway at nine P.M. with vomit in my throat and ice in my lungs, but I answer anyway, because emotion is always mightier than logic.
“H-Hello?”
My voice is a pathetic quiver, and Eleanor’s is slurred and spiteful. Her hate rings out through my Bluetooth and buries me alive. “I wish it were you,” she rasps.
I clasp a hand over my mouth to keep the sobs from pouring out, but all they do is erupt inside me, turning everything to ash. “Me, too,” I croak.
Me, too.
She’s drunk—I think she’s drunk, but I’m not sure if she’s intoxicated from alcohol or grief. Eleanor lets out a painful moan, then goes quiet for a beat before repeating, “Oh, how I wish it were you.”
Her confession blankets me in heartache, so I curl up and lay my head. “Why are you saying this? What did I do?”
“You stole from me, Melody, and I hate you for it.”
I sniffle and hiccup, trying to understand, trying to comprehend why she feels this way.
My relationship with Charlie’s mother was always strong—or so I thought. She made me feel warm and welcome, just like her son had. But something changed that day, the day the sun died, and everything shifted. I felt her animosity towards me. I felt her blame like I felt his loss.
It was all-consuming.
I just never understood why. It wasn’t my fault. It was a horrible, unfair accident that debilitated me just as much as it destroyed her, but it wasn’t my fault, and I would take Charlie’s place in a heartbeat if I could.
God, I wish I could.
I’m about to counter her words, tell her that makes no sense, insist that I did nothing wrong… but all I can do is mutter a weak, “I’m sorry.”
There’s a prolonged pause, riddled with so much left unsaid. So much baggage and loss and irreparable damage. So many things I wish she would say. But she only whispers, “So am I.”
And then the line goes dead.
I sit there for a moment, staring out through the rain laden window, listening to the wiper blades squeak against the glass. My throat feels raw, my skin crawling with penitence.
Am I responsible?
Am I to blame for Charlie’s death?
I chose the restaurant that night. I chose the time. I chose to stay for dessert, even though Charlie was eager to get home and celebrate in the privacy of our own bedroom.
I didn’t run fast enough. I didn’t scream loud enough.
Maybe I didn’t give him enough reason to hold on.
I decide to mull over my impossible regret at a local dive bar a mile up the road, sucking down shots of tequila as if they might fill the empty holes inside of me. They don’t, of course, but they do numb the pain, and that’s a start.
Hobbling off the bar stool over an hour later, I teeter on both feet, slinging my purse strap across my shoulder.
The bartender eyes me warily, swiping up the cash I left for her. “You have a ride, right?”
I blink, her question registering like slush.
She leans forward on her arms. “Do you have a ride home, honey? Want me to call an Uber?”
“I, um…” I shake my head, and the action prompts little stars to dance behind my eyes. “I have a ride. Thanks.”
Not waiting for her reply, I traipse out of the bar, swaying as I push through the doors and head out into the rain. I slip into the driver’s seat of my Camry, trying to find the keyhole and missing multiple times. My brain is foggy, my movements sluggish.
This is stupid. Call an Uber.
Hesitation seizes me, and I close my eyes.
Stupid or not, I do it anyway, because the alcohol and anguish are screaming at me to drive, telling me that nothing fucking matters.
Nothing. Fucking. Matters.
I step on the gas and peel out of the parking lot, tires and heart screeching in my ears. My vision is blurred by the downpour and pool of tears coating my eyes, headlights resembling little lightsabers as they zoom past me. Grasping for a semblance of reason, I jerk the steering wheel onto a desolate dirt road and take the long way home in an effort to stay away from other vehicles. It’s just me and my sadness now, fighting off rainclouds and regret.
As I speed down the deserted road, gravel kicks up, clanking against steel, and a tall tree comes into a view a quarter-mile up. It’s big and solid. The impact would be devastating.
It probably wouldn’t even hurt.
My shoe pushes on the gas pedal, the engine revving and careening towards the tree.
You’re a wicked girl.
I hate you.
I wish it were you.
Her cruel words push me forward, and I scream out, loud, hysterical, desperate, gaining speed, getting closer…
And then I feel a shift. My thoughts mutate into something else.
I can almost make out an orchestra of violins playing in the distance.
I feel water lap at my skin as I dance in the murky lake.
I hear my father’s laughter rumble through me as Unchained Melody sings through the record player.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I slam on the brake so hard, the car spins out, tires squealing out of control, until I come to an abrupt stop, half-stuck in a muddy ditch.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
My frantic breaths mingle with the sound of rain against glass, and I feel a breakdown crawling up my throat, ready to combust.
So, I do what I’ve been trained to do.
I call Amelia. I reach out to my Lifeline.
My fingers are violently shaking as I scroll through my contacts, eyes stinging with hot tears. I’m weeping, wilting, as I call her number over and over again.
Straight to voicemail.
No.
An ugly cry tears through me, frustration mixing with fiery rage, and I think about contacting my parents.
West. Leah.
Zephyr.
But… God, I can’t. I can’t let them know how broken I still am. I can’t let them see me like this, so pathetic and lost, so stripped down to almost nothing.
Just cowardice and bare bones.
Heaving in another rattled breath, I keep scrolling through my contacts until I settle on his name. My thumb hovers over the six letters that are bleeding together through my tequila haze and near-death adrenaline spike. But it’s the combination of those things that has me doing the unthinkable. I click his name.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
And then…
“Hello?”
There’s a familiar annoyance in his tone, gruff and gritty, and it quiets me somehow. My angry tears fade into whimpers, my breath hitching as I try to catch it.
“Melody?”
It occurs to me that he’s never said my name before. He’s never properly addressed me, and I’m not sure what that means, or why it even matters. I swallow down a dry lump and force out, “Amelia didn’t answer.”