Page 165 of On The Edge
“No, here goes everything.”
They all look at me, truth dawning in their eyes and Kai bumps my arm with his elbow.
“You’re right. This is it.” Kai takes a deep breath before exhaling quickly.
Reis closes his eyes and his shoulders hunch forward a little more. I know how he feels because I’m trying so fucking hard not to fall into the despair that what we’ve done might not be enough to keep her. We talk a big game about not leaving untilshe comes with us, but we all know that when she’s better, if she asks us, we’ll give her the peace she wants.
But it has to be her choice.
I step forward and twist the door knob, my heart in my throat. I push the door open slightly, walking into the dark apartment first. We put a sheet over the bare window for some privacy, but it really makes the whole apartment eerily dark.
The flickering of the TV and its low volume fill the room. On the couch, my girl sits. The TV plays the end of the interview we just left as she rewinds it again. I can’t believe it’s already on the Internet, because she’s found the whole thing online.
She’s awake.
She watched it.
She found it and is watching it repetitively.
“Melody?” I ask softly, going to the couch quickly. We all crowd her, sitting next to her and at her feet while her eyes stay locked onto the screen.
“Why’d you do that?” she whispers brokenly, tears lining her eyes.
Out of all the questions I thought she’d ask, out of all the things I thought she’d say, that was not it.
“What?” Markus asks, his voice cracking slightly like the wind just got knocked out of him.
“You’re going to lose everything,” she gasps, eyes finally darting from the TV to us.
The room is silent for a moment, because what she said is a real possibility. We knew that. But we chose what we couldn’t live without.
Her.
“Have we lost you?” I ask her softly.
I want to touch her so badly. I want to hold her while she goes through all the emotions she’s warring with. I want to be there for her as much as she’ll let me.
Melody looks at me quickly, her head whipping to the side. It feels like we have a million conversations with our eyes and I… I don’t know where we land. Nodding encouragingly, I smile softly, hope filling my chest more than dread.
She turns and looks at the others, searching, looking, wanting to know their truths.
“No,” she breathes softly. “No, you haven’t lost me.”
I exhale quickly, not even fully aware that I had been holding a breath. Relief floods my body.
“Then we could never lose everything. You, Melody,areour everything. Our reason, our muse, ourlife,” Reis speaks quickly, trying to show her, and Kai starts talking when he pauses.
“We told you we’d always be here for you. We’d choose you. And that?” Kai gestures to the TV where the four of us sit frozen. “That was us staking our claim for the world to see. We’re yours, even if you chose not to be ours.”
The tears start to fall, dripping down her face silently as she looks at each of us.
“What if you regret it?” she asks, the watery tone in her voice breaking my heart. Especially because I can hear the real question she’s asking.
What if you all regretme?
“That will never happen,” Markus says quickly. “I think I can speak for us all when I say we’ll never regret being with you. Not a day in our life or the time beyond. You’re enough. You’re more than enough. The real question is, can you believe that? Can you trust us when we say you’re all we’ve ever wanted?”
“Please, baby, understand.” I lean into her side closer. “You’re the reason we’re living.”
