Page 69 of On The Edge
Would finally saying this all out loud make them think I really am as disgusting as the people in high school convinced me I am?
“Is it wrong to want to be with you all? To be in love with each one of you and want you all to love me? Is that so fucking bad? Does it make me disgusting, greedy? I don’t know, I didn’t think so, but I was called all of that andmore,” I sob, the sound ripping through my chest as I break. “And it turned out that the day you all left, the entire tune of the bullying changed. Suddenly, it was fine that I loved you all, but so fucking embarrassing that you guys had to leave the state to get away from my sorry ass. That you must have left me because you could never love me, let alone be in the same room as me anymore.”
“Melody,” Reis says my name like a prayer, breathy and low. Tears line my eyes and it’s so annoying because I’ve told this same fucking story more times in the last few days than I ever wanted to.
I know Kai, Markus and Adam love me. I know they love me and don’t judge me for my feelings. Past or present. Because that’s what this is; I know I love them all still to this very moment. But if Reis decides this is too much, that we can’t get past what he overhead or the anger that he holds, that he actually agrees with the venom those bitches thought… then this is done. Because it’s not going to work if Reis can’t love me back. I won’t rip them all apart. They’ve built this amazing life and career together, and they can find another girl together or separately to fill their hearts. I’m nothing special.
It will kill me, but I’ll let them go. For good.
I take a steadying breath and a traitorous tear falls down my cheek as I scrub it off angrily.
Reis' hands clench into fists at his sides, and his throat bobs as he swallows.
“Guys, please,” he begs, turning to face the others, “Please let me talk to her alone first.” Markus nods, slapping the arms of his chair to push himself up to stand.
Markus comes over to me, leaning over me to take a kiss. My cheeks are wet from my tears, but he says nothing of it. Just sweetly wipes my tears away before whispering, “Stay strong, Songbird. And give him hell.”
Kai is the next to leave, staring at Reis with a hard look before breathing heavily through his nose.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he growls at Reis, before turning to me.
“Remember how much I love you. Nothing changes that,” he whispers, giving me a soft kiss before walking out.
Adam stands still. He’s not moving at all as he looks at me, arms crossed as he waits for me to tell him I’m okay. I know right now that if I asked him to stay, he would plant himself between me and Reis and refuse to move.
I love this man so fucking much. He’s willing to go this far to protect me.
“It’s okay, Adam,” I say with tears in my eyes, holding my hand out for his to give him a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
Adam sighs roughly. “He so much as says one wrong word to you, and you call me. I’ll be in the other room,waiting.” Adam points the last part to Reis threateningly before kissing the crown of my head and leaving the room without even looking at Reis.
The air between Reis and I is awkward when they all leave the room.
There’s an unknown energy that fills the air; guilt and frustration, regret and revenge, love and desperation, all swirling around us.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what else to say. It’s…up to him now.
It’s up to him to not be a dumb-ass and start up again about how this entire fucking thing is my fault.
“Melody, I’m…” he starts to say before his voice breaks. Reis bites the inside of his cheek, and closes his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry. God, I was so wrong, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
The air escapes involuntarily from my lungs as I choke on it.What… is happening?
My eyes widen in shock and my body freezes. I wasn’t prepared for that. For him to own what happened as his fault, for him to apologize.
Can I trust it though?
My gut tells me to. That I can trust what he’s saying, that he’s being honest, but my mind is screaming at me to remember all the shit he pulled. That the last seven years of agony was because he made it so.
Reis looks like a man being eaten apart with regret, though. He stands there, shoulders hunched, his hands restless—fidgeting, clenching, grasping at nothing, while his face, once so confident, is hollow with time and something deeper. Remorse.
It drips from him, thick and suffocating, pooling in the tired lines around his redringed eyes. I see it now, in the way he stares at the floor, as if searching for pieces of himself he has long since lost. In the way his lips part, then press shut, swallowing words he knows are too late, but I wait for them to be said all the same.
“I know I fucked up. I realize it now. I didn’t before,” he says quietly, running a hand through his hair and pulling at the loose waves. “I was so blinded by hurt and heartbreak that you’d say that—for any reason—that I just had to get away. When Kai and I told Adam and Markus, they were devastated. I preyed on that hurt, I see that now, and convinced them to move immediatelyto really give the band a shot, to get away from you. With you out of the picture, there was nothing else in Haven for us.”
“But you didn’t even ask me about it.” My shoulders tense up, drawn up just enough to betray the weight of what I’m feeling. One hand hovers over my chest, fingers gripping the fabric of the shirt I’m wearing as if I could help my broken heart. I try to grasp something for stability, while my breathing comes unevenly; shallow, then deep, then caught somewhere in between. It’s like my body can’t decide whether to sob in release, or to hold it all in. Like I don’t know whether to run away or stay long enough to hear an explanation. “You overheard a conversation between me and a girl you knew wasn’t the nicest to me, and figured I’d bare my true feelings to her? What a joke,” I say, trying to put on a strong tone, but it falls flat even to my ears.
“I was a dumb kid, Mel. I… I heard the girl that I was stupidly, longingly, irrevocably in love with tell someone that she didn’t care about me, about me or my best friends. After all the time we’d spent together; the near kisses, the gestures, after all of it … It tore me apart to hear that. I thought that you had just been using us. Hearing those words from your own lips broke me into a million pieces. Unfortunately, the piece that was the loudest was the anger and cowardice.”
