Chapter 5
The days had been passing by mercifully fast. Three had elapsed in what felt like the blink of an eye. For months, Melissa submerged herself in the details of her days, allowed them to carry her like a mighty tide guiding an ocean. Most days she felt as though she were bobbing in a vast body of water, being pulled along by forces beyond her control. Schoolwork, family obligations, and her friends united and acted as a current towing her through each day, week, month, through life. But the last three days had been different. Melissa felt more like herself than she had in five months. She felt energized, enlivened; almost happy.
Melissa felt as if she’d awoken from a hideous dream. And though she felt slightly battered, she was beginning to feel again.
Situated in the back seat of Daniella’s car on her way to school, Melissa felt at ease for the first time in a long time. She missed Gabriel; that fact remained unchanged. But something had changed within her, something inexplicable and profound. She felt more at peace with her circumstances, wondered if she were letting go of Gabriel. Such a notion had been unfathomable earlier, seemed improbable still.
Melissa could not quite pinpoint exactly what has transformed and did not feel like exhausting herself trying to figure it out. She was grateful for the reprieve and that was enough to sustain her.
“This has been the longest week ever. We are so going out tonight!” Daniella affirmed exuberantly.
“I know! I can’t wait! I have the hottest outfit,” Alexandra agreed.
“What should I wear?” Daniella asked.
“Something slutty!” Alexandra joked. “I’m just kidding. Just wear that green top with your skinnies. Your ass looks smokin’ hot in that.”
Melissa listened to Alexandra and Daniella chatter on about their weekend plans, had done so absentmindedly for several months. Earlier on, just after Gabriel had left, they had regularly asked her to join them and she had continually refused. As time passed, however, her friends had begun asking less and less frequently before they stopped asking altogether. Her two best friends no longer bothered to try and include her in their plans as their invites had always been declined. She had not been offended by their exclusion before, had thought it a relief even to no longer go through the motions of getting an invite, turning it down then listening to angry or pity-filled appeals. Now, however, she felt differently. She wanted to be included.
“Hey, what should I wear?” Melissa heard herself ask.
“Oh my God Daniella, pull over! I think I’m going to have a heart attack!” Alexandra chided.
“Melissa, are you really going to come out with us?” Daniella asked incredulously.
“I’m thinking about it,” Melissa answered.
“Don’t think!” Alexandra urged. “Just come!”
“Yeah, it’s been, like, forever since you came out with us,” Daniella added. “You have to come! Greg is having a huge party at his house. His parents are away so it’s going to be epic. He has an indoor pool, Melissa!”
“It’s going to be off the hook! That guy is loaded. I’m excited to just see his house, everything else is a bonus,” Alexandra said.
Melissa was suddenly panicked by what she was feeling. Excitement, an emotion she’d been virtually devoid of over the last several months, swelled within her.
“You have to come, Missy! We miss you,” Daniella begged.
She felt dizzied. Her heart raced. Her hands felt frozen. She felt nauseated and elated simultaneously. In her belly, a swarm of butterflies had emerged from their chrysalides and flitted about, beating their wings.
“Count me in!” she blurted out. “I’m coming to Greg’s party!”
“Yay!” Daniella cheered.
“Wait a sec,” Alexandra interrupted. “You’re not going to come with us and get drunk and start crying about you-know-who are you?”
Although she could not be completely sure that that would not happen, Melissa felt confident she would be okay and that the night would pass tear-free.
“No,” she said. “I’m not going to cry this time.”
“Are you sure?” Alexandra asked skeptically.
“Of course,” Melissa lied.
“So you’re over him?” Daniella asked softly.
Melissa considered her question briefly before answering.
“I don’t know that I’m necessarily over Gabriel. I’m just not going to sit home all the time waiting for him to call or text or e-mail. I mean, I’m sick of being sad all the time, of being, like, pathetic, you know?”
“Yeah, you have been pretty pathetic,” Alexandra stated plainly.
Daniella elbowed Alexandra.
“What the fuck was that for?” Alexandra asked.
Melissa watched as Daniella shot Alexandra a warning glance.
“Sorry,” Alexandra mouthed.
“Guys, stop it! This is what I’m talking about,” Melissa began. “You think I don’t see what you guys are doing?”
“We’re not doing anything,” Daniella answered.
“Yes you are. You treat me like a mental patient!”
“We’re sorry, sweetie,” Daniella said. “We don’t want to upset you.”
“No! Stop apologizing. I’m the one who should be apologizing. Because I’ve been, like, a zombie for the last few months, you guys have had to tiptoe around my feelings. I mean, it’s unfair that you have to be like that around me and watch what you say or don’t say and what you do or don’t do. It’s ridiculous. I’m ridiculous!”
“You’re not ridiculous. You’re hurting. We just want to make things easier for you,” Daniella replied.
“Yeah, we’re sick of seeing you upset all the time. We want to help any way we can,” Alexandra added.
“Well it stops today,” Melissa asserted. “Starting today, things are back to normal. No more moping and crying and waiting. You don’t have to hold back anymore and coddle me.”
“Great! You mean we don’t have to pretend to understand why you’d want to waste your time boo-hooing over a guy–a very hot guy–but a guy nevertheless?” Alexandra asked.
“Alex!” Daniella exclaimed.
“What?” Alexandra replied.
“You don’t have to be rude about it!”
“No Daniella, Alex is right. I shouldn’t sit around crying over him. I mean, he’s probably off somewhere having a great time which is why he hardly ever even calls anymore so why should I be upset?”
Her question was rhetorical and her friends dared not offer so much as a hypothetical or lighthearted retort. But Melissa was certain the same questions that ran rampantly in her mind crossed theirs as well. She had wondered if his infrequent contact with her was a result of waning interest more than risk factors. Recently, she began to doubt his feelings for her.
As soon as she felt the familiar doubt, which invariably precipitated hurt, begin to encroach, she forced it to the back of her mind, refused to let it ruin her newfound sense of calm.
“So, I’ll ask again, what should I wear tonight?” Melissa asked and redirected the conversation back to a lighter topic.
“Something slutty, like I told Daniella,” Alexandra joked.
Melissa laughed. And it felt good. She giggled with her friends as Daniella parked in the front lot of Harbingers High School before they gathered their books and entered the building.
As Melissa walked down the hallway toward her locker, she couldn’t help but feel an energy swirl about her. There was excitement in the air; she felt it the moment she walked in. It was electric. Some students passed, gesturing to one another animatedly. Others whispered eagerly. Something significant had happened, Melissa just wasn’t sure what.
“I gotta go,” Alexandra said unaware of the buzz around her. “I can’t be late, like, ever again or I’ll get detention. Later!”
“Bye Alex,” Melissa said distractedly.
“See ya, Alex,” Daniella replied. “Melissa, I have to
go too. I have a test first period.”
“Go, go. I’ll see you later.”
Melissa watched as Daniella disappeared around the corner into the stairwell then refocused her attention to the odd flurry in the hallway. More of her classmates had gathered and stared down the long corridor pointing and gesturing. She strained her vision to see what was causing the commotion. She could not quite make out who or what she was seeing.
She began pushing her way through the crowd that had amassed.
As Melissa got closer, she discerned a tall figure that appeared to be the center of all the attention. She kept moving, pressing passed onlookers. She saw that there were two slightly shorter figures flanking the person at the end of the hall and kept moving toward them.
When she was finally close enough to see who was responsible for the ruckus, she felt her breath catch in her chest. Her knees weakened. Her mind spun like tires in mud, spinning and struggling to gain traction when all the while the only progress that was made was deeper submergence in mire. What she witnessed seemed impossible, unbelievable. Thoughts swirled and eddied about. None of them made sense. She felt faint. Surely it couldn’t be him. She hadn’t seen him in five months and was certain she’d never see him again. But he had returned.
Her heart began to race and, though she felt cold, perspiration dampened her forehead and palms. Her pulse raced dangerously. Her knees threatened to give way beneath her. She felt lightheaded and unsteady. He seemed to float toward her, an apparition materializing.
A hush seemed to have befallen the hallway, save for the rapid thumping that resonated in her ears. Everyone around her appeared to be moving with infinitesimal slowness, as if they were actors in a film reel moving in slow-motion.
Standing at the end of the long, student-filled hallway a familiar face smiled at her showcasing his blindingly white smile and single dimple in the center of his right cheek.
Melissa felt the color drain from her cheeks as Kevin Anderson winked at her then waved coyly. Terror, unlike any she had ever experienced, prickled along her spine. Her insides shivered. He grinned broadly as if sensing her horror at the sight of him, confident, arrogant; antagonizing. She wanted to run from him, keep running, and never be forced to lay eyes on his menacing expression again.
Kevin Anderson was dead. His presence implied that he had returned from the grave; and he was not alone. Beside him, Chris Mace and John DeNardi stood, as they always did in the past, very much alive.
The situation was nightmarish; they were all dead. She had heard their tortured screams, knew that they suffered at the hands of Eugene. She had seen their mangled corpses. The scene had been gruesome, their deaths violent. Their return was impossible. They could not be at Harbingers High School.
Her mind continued to roll and turn incapable of gripping a solid thought. Each idea seemed to flow past her like a phantom, ephemeral, evanescent. She worried she was hallucinating or suffering an emotional episode of some sort. Kevin, Chris and John appeared to have returned, impossibly, from the dead and she felt her world upend.