Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam’s muscles ache and his head throbs behind his eyes, but it’s not as bad as the pain was the night before. He looks down at Melody, her long copper hair falling across her face like a veil as it lies in curls across his hospital gown covered chest. He gently brushes her hair off of her face with his finger tips, getting lost in the innocence her face possesses when she sleeps.
“Good morning mister Winters!” a petite, brunet nurse in multicolored pink and purple scrubs chirps.
Sam had forgotten the fact that he was in a hospital bed and not his own.
He scratches his scalps. “Oh, um, I guess it is morning. Are we all good to go home?”
The nurse nods, smiling down at them before her short, little legs pull her out of the room. Melody rolls to her stomach as Sam slides out from under her, retrieving his cloths from a white cabinet by the sink, slipping his jeans on under the blue and white checkered hospital gown, before pulling the gown off and reaching for his shirt. Melody inhales through her nose, the stench of sick people giving her a rude awakening before she sits up. Sam’s back towards her, his arms struggling to pull the shirt over his head.
“I wouldn’t mind waking up to this every morning.” Melody admits, smirking as she eyes Sam.
Sam’s back twitches as he turns to look at her, the pale skin of his stomach and back prickling with goose bumps. He blushes, sliding his gray t-shirt on, his skin relaxing as the soft cotton slips down his chest.
Melody jumps from the bed, tying her hair into a high ponytail, missing a few short curls at the nap at her neck.
Sam signs the release form that a short, round, middle-aged man hands him, before calling a cab. Sam and Melody stand outside of the hospital doors, breathing in the fresh summer air, so happy to be free of the stingy hospital smell. Sam laces his finger with Melody’s, lifting her hand up to study the bandages wrapped around her fingers.
“How’d you get this?” Sam asks worriedly.
She leans against his shoulder, making sure it’s not the dislocated one. “I was trying to get to you, but the metal was in my way and it was all jagged… I don’t remember it hurting.”
Sam kisses the rough bandage around her cuts as a faded yellow taxi pulls up to the curb. Sam lets Melody slide across the cracked, brown leather of the taxi seat, before climbing in after her.
………………………………………..
After handing the thick fingered taxi driver the cash he had left in his wallet, Sam follows Melody closely up the stairs to her apartment. He opens the white painted metal door that leads into her apartment for her, stretching his arm out to hold it open; the door makes a slight clicking noise as he closes it behind himself.
The two of them stand in the brightly lit hallway of her apartment, the smell of woodsy incents that have long ago been burnt into ash clings to the carpet and green curtains that hang above the only window in her apartment that doesn’t look at a brick wall. Melody and Same stand a foot away from each other, staring face to face like it’s been years since they’ve last seen the other.
Melody’s eyes float around Sam, down his swollen left cheek, to the chapped split on his bottom lip, before making their way to the sling around his arm. Her eyes make a trail down his legs then down to the space of beige carpet between the tips of their feet, which have become blurred in her vision because of the tears steaming in her eyes. Melody’s throat tightens as she flings her arms around his neck, pulling his head down until their foreheads are pressed together.
“I thought that I would never see you again…” Melody whispers as tears run down her cheek and drip off her chin.
Sam nods, the skin on his forehead moving up and down against hers as he wraps his arms around her waist. Melody nestles her head against his chest, holding him tighter the harder her tears fall.
………………………………
“You guys are crazy!” the middle-aged police officer, who’s years of keeping their little town free of crime have given him a large head, laughs.
Sam pulls at his hair, tired of bickering with the officer.
“I'm telling you the truth! He wants me dead, officer. Dead! Jet is nothing but a criminal. He almost killed me when he and I were fifteen, he kidnapped my girlfriend, and now he’s coming after me… again!” Sam explains.
The officer laughs, flipping through his files as he shakes his head. It’s obvious that he will be no help to them, so Melody and Sam stand up, not bothering to thank the officer for his time as they abruptly leave.
Sam leans against the hood of Melody’s silver Acura, the sun gleaming over them.
“What do you think we should do?” he asks Melody.
Melody stands beside him, but being that she is a good six inches shorter than him she is barely able to stable herself against the bumper without sitting on the hood. “They won’t listen to us Sam! There’s nothing we can do!”
She kicks the curb, cursing under her breath. Sam pulls her against his side. She squirms for a second, too overcome with frustration to sit still.
“We have to do this on our own, Melody. No one believes us, I'm sorry,” he kisses the top of her head, “We’re going to get through this though, I know we will.”
……………………………………
The two of them stay awake into the wee hours of the night, Sam leans over the computer as he sends in his columns to the newspaper’s “Ask Molly” section. The irony is that everyone thinks they’re asking a smart and understanding young woman when really they’re just asking Sam, who is of simple intelligence but has way more compassion than “Molly” would ever have.
He finishes answering a question about whether or not some woman should leave her boyfriend because he informed her that he has always wanted to join the circus. Melody peeks her head up from her notepad where she has been writing down all the incidents that have happened with Adam. She sprawls her legs out across Sam’s lap, pushing him away from his lap top.
“What was he like? Before he beat you up.” she asks.
Sam leans back against the beat-in dark blue couch, grasping her socked feet. “Like my brother,” he nibbles on his bottom lip, running it over the cut from where part of the car window had sliced it, “There was always something about him and finding trouble, I remember having to watch the cops bring him home almost every Saturday night, drunk but happy.”
Melody cuddles up next to him, the tone of Sam’s voice laying weights on her eyelids. She nods, squishing her face against his shirt. “So you guys were close?” she asks.
Sam nestles his chin into her hair. “Yeah, even though ironically he was the quarter back of our high school foot ball team while I was the social outcast that stalked the shelves of the local library and played guitar under the bleachers.”
Melody sighs softly, nodding to coax him to keep talking. He continues on, playing in Melody’s hair as he retells every memory of Jet before he turned in to Adam. Sam catches himself midsentence, the story of how he had met Jet during soccer when they were eight is left hanging on his tongue, as he realizes that Melody has gone limp next to him; soft snores slipping out of her nose. He smiles down at her asleep on his chest, sleep slowly taking hold of him.
………………………………
Melody awakes upon the icy black and white tiles of Adam’s apartment. Fear grabs at her heart, contracting it and shoving it up her throat until there’s a dull pulse at the base of her mouth.
“Sam?” she whispers.
Adam appears out of the hall way that leads to his bedroom. He smiles, wiping his hands across a red handkerchief as he walks to her on his minty clouds of seduction.
“Sam’s a little… tied up.” Adam says, a sly smile across his lips.
Melody shakes her head as she stands to her feet, pointing her trembling index finger at him. “What did you do to him?” she demands.
Adam smirks, turning on his heels as he
motions her to follow him down the hall way, past the trophy room and his bed room to little room at the end of the hall, no bigger than a closet.
“I haven’t done anything to him… well, not yet anyway.” Adam sighs as he swings the white, wooden door open.
Melody peeks her head through the door frame, her heart skipping beats as she looks at the skinny young man in front of her, tied to a chair with his light brown hair hanging over his face as he breaths from underneath the silver duct tape across his mouth. She throws her fists against Adam’s chest, tears dripping from her eyes.
“What are you doing to him!” she screams.
Adam catches her fists in his palms before gathering her in a hug. “If you do what I say, I’ll let him go, unharmed.”
Melody slithers from his arms, running to Sam and kneeling down next to his legs. “What do you want me to do?” she asks Sam.
Sam shakes his head at her, screaming beneath the duct tape. Jet walks to her, running his finger tips from her scalp to the ends of her hair.
“Be mine, forever.” Adam whispers.
Sam screams again, kicking and thrusting his chest as he tries to break free of the ropes. His eyes stare down at Melody, his dark green eyes welling up with tears before spilling over and running down his cheek, rolling in circles on the duct tape.
Melody stands up, keeping eye contact with Sam as she nods. “I’ll do it.”
Sam screams like she’s just shot him through the heart; his tears drip against the floor as he tries to break through the ropes again. Adam pulls the tape from Sam’s mouth, cynically smiling in victory.
Sam looks up at Melody, his eyes begging her to stop this. “Don’t! Melody, no please don’t do this!” Sam pleads.
Adam unties him; the ropes fall in to the puddle of tears that have formed at the legs of the chair. Sam leaps up from the chair, knocking it backwards, as he pulls Melody close to him.
His fingers grip the back of her yellow shirt as he lips find her ear. “Please, Melody, don’t do it.” he begs.
Adam pulls them apart, his fingers digging into Melody’s shoulder. “Sam I think she’s made up her mind, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”
Sam pulls on Melody’s arm, knowing that if he decked Adam right here he might hurt Melody. “Let me say good bye? Please.”
Adam looks down at Melody, sincere and caring. “Do you want to say goodbye?”
She nods, not sure why Adam was suddenly being sympathetic with her as he leaves them alone.
Sam pushes the hair away from her face, his finger tracing her jaw line. “I’ll come for you, I promise. I love you.” Sam kisses her trembling lips; his fingers drop something cold against her neck.
Loud footsteps tap their way in to the room, the owner clearing their throat.
“I think your time is up.” Jet announces
Sam’s lips hover an inch from Melody’s ear. “I love you.”
Adam sighs, grabbing at the back of Sam’s neck as he pulls him out of the room, Sam dragging his feet behind him.
Melody stands alone in the small room, wishing she didn’t have to leave Sam but knowing this is the only way to keep him safe. She listens to Sam plead with Adam, begging him not to hurt her. She runs her fingers across her neck, touching where Sam had draped something around her throat. A golden chain hangs just under the collar of her shirt, dangling loosely around her neck. She pulls it out of her shirt, her eyes steaming over as she holds the heart pendent in her palm.
Sam has been carrying it with him since the day Adam had unclasped it from her neck and left it on the carpet for someone to crush into pieces. He strung her engagement ring behind the heart. She smiles as the jewel sparkles in the light that beams in from the hallway.
She quickly tucks it under her shirt again as Adam comes back in the room, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. He kisses her with his perfect lips.
“I want my own room, I want to sleep by myself, and don’t try to make out with me every two seconds. If you obey my requests I’ll stay with you.” she says, pulling away from him.
He nods, squeezing her close. She feels nothing but empty.