Chapter 15

Mel’s POV

Why does the grass feel so good?

The stars look brighter, even the moon looks so shiny.

I feel a comb brushing through my hair and I giggled.

“Ooh yeah, I like it, keep doing that,” I say and my pillow started to shake causing me to quickly sit up and vomit.

No joke. Literal vomit.

The comb rubs my back and I reached back to put it back on my head only to hold up someone’s hand.

I jumped in surprise and opened my mouth to scream but I puked instead.

Feeling drained, I laid back on my pillow inhaling a familiar scent. I roll on my stomach and pressed my face against the pillow and took a deeeep breath.

“It’s smells so good,” I sigh.

I rolled back to my previous position and felt myself slowly falling with the stars.

“You never even listen anymore!” Mom yells.

“Listen? You expect me to listen to your nonsense? I told you what I was doing is work, the problem here is that you never trust me!” Dad yells back.

“So now I’m the one who has issues? All I am asking is for you to spend more of your time with us! Your family!” I hear mom shout as I go up the stairs to my room.

My chest feels heavy once again, tears fall down my face. All I could hear was them fighting.

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and saw the messages my friends left on the screen.

we’re hanging out at the coffee house tonight, you should come!!

we’ll wait for you:)

mel? r u ok?

God, I can’t even talk to them as much as I want to. Everything feels so distant.

“Mel?” A voice asks and a hand softly taps my shoulder.

I open my eyes to see Ace sitting beside me with a worried look on his face.

I sit up and asked,

“What happened?”

“You were crying in your sleep,” He said.

What?

“Do you always cry in your sleep?” He asks, still worried.

“Mom told me I used to,” I shrug.

“I was dreaming,” I add.

“About what?”

“I couldn’t remember,” I lie.

I know he has his own problems to deal with. I shouldn’t burden him with mine.

My eyes tour around the unfamiliar room we’re in.                                                                                                                                        

Blue-gray walls, centre bar windows, light brown curtains, and a dark brown drawer dresser with a bunch of mess on top of it.

“Are we in your room?” I ask.

“Yeah,” He nods.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, though.” He says and I laugh.

“I still have my clothes on so I probably won’t,”

“Do you even remember what happened?” He asks.

My brows furrowed and I focused on my thoughts.

“The party, and then you slamming Tristan’s head on the tiled floor and nearly killing him-” I say but was cut off by his chuckle.

“That’s a bit precise for someone who was high at the time,” He laughs once more.

I rolled my eyes and continued recalling what happened.

My breath stopped.

We kissed. But he doesn’t seem like he remembers.

I shouldn’t tell him.

“The lake? Were we at the lake last night?” I ask him and his face turned serious.

“Yeah, we were,” He answers.

I might be good at lying, but I completely hate doing it.

“The rest…I don’t exactly remember, what happened at the lake?” I ask him, trying to look genuinely confused and his serious face slowly turned red.

I guess he remembers.

“Well firstly, if you’re still confused, Tristan spiked your drink with drugs-”

“Why?” I cut him off.

“He made this bet with Paul, something he picked up from me during sophomore and junior years,” He sighed.

“Bet about what?” I ask, ignoring the other thing he said.

“A bet if he could get you to sleep with him,”

I scowled.

That’s hands-down disgusting.

“Wow,” Is all that came out of my mouth.

I told him to continue.

“I found out about it, I didn’t like the idea, of course. I tried talking him out of it but he didn’t listen, so I stopped him before he could get his grubby hands on you at the party,” He says.

I stayed silent.

“But you already consumed the drug, so I had to take you away from him and that stupid party, I took us both to the lake because there’re no people there, and I needed to cool off,”

“Cool off?” I ask, confused with what he said.

“Back at the party, when I was fighting him, the rage was blinding. I couldn’t stop myself, I just kept on punching his face while the other hand was already crushing his neck. I could have killed him.” He avoids eye contact.

“Thank you,” The words involuntarily come out of my mouth.

He turns to look at me.

“I mean, I’m not thanking you for nearly killing him, but it did stop him so,” I shrug and he gives me an amused look.

“And that thing with the rage, that’ll pass,” I tell him.

“I hope,” He says with a chuckle, but I could hear the tension in his voice.

Ace’s POV

After she passed out at the lake, I took her back at her house.

The whole ride, she’s asleep, when we arrived, their house was empty. I had no choice but to take her back to my place, I can’t just leave her in the car.

Both mom and Ally were already sleeping, Mel was still passed out, so I had to carry her up to my room.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of the plates clanking in the kitchen. And back pain. I’m surprised Mel is still asleep.

I go down the stairs to the kitchen to see mom washing the dishes. I was about to go back up, but she noticed me standing there and asked,

“Why is there a girl in your room?”

Shit.

“What?” I ask, trying to sound like I know nothing.

She turns to look at me.

“Don’t even lie. You were sleeping on the floor, while she was on your bed. Who the hell is she? Goldilocks?”

“And who the hell are you? Mama bear?” I joke and she threw a towel at me.

“Yes, I bite,” She says and bit the air causing me to laugh.

“She’s a friend,” I tell her.

“A friend that you like.” She says matter of factly.

I made a face.

“It’s obvious that you like her, Ace. I know things, I’ve been around for a long time. Besides, you never brought home a girl, let alone have one sleep on your bed.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I rolled my eyes and walked back up to my room.

She’s still sleeping.

I was worried what she’ll think of me when she wakes up and remembers what happened last night.

Either she remembers the kiss, or me punching that stupid tree, imagining it was Tristan’s face.

I’m wishing she remembers nothing.

I could never bring myself to tell her that we kissed.

I hear a sound and I drift out of my thoughts.

She’s crying.

“Mel?” I wake her up.

Even asleep and crying, she looks so beautiful.

Why is she crying, though?

A rush of relief seeped through me.

She didn’t remember, it’s better that way.

“What time is it?” She asks.

“It’s 9:08,” I answer.

“Where’s Chloe? And Ollie? What happened to them?”  She asks once more.

“They probably went home, you should check your phone. I’ll get you some breakfast,” I tell her and stood up from the bed and walked out the door.

I go downstairs to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, mom already went off for work, Ally was sitting on the couch, her short light brown hair messed up, still wearing her teddy bear pajamas while watching her daily morning cartoons eating her Lucky Charms cereal.

I rolled my eyes.

Kids.

I put two slices of bread in the toaster and waited for it to toast. While waiting, I made hot chocolate. Once I got everything ready, I went back to my room.

“What happened to you?!” Chloe screams through the Mel’s phone.

It’s not even on loudspeaker yet.

“I’ll tell you everything later,” Mel sighs.

“You better!” Chloe yells once again.

Mel looks so tired. And sad.

I wonder what she dreamt of.

Chloe was still talking like a mom and Mel looked like she wasn’t ready to deal with shit yet. Without thinking, I put down the breakfast on the little space on top of my dresser, and snatched the phone out of Mel’s hand.

“Mel’s tired, Chloe, she’ll tell you everything once she’s okay,” I said and ended the call.

Mel scowled at me.

“Did you just realize what you did?!”

Oh, so now she’s yelling.

“I got you out of a situation you weren’t ready for,” I answer.

“A situation I’m not ready for? Chloe’s my friend, I’m used to her by now, I can deal with her,” She says.

“Didn’t seem like it when you were crying in your sleep,”

“You do not put this on me!” She raises her voice once again.

“We were talking just fine, Ace! And now she’s probably thinking all sorts of things, God!” She adds and covers her face with her hands in frustration.

What is she so frustrated about?

“What do you mean ‘thinking all sorts if things’?” I ask.

“She likes you, Ace! That’s probably clear to you by now,”

“And I told her I don’t,”

That came out harsher than it was supposed to.

She scowls at me once more.

“I just ended the call!” I say, defending myself.

“Exactly, you ended the call!”

Oh.

Mel’s POV

And here I thought I’m stupid.

“She’s going to think we have some sort of thing, Ace,” I sigh, exhausted from everything.

Exhausted from being high, exhausted from Chloe (I’ll admit), exhausted from this petty bickering with Ace.

“Don’t we?” He says.

I look up at him.

“What?”

“Have something?” He says with uncertainty.

We made out last night so basically, yeah.

“No, we’re friends, Ace” I tell him softly.

I don’t want to change anything.

“Oh,” He says so quietly I barely heard it.

“Is that my breakfast?” I ask, trying to change the topic.

“Yeah,” He nods.

“Thanks,” I say and smiled at him.