Junk Love.

sixteen.

Mel has innately understood her emotions run deep. Deep enough to startle, and alarm, and cut. For this she's felt rooted to the streets -- damned by them. A befuddled fairy with futile glimmers of contingency plans as murky as the lagoon capsizing her.

Had it not been for the police raiding her camp she wouldn't be in this place. Odd when purgatory becomes safer than a perceived normalcy. The nine to five for a white picket fence grind is merely a nuance to Mel. As vague as the lagoon she finds herself seeping into.

Up to her elbows in soap suds, she works routinely -- tormented by a whirlpool of dark thoughts after the stilted visit with Carter at the jail. Working has always been a dull comfort to Mel compared to the alternative of earning cents on the streets. She's happier there, with her music, but the lifestyle isn't societally supportive.

Something, she can't quite put her finger on what, about meeting Carter has changed her psyche. Becoming cured of addiction by the sentiment of love is a fictional catalyst. The intensity of the feeling has changed Mel in different ways. Regardless of how high she gets in the attic beforehand, she's always ready to scrub the dishes downstairs at 8 a.m. sharp.

The restaurant owner, Nian, remembers her as a unruly nineteen year old -- always late with a wrinkled uniform and crooked name tag. Presently, as he observes her work, he mutters a small encouragement. "Méi ěr, gàn dé hǎo. Bié wàngle cāxǐ."

When she was younger, and living in the attic permanently, she'd retained as much Mandarin as she could. Regardless, Mel doesn't understand everything Nian says to her. A rare smile, one that actually reaches his dark eyes, tells her all she requires. She's doing good work.

Although, once he leaves her station, Mel spirals right back to Carter. She can't forget his smile or the boundaries drawn behind it. Getting food stuck under her nails and wearing an awkward hat that makes her scalp sweat is nothing compared to his ghost. Like they don't know how to be a couple anymore, glimmered only by the dim promise of being together one day again.

These train-wreck thoughts are disrupted by a clatter of metals. Unsettled, Mel reflectively clenches her hand round the knife she scrubs under the water filling the sink. Lately a plug has prevented her thoughts from draining but alarm overwhelms her now. A scared mouse locked and trembling under the wide eyes of a hunting owl.

The freshly scrubbed skillets hanging above Mel's head rattle at the slightest disturbance. The man ensures to shake every hook on his way by. Mel is desperate to react normally but her breath shortens when he leans closer. A rank smell of stale cigarettes clings to his leather jacket. It hangs from him limp as a dish-rag compared to how at home Carter looked in one.

"Měilì méi ěr." As lethal as a cobra in a hissing hooded phase, he uses the knuckle of his index finger to stroke the delicate skin of her cheek. "Nǐ shì nǎlǐ de wǒ de jípǔ sài jìnǚ?"

Skin has no judgement. Goosebumps highlight his touch though Mel rejects it with a grimace. From what little Mandarin she knows, she interprets the word gypsy. This man had repeated it vexingly and affectionately in her ear for a year. Now, upon his renewing touch, she's trapped as firefly in a jar.

"You call me a whore, Dalton? After all this time?" Mel has more strength then she imagined. She's anticipated this moment, dreaded it with each snuffed line of white powder, but her voice is steady as a tree trunk.

Just as unflinching, Dalton continues to caress her jawline with his knuckle. Sultry minted breath envelopes her when he whispers in her ear, "Nǐ ài wǒ zài nǎlǐ?"

Mel is disturbed beyond feeling dirty at his unwarranted contact. Like she's betraying Carter in some fatal way. Unwilling to face him, she lets the knife slip from her clenched fist then turns her back on him with her arms crossed.

"What do you want?"

Apparently still reading her like a book, Dalton responds by massaging her shoulders. A ploy to hold her in place. Years ago, the deep breath of air he would blow against the crook of her neck would make her weak at the knees. Now all her muscles tense as bunched up as a steel coil.

"Why did you leave me, Mel?" He thrusts against her like each word makes him ache.

Mel refuses to balk, reacting like a stone beneath his toxic touch. "You hit me."

As feral as a wild animal, Dalton huffs in a deep scent of her recently shortened hair. "You've always been so defiant, babe."

Upon arranging with Nian to stay in the attic again, Mel had braced herself for an encounter with his son. What she hadn't anticipated was to be so emotionally annihilated even he couldn't scare her anymore. Whirling from the vice-like hold around her neck, she faces Dalton like a predatory lioness defending her pride.

"I've changed." He can't see her hands bunching into fists under the overhanging sleeves of the stark white kitchen uniform. "I'm no whore. I work here. You may be a manager but every employee deserves a modicum of respect."

Like an anointed archangel overseeing a lost soul, he tilts his head at her. Not a silken strand of dark hair falls from it's place like an undaunted peacock performing his territorial dance. Her skin crawls.

"You're no employee, Jìnǚ." Dalton utters the word whore in his native language to charm it. "I promised to make your life a living hell after you betrayed me. I never broke any of my promises."

When he leans down to grace another soothing caress against her cheek, Mel shivers down her spine to her feet. Not from passion. That emotion has been suffocated by his unfeeling madness.

As stealthily as he entered, Dalton leaves the kitchen satisfied with the sickening game he's played. Despite the absence of his presence an immense weight compresses her chest where only his shadow remains. Despite the sizzling of the grill, and the foreign chattering of the other workers to ground her, Mel is discombobulated. Now Dalton has found her nothing, not even Carter, will set her free.

☯