Someone Willing to Stay

Letting Go

     The last party I went to, I ended up carrying Mel to my car, my fists bloodied and bruised from teaching that jack ass Logan a lesson. I remember the words Mel said to me in her drugged state, "you saved me from one monster."
     I think about those words a lot. I wonder if maybe that game we played as kids is something that manifested in her mind even when she couldn't move her own body. I know that I never want to see her so scared and so helpless ever again.
     As of right now, she seems to be okay. Maybe a little more okay. Only one cup of the mystery liquid, which tastes a lot like lemonade with the sting of tequila, three cups from beer pong, and she's completely crawling out of her shell. Almost literally crawling across the kitchen table to reach all of the ingredients she needs for an ice cream sundae.
     It's just me and her in the kitchen, she locked the door so we wouldn't be interrupted.
      "Mason, Mason," she draws out, "Do you want chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?" She asks me, referring to the three tubs of ice cream on the table.
     "Three scoops, one of each." I tell her.
     She gasps, "I didn't even think of that! You're so smart."
     I laugh and slide my empty bowl across the table so she can put the ice cream in.
     "Guess we ended up hiding away after all, huh?"
     I shrug, "It's much more fun in here."
     Mel nods in agreement, concentrating on using a small silver spoon to dig into the ice cream. We searched everywhere for a scooper, but she decided we needed the ice cream now and we were wasting time looking.
     "Mason, I know I might be a little, tiny, small, bit tipsy," she tells me, "but this is way more fun that the last party I went to."
     "Just a little bit tipsy?"
     "This much." She holds out her hand and pinches her thumb and pointer together so they're almost touching.
     "Yeah, that seems about right." I scoff.
     She giggles and slides my bowl over to me so I can put toppings on. She raided what was left of his fridge and cabinets, successfully finding pecans, chocolate syrup, cold fudge-which she put in the microwave probably twenty minutes ago and forgot all about- and cherries.
      I do a little bit of everything, as one should. She does the same, putting four cherries in her bowl.
     "I like hanging out with you, even without the alcohol." Mel tells me with a mouthful of ice cream.
     "I like you without the alcohol, too."
     She giggles, "We are so fun. Like, anyone else out there could never ever be as cool as we are."
      I smile at her childish manner, I figured she would be an angry drunk, considering her normally stoic personality, but she's carefree and laughing at basically everything.
     "Hey! Mason? Are you in there?" There's a knock at the kitchen door.
     "Shhhh," Mel says, "tell them I'm dead."
     I laugh and get up, unlocking the door to see David and Riley.
     "Have you seen, Ni-Ni?" Riley asks me.
     "She's um, she died." I say with a smirk.
     Riley looks confused until she hears Mel's loud guffaws.
     Riley rolls her eyes and pushes past me into the kitchen where she finds Mel squatting behind the counter.
     "Hey, I've been looking everywhere for you!" Mel laughs.
      Riley smiles, "Someone got ahold of the alcohol."
     I nod.
    David rolls his eyes, "We're upstairs playing truth and dare. You guys wanna come?"
     "Truth and dare?"
     "You get a dare, answer a question, or else you take a shot." He explains.
     "Oh I wanna play!" Mel exclaims as she crawls out from behind the counter and pops up excitedly.
     "I guess we're playing then." I tell David.
     "Let's go!" Mel chirps, grabbing my hand which throws me off tremendously as she drags me through the crowd of people.
      She hates contact. She hates when I touch her, she scared to touch me. All of the worry and fear, the uptight nature she has is just gone. She's bubbly and she won't stop laughing. I know it's because she's been drinking, and when she wakes up tomorrow she'll do a full 180, but for now, I just want to enjoy the face that she's happy. She's enjoying herself, and it may be bad of me to wish that she acted this way all the time, but it's the only thought running through my mind.
      We go up the stairs to see a small group of people sitting in a circle, everyone has a cup or a can to drink out of, most of them are already drunk.
      The four of us squeeze ourselves into the circle, I'm trying to find a way for Mel to sit without trying to grasp someone else's drink.
      She finally gets situated and sits up excitedly, ready to start the game.
I'm sitting uncomfortably waiting for David to start the game when I hear it.
"Look who it is! The big man on campus. Gonna sucker punch me again?"
I thought he learned his lesson.
I turn around and there he is. Logan Parker.
Mel follows my gaze and grins, "Hi Logan!"
He smiles smugly, "Hey, beautiful."
I stand up, my fists clenching at my sides.
Deep breaths, Mason. Remember what happened the last time Mel saw you beat up someone?
I didn't even get to hit him.
"You have five seconds to get the hell out of here." I say lowly.
Everyone around me is too intoxicated to notice this tense interaction, but I know I could get all of their attention with one punch.
"Or what?"
Beat the shit out of him.
Mel's watching.
She's just a stupid girl.
But she's not.
I don't say anything and he smirks.
He goes to walk past me but I grab his arm and deftly twist it behind his back, the interaction goes unnoticed by everyone but him as he stand on his toes to avoid the pain.
"If you touch Mel, I swear to God, you will not walk of this house alive." I growl, pushing his arm towards his shoulder blade so he yells in pain before letting go and shoving him away.
He shakes it off and glares at me before he goes and squeezes himself into the opposite end of the circle.
"He's nice." Mel tells me, grabbing my arm to pull me back down.
"Sure." I agree.
I momentarily forget about Logan, and just focus on Mel's finger wrapped around my arm.
And how she gives no sign of letting go.

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Y'all I am SOOOO sorry I haven't updated in like a week!!!! That's not my normal schedule, but school has started up and I've been really focused on that but I have my motivation back now so updates should be regular.
Love you all!!!!