Daddy Dearest

Chapter Twenty-Four

Melody

I exit Ben’s office, pulling the door behind me with a resounding click. I wrap my arms around myself and double over, feeling like someone hollowed out my torso and replaced it with frozen garbage. I cover my mouth as a sob begins to build up in my chest and dash down the short corridor, afraid that Ben might hear me and come out to check on me. I can cry later, I promise myself. And maybe have tacos and ice cream.

No one is in the main hallway anymore. I double-check left and right before coming out. My watch tells me it’s nearly four-thirty, so everyone on the campus, except for students and advisers signed up for after-school activities, would be long gone.

I rub my hands up and down my arms through my blazer. The coldness I’m feeling right now seeps through to the marrow of my bones. I go to my locker to fetch Harry’s black NYU hoodie and punch in the new code to my combination lock. When I open the door, a stack of yellow paper falls all over me hitting me in the face. It spills to the floor all around me. I stare into my locker, unable to move or react for God knows how long. Dread slithers down from the back of my neck and settles like lard at the base of my spine.

“Melody?” Charlie says from somewhere behind me. “What is all this?”

My hands grip the sides of my locker, the only reason I’m still on my feet. After that soul-wrenching meeting with Ben and now this, I want to scream into my locker. I wish it was a gaping abyss, instead, where I could stick my head and the howling winds would whip my hair around and icy rain would pelt my face and I could just scream for hours and hours, and no one would hear me. I blink away the tears blurring my vision and slowly turn around.

“I guess someone broke into my locker again. Whoopsie.” I make light of it and shrug because I don’t want Charlie to see me break down. “Will you bring that trash bin over here?”

Charlie looks at me like he wants to say something more, but he just nods and grabs the gray plastic container that holds the rubbish. He takes off the lid, sets it on the ground, and helps me scoop up all the yellow flyers from the ground to throw away. He and I work together for a few minutes without saying a word. I bite down on my lower lip to keep myself from crying.

Charlie dumps the last of the bunch into the bin and dusts off his hands. “We should tell someone, Mel. I think Mom’s gone home, but Dad is still here. And we can alert security.”

Face Ben again so soon? Oh, no no no. I force a smile on my face. “It’s fine, no big deal. I don’t think anything was stolen. I only have a few things in there. A couple of textbooks and Harry’s old NYU sweater.” I pat Charlie’s arm when the grim expression on his face doesn’t go away. “Really, everyone is making such a fuss. I can’t stand it.”

Charlie does not look appeased. “All of this crap started when you began hanging out with Chambers. That guy is no good, Mel. He probably has a few stalkers who are now going after you because they think you’re his girlfriend or something.”

“Wellll…” I take out Harry’s hoodie from the locker and put it on, pulling my hair out from the back. “Alex and I are dating, Charlie.”

There, I said it. It’s out there. It feels more concrete now and I’ll have something to cling to while I pick up the shattered pieces of my broken heart and attempt to put them back together. I can and will get over Ben Davenport. I have to.