I look away from her. She’s totally right, and while it’s shitty it doesn’t make me wallow in my sadness like it normally would. “I was an asshole this morning. You shouldn’t even be sitting here with me and my puke right now. I deserve this.” I give her hand a squeeze before pulling it away and getting up from the floor. I stare down at her, and she’s looking up at me like she’s trying to figure out the best thing she can do to help me. It’s a familiar look, I know it all too well. She looks like Kerri would sometimes, after I’d completely fuck with her emotions. I shake my head. “I’ll be okay.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Mel.” I hold my hand out to her. “Come on, lets just go try to finish dinner and clean up.”
“Sure.” She doesn’t take my hand as she rises from the floor, she only flashes me a tight smile before brushing past me. I hear dishes clinking around a few moments later and I know she’s trying to forget about what just happened. I feel like I’m supposed to go rub her shoulders and tell her that everything is fine, but I don’t. That kind of thing doesn’t work as well on her as it would with any other woman I’ve known in the past. She tends to get tense when I touch her or promise her things. So I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to let her know that what happened has nothing to do with her.
Maybe I just need to learn how to back off.
A few minutes later I end up standing in the archway leading into the kitchen. She’s still cleaning up, and I just watch her for a little bit. If you didn’t know her, you’d think she was such an organized, well put together person. She moves with precision, paying attention to each task she performs as if its the most important thing in the world. A perfectionist I guess you could call her, I mean...if you didn’t know her. But I do know her, and I know the seriousness plastered on her face has more to do with me and my bullshit than anything else. She’s probably thinking that she’s causing more trouble in my life than making it better. And I don’t want her to think that way. I really don’t...
“Stalking me now?”
I perk up, realizing that she’s become aware of my presence. She’s not angry though. She’s actually smiling a little bit. “Nah.” I say, with a soft smile. “I was just thinking.”
She starts to wipe down the dinner table, not taking her gaze off of me as she does so. “Are you sure you’re okay, Justin?”
I shrug. “I feel okay now. I wasn’t really thinking about that though.”
“Well what were you thinking about?”
The truth is, I was thinking about a lot more than I’d ever let on to her right now. The more I’ve been watching her lately, the more appealing she’s become to me. She’s so slender, so gentle. Her body curves in such a way that I can pin point the exact locations I’d like to grab onto and rub my hands up and down her perfect ivory skin. I can feel it, I can practically sense the way she’d smell...that sweet smell of vanilla and dove soap. My mouth practically waters because I can almost taste her, and know how it would feel to brush my lips against hers. “I have to write a song,” I speak up softly, not being able to stop myself from staring at her. “You know, so I can bring it to that meeting on Monday.”r32;
She stares at me and I know she can sense exactly how I feel about her right now, and it sucks because she looks fuckin terrified. I quickly straighten myself, and force a serious, blank expression.
“Yeah...” I continue when she still doesn’t say anything. “So I’m gonna go downstairs and work on that for awhile. Maybe I’ll make some leeway tonight.”
“O-oh okay,” she stutters nervously. “I’ll just put some tinfoil over your dinner, and you can have it later tonight if you feel up to it.” She quickly whirls around again, and starts to busy herself with the task at hand.
I’m still staring at her. “Hey Mel.”
She doesn’t turn around. “Hmm?”
“You don’t think things are weird with us right?,” I ask her, trying to force some playfulness into my voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno....” I trail off for a moment, remembering everything Trace said to me today. I know its a bunch of bullshit. I can’t feel that way about anybody right now. For some reason though, the things he said are really getting to me right now. It’s like...as I’m staring at her like a fool, they’re almost making sense. “I guess Trace just likes to pretend he knows everything.”
Now she’s looking at me. “Why? Did he say something about me?”
I shrug a little, and look at the floor. “I guess he just sees it as, you’re a pretty girl and he knows how I used to be. It’s really nothing, he just likes to make assumptions. But I already told him that me and you could never be like that.”
She laughs a little bit, nearly knocking the plate of food off the counter before quickly catching it again. “You mean like...wait, what do you mean?” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I’m just confused. What do you mean?”
She’s stuttering now, and her face is bright red. I feel like an asshole for blurting all of this out. I mean, why am I even talking about this stuff with her anyway? I know it makes her really uncomfortable, and I’m in no condition to get all mixed up in her like this as it is. I dont know. Maybe I’m just curious. Maybe I just....
Maybe I just care about her more than I realize, and I’m starting to slip. I can’t though. I can’t slip.
“You know what? I think I’m just all messed up from before,” I tell her, shaking any weird feelings I might have been having about her out of my system. “And I got sick, so now I’m talking kind of crazy, thats all. I’m uh...just gonna go down and work on some music okay? You don’t have to clean that all up right now either, you know. You can do whatever you feel like.”
“Justin,” she says, wearily. “You’re really starting to worry me right now. Maybe you should lie down or something.”
“No I’m good.”
“But...”
I rush away from her before she can convince me otherwise. I just acted like a complete asshole back there and I have no idea why. Why is it that everytime I feel like complete shit, all she has to do is come and sit by me and I feel completely okay again? That’s not good. I”m coming to rely on her entirely too much and I shouldn’t be. The poor girl doesn’t even know how bad I can get, and I don’t ever want her to find out either. But if I allow my feelings to escalate anymore...if I allow myself to stare at her and think about her late at night like I have been, something bad will happen. I’ll end up hurting her just like I’ve hurt everybody else. Melanie doesn’t deserve that. She’s the innocent one...the mediator. Fuck. I gotta learn to control myself. She’s not the only person in the world, I just see her more than most people. There’s a big difference.
I shut myself up in my studio, safe...away from the world and evil things that can hurt me. I start to mess around with different things, some old tracks and ideas that didn’t make the album. I start to find little bits and pieces of myself again through the music. Like the person I was before all this happened, he’s buried in these songs somewhere. That whole summer I recorded this stuff, I was so different. The biggest worry on my mind then was how my album was going to turn out. I was too naive to the horrors in the world to concern myself with them. I wish I could talk to this kid, warn him. I wish I could tell him to pick up the phone and try to work shit out with Kerri before the album comes out. But I can’t do anything. All I can do is remember what it is i should have done.
And it sucks.
Story Tags: justinandtrace
