Sigh. Thanks for the update, Subconscious.
Love was a real motherfucker if you asked me. It was single-handedly the best and worst thing that could ever happen to a person. It was bliss when things were good, but if shit hit the fan and you weren’t with the one you loved, it left you pathetic, emotionally maimed, and wishing you could go back to a time in your life before that person stepped inside your world and made you realize how shitty everything was.
Once someone left their mark on your heart, it was permanent. It wasn’t something that would disappear. And only time would allow for the discomfort to lessen until it became tolerable.
There is no amount of time that will make not being with Will tolerable…
Ugh. Jesus. I couldn’t sit here and fixate on the past. I had to get out of this funk. I couldn’t walk around my new apartment all day moping and doing nothing productive.
Music. I need music. Loud, obnoxious, mind-numbing music.
Jumping to my feet, I fired up my laptop and opened up my iTunes. Once Drake started to serenade me with “Hotline Bling,” I worked toward finding my mojo and set my sights on unpacking my dishes and putting them in the kitchen cabinets.
Three Drake songs in and I was on a booty-shaking roll. Dishes were being stored, and the number of unpacked boxes was increasing at a slow but constant pace.
You’ve totally got this, Mel.
As I folded up a now empty cardboard box and set it near my garbage pile by the door, the sound of my phone ringing loudly reverberated off the empty walls and caught my attention. I snagged it off the counter and saw the name Georgia on my screen.
“Hey, Georgia,” I started to greet, but I was immediately cut off by her heavy breathing and panicked voice.
“Mel! Oh my God… I think I need your help.”
My eyes grew wide with concern. She didn’t sound like her usual perky self at all. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I think I’m in labor,” she said through panting breaths. “Jesus, these contractions won’t stop coming…”
Considering Georgia was still four weeks away from her due date, worry fell into my stomach like a bowling bowl.
“Holy hell… Where are you?”
“I’m actually downstairs,” she breathed.
“Downstairs?”
“At your apartment,” she explained in a tight voice. “I wanted to stop by and bring you a little housewarming gift, but holy hell, I think the extra blocks I walked to get your flowers pushed me into labor.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Stay put. I’ll be right down.”
With lightning-quick speed, I tossed on shoes, grabbed my purse, and sped out of my apartment door, running down the two flights of stairs that led toward the main entrance. The second I stepped outside, I found Georgia sitting on the stoop with her hands clutching her stomach and her giant purse and a potted plant of daisies near her hip.
“How far apart are your contractions?”
“Like, four minutes, I think,” she said and then groaned. “Jesus Christ, these hurt worse than last time…”
“Okay. Just take some deep breaths,” I reassured and rubbed a soft hand down her stiff back. “I’ll grab a cab, and we’ll go straight to St. Luke’s.”
“Okay…Oh! Ow! Motherfuckingshit!”
Oh boy. Maybe Cassie was some kind of witch. It looked like Georgia was about to have her bundle of joy four weeks early.
Mel had officially moved in to her apartment and out of Bill and Janet’s place.
Obviously, since she’d been pretty goddamn consistent about not answering my calls, I didn’t find that information out from the source herself.
Rather, Georgia had been the one to fill me in, and even then, she’d done it reluctantly—the little traitor. Still, I didn’t blame her. I liked Melody better than I liked me too.
I looked around the too quiet space that was my living, and sadness clenched my gut. Everything sucked without Mel. My apartment. Work. My goddamn life. Every-fucking-thing.
I stared at the two lonely tongue depressors in my hand. I had no idea why I’d brought them home from work with me, but here they were, in my hands, and a constant reminder of what I’d lost when Melody walked out of my life.
I wanted her back in my space, back in my life, back with me.
I needed a plan.
Since the clinic, her life’s passion project, had become reality, I needed to find the right way to present it to her. I needed her to understand that I would literally do anything for her, that I loved her, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and that no matter what happened between us, even if she still didn’t want to be with me, I wanted her to be happy.
I’d been hoping Georgia would throw a surprise birthday party for Kline so that I could talk her into inviting Mel, but Kline didn’t want to focus on anything but his wife and kid—soon to be kids—this year. I was disappointed, but reason told me Melody probably wouldn’t have come—thanks to me—anyway.
Twirling my two lonely tongue depressors in my hand, I looked down at the screen of my phone again, but it gave me nothing.
No phone call. No text. No Facebook message to tell me how she was.
I just wanted to hear from her, even if it was only ten seconds to hear her voice. Every cell inside of my body felt starved for her—her presence, her smile, her laugh, basically anything that made up the woman I couldn’t picture a future without.
Just then, a buzz made my skin hum as my phone danced across my leg. I looked at the screen for at least ten seconds before believing the name I read on the screen.
Melody.
Hope blossomed, filling me up like a balloon and lifting me off of my couch.
“Mel?” I answered, swiping to pick up as quickly as I could and shoving the tongue depressors in my back pocket so I didn’t have to busy myself with holding them anymore.
“Will, it’s—”
“I’m so glad you called,” I interrupted because, fuck it, I’d always regret not putting my heart on the line. I already regretted having not done it sooner. I fucking missed her.
Her voice softened just slightly, but her overall tone was ominous. I braced myself. “Will, I’m calling for your sister.”
Panic seized control of my veins and made them constrict.
“Gigi? What’s wrong? Are you guys okay?”
“She’s in labor.”
Now? It was a good month early. Shit.
“Tell her to go to the hospital right now.”
“Will, I know,” she said, and a horn honking in the background filled the receiver.
Right, right. She’s a nurse, for fuck’s sake.
“Right. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just…she’s in the city. She was with me, actually. I’m taking her to St. Luke’s. We’re headed there now in a cab.”
Launching myself over the back of the couch, I jammed my feet into my shoes sans socks, scooped my wallet and keys from the table by the door, and pulled it closed behind me before breaking into a jog toward the stairs.
“I’m on my way.”