Every Girl I've Loved A Lifetime Ago

Melody

TW: Dubious Consent

Other people's fingers were ugly to me.
Their nail beds too wide and stubby, their knuckles too big and bulging, their length too short and fat.
But Melody's fingers were beautiful.
Long, graceful, brown. Delicate, bony, competent.
I wanted to kiss her fingers, taste her digits, feel them intertwined with mine.
It was my second year of university. I had just came back from a long summer in my hometown.I didn't see Meredith but I did see Emilia.
Her hair was a bubblegum pink and her head was still resting on Javier's shoulder.
We caught up over croissants and macarons at a little French cafe that her mother opened.
I was getting out of my car for the first time in six hours when I caught my first glimpse of Melody.
Freckled shoulders bare, dark curled hair pulled up, pretty fingers curled over his.
Her bright eyes caught my gaze and her pink lips pulled into a smirk.
My Converse were glued to the asphalt, unable to move.
I was floored and stunned and memorized and I knew I was in love.
I found out from Imani that her boyfriend was called Junior.
I thought that name was stupid.
I didn't know Melody, but the notion that she could do so much better than him was apparent to me.
But then I thought of Ramona and Blondie, kissing at my party.
The squeeze of my tender heart, the swelling in my raw lungs, the betrayal settled in my mind.
I decided Melody would eventually come to the same conclusion I did someday, but I wouldn't be the one to enlighten her.
The next time I saw Melody, twirling one curl around her finger and giggling at something Junior said, I tried not to stare at her for long.
But my eyes kept straying back to her finger. And I watched, infatuated, as her shoulders shook with laughter.
Melody did her eyeliner sharper enough to cut and decorated her face with silver and gold and rose.
Melody was greedy and jealous and flawed in her very nature.
She took what wasn't hers and wanted what she could never have.
Melody asked me to go the restroom with her after class.
She kissed me hard and rough in the bathroom, silencing my confusions.
She pushed me against the stall door, leaving my concerns unacknowledged.
I told her to stop. She told me that wasn't what I wanted.
Her fingers were weapons of destruction. Once so beautiful and talented in my mind, now the source of my nightmares.
Her fingers bruising my skin, holding me down, curling inside me.
Her fingers keeping my mouth shut, locking the door, undressing me fast.
The bathroom has no security cameras and people rarely ever went near it. The hall it sat on was abandoned. She had locked the door to the entrance, to the exit.
I was foolish for trusting her, I realized
When I saw her lips afterwards, her biting them in class or licking them while talking to Junior, I imagined them twisting into a cruel smile while she whispered, "shh, baby girl. You'll like it, I swear".
And I did like it.
It felt good. That was undeniable.
But I hated it at the same time.
I felt violated, I never gave her permission to touch me like that.
But I didn't exactly fight her off.
I knew I was being dramatic when I had dreams of that day, but instead there were sirens and a judge and a prison cell for her.
I knew I was overthinking, overanalyzing, overreacting when I refused to meet Melody's dark, slightly sadistic eyes.
I knew I was being childish when I dropped the class I shared with Melody.
I focused on my schoolwork, Melody slowly but surely fading from my foggy mind.