Longing

Chapter Two

Dawn rose. Melanie sat in the road until a car honked her out of her stupor. As she rolled to the curb, the screech of the tires reverberated in her ears like a scream.

She wanted to scream. Oh god she wanted to scream. But her throat was too dry and scratchy and hurt.

Everything hurt.

Melanie stared at her apartment building. It stood there like a brick in the mud, the patio door still wide open from when her mother had...

Her mother would be furious seeing all the bugs that were getting in. Mosquitos swarmed inside like a cloud and a single hornet buzzed into the gaping hole in the screen. Melanie remembered the day her dog had bitten that hole into being.

The dog, a little schnauzer named Mippy, had gone feral that day. It was scratching and biting and clawing everything in sight. The vet said it may have been the stress of the move but Melanie had always suspected something else, something evil, behind her little Mippy's behavior. The hole in the screen had been her mother's last straw. Mippy had been rolling around on the floor, growling and squirming like it was having a seizure, and then it had gotten up and taken a huge bite out of the screen door. The very next day Melanie and her mother had taken Mippy to the vet to be put down. Melanie remembered little Mippy's face then, completely calm and shy. Mippy knew. People say dogs always know. Melanie hadn't believed them until Mippy looked up at her as if to say it was sorry and please I deserve another chance. The vet wouldn't even let Melanie stay in the room when they did the injection. Melanie remembered her mother letting out a relieved sigh. She remembered hating her for it. Somewhere in the back of Melanie's mind, staring at the ripped hole in the screen, shivering in the chilled morning air with her knees scraped on the curb, Melanie still hated her mother for that.

But then Melanie remembered her mother running toward her and Grivgas and the way her corpse had flopped along the ground like a ragdoll as it was dragged away.

Everything was wrong. Everything was so very wrong.

Melanie should be groggily dragging herself out of bed right now; that or ignoring the alarm until she heard a determined kick on her bedroom door. She should be mumbling at her mother from under the covers for "five more minutes" and she should be rolling the blanket back over her head to sleep for another half-hour. Then she should be slumping out of bed as her stomach growled and heading to the kitchen for burnt pancakes and a lecture about keeping up with classes. That's what she would be doing on a normal morning.

Melanie already missed "normal mornings."

There was someone behind her. Melanie's watch beeped, telling her the bus would be around the corner in only a few minutes. Thankful for a distraction, Melanie turned and stood up to see whoever was standing there.

He was average height for a highschooler, more lean than lanky but still on the skinny side. Melanie wondered why she had never noticed him at her stop before. His shocking pink spiky hair surely would've stood out to anyone. He looked like a juvenile punk rocker. Heck, he was even wearing leather.

She must've been gawking because he gave her the dirtiest look and said, "What are you staring at, bitch?"

Melanie broke down right there in front of him, all sobs and apologies and anything she could think of to say about how horrible she felt. The guy looked positively taken aback but he didn't say anything. Melanie's bag had fallen off her shoulder; a mess of granola and chocolate bars, a water bottle dripping near the rim, a Ziploc bag of cashews, five comic books and a toothbrush tumbled out in one giant heap. Her laptop and charger were about to slide out on top of it all, but the punk rocker leaned down and caught it before it could. Melanie sniffed, still crying, and shoved the contents of her bag back where they belonged.