Chapter Twenty-Nine
Julian
It’s strange how dead small towns get at night. Shops close before the sun’s even down, a few scattered bars and restaurants light up, and the streets get eerily deserted.
I lean back in the seat of my Jag, stretch my legs, and wonder for at least the hundredth time, if I can really live in a tiny place like this. Then I see the beat-up Ford Fiesta sitting in the parking lot of the veterinary clinic, with it’s now carved-up drivers side door, and I think about the woman driving it and it makes this tiny little nowhere town feel like home.
I’d do anything for her.
She lied to me, she hurt me, but I felt the truth of it when she told me she loved me. And, despite everything else, the feelings of contentment and happiness that she brought out in me don’t have a single taint of falsehood to them.
“Come on, Melody,” I mutter to myself. I’ve been here for hours.
My body aches, I’m sweaty and probably smell to high heaven, but that’s what comes from driving like a bat out of hell up here to Rockaway Bay, and then spending the last few days scouring town for a place to buy out and then managing the construction crew doing the renovations.
Finally, she makes an appearance, running from her office to her car.
Something’s got her scared, and it’s probably not the fact that anyone who’s read a gossip paper in the last few days knows all about our fake relationship.
She starts up her car, pulls from the lot, and turns in the opposite direction than the one towards my hotel.
I figured there was a chance she’d just run. That’s why I’m here. There’s no way I’m letting her get away. I need to let her know how I really feel. I need to let her know that I want to make this work.
Whatever hell we might have in our future, whatever rumors and headaches we have to deal with, we can make it through together.
I start my car and speed down the road.
I catch her in seconds, pull in front of her, and slam on my breaks.
There’s a crunch that makes me wince as she rear-ends me. Love has a price.
“Sorry,” I whisper to my car, patting the dash. “But I love her more than I love you.”
It feels weird saying that, but it’s true.
I get out and I walk towards her beat-up Ford Fiesta.
She staring at me like I’m a ghost. Or a maniac.
Even now, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I don’t even look at the damage to the back end of my car because that would mean taking my eyes off her.
“We need to talk,” I say, loud enough so she can hear me even though windows are rolled up and her car’s still running.
She shakes her head, then, rolling down her window, she yells at me, “there’s nothing to talk about. I’m a liar, I’m sorry for screwing up your reputation. I’m leaving town now, and you won’t have to worry about me ever again.”
“That’s not good enough. You can’t just leave like that.” My voice is ripped through with emotion, with love and fear that I just might never see her again.
I don’t want things to end between us. I can’t lose her.
“Just let me go, Julian. Let it go, alright?”
She rolls up her window and I see her fumbling with her gearshift. For once, I’m thankful that her car is such a piece of shit, because it gives me time enough to take out the knife I keep on me and ram it into her tire. It lets out a hostile hiss.
Her eyes go wide in disbelief.
“You bastard,” she screams at me.
I walk over and knock on her window and make a rolling motion with my hand.
Reluctantly, she rolls it down.
There’s tears in her eyes, they glisten with frustration and fear and her voice is quivering and frantic. Something has her in pieces and I know it’s not just me.
“Why would you do that? Why? All I want is to leave all this shit behind me. I don’t want to be the woman that everyone gossips about, I don’t want everyone digging into every little fault I made throughout my entire fucking life. I don’t want to be known forever as the woman who sold herself. I just want to leave.”
I reach in and brush my fingers against her cheek. I want to take all her pain away. I want her to feel like the queen I know she really is.
Touching her is like a balm for all the doubts I’d carried with me ever since I’d left LA. I belong with her.
“You didn’t con me. When you told me you loved me, I know you weren’t lying. I saw it, I felt it.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she says, her voice hushed. “Just let it go.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think — fuck, it’s all I’ve done — and I realized it doesn’t matter what your real name is, or what you’ve done in your past. What matters is how I feel when I’m with you. I still love you.”
Eyes downcast, I can see she’s thinking, struggling. My heart hangs in the balance — all I want to hear is her say ‘I love you, too’ — and, slowly she lifts her eyes to mine.
“My real name is Melody Galeano,” she says, hesitantly.
I can hear the struggle in her voice, the pain it causes her just to say those words. My fingers tenderly caress her face, sliding down from her cheek to hold her gently by the shoulder. I want to anchor her here, I want to keep this beautiful woman form disappearing.
A car pulls up to our middle-of-the-road scene, rolling to a stop by the sidewalk. I hardly pay it any mind. All of my focus is on her, the woman who is finally opening up to me.
“Melody Galeano, I still love you. I don’t care about anything else — I just want to work things out with you, because I’ve never felt better than the times I’ve had you by my side.”
“It’s not that simple,” she says.
“Then tell me why. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, reputation doesn’t mean a damn thing in this world. What’s wrong?”
Her eyes flicker, darting from me to the car behind me.
“Because of him,” she says.
I turn.
Lit by the half-glow of a street lamp, holding a sturdy length of tire iron, and standing a good six feet and change, a man exits the car. He stands, glowering, the shadows accentuating every jagged furrow on his face.
“So, you the other man that slut is cheating on me with?” he says.
Even if he wasn’t squaring off from me with a weapon, I’d hate this guy. He looks like someone who’s let every bit of happiness bleed out them.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s going to fuck you up if you don’t back away from my fiance and mind your own damn business.”
“Your fiance?” I say to Melody, giving her just a half-glance because there’s no way in hell I’m taking my eyes off this son of a bitch.
“Ex,” she says, voice a torrent of emotion, swirling with hate and fear.
“Well, I don’t like him. He seems like an asshole,” I say.
Then I turn to the guy threatening us. “You’ve got one chance: get the fuck out of here and leave this woman alone — for the rest of her life — or I will beat you until your limbs stop working.”
This guy isn’t one for conversation. He lunges at me, swinging the tire iron like he’s aiming to hit a home run with my skull. I lean backwards and the metal rod whizzes by my face.
“Lock the door,” I yell to Stephanie.
My turn, now.
The wild swing carries him off balance — he is not a graceful man — and I step forward, gripping him tight. Holding him around the body, I sweep his legs out from under him and hurl him to the ground. He hits the pavement like a sack of bricks and lets out a startled oomph.
I follow him down.
I’m going to punish him. I’m going to teach him the consequences of threatening the woman I love. My elbow cracks him right in the face, bouncing his head against the pavement.
I hit him again.
Something cracks in his face and, roaring, the man swivels and squirms and claws his way back to his feet. Swinging, he brings the tire iron crashing into my shoulder with thudding force.
“I’m going to kill you both,” he roars. “Fucking slut.”
Once. Twice. The hunk of steel in his hands crashes into me with bone-shuddering force. Something snaps in my left arm, bone shifts, but I hardly even feel it, even though each movement now makes things grind against each other inside me. I grit my teeth and push forward, holding my arms up like a boxer.
This man hurt the love of my life. He’s going to pay.
Visions of this man hurting her dance through my head, propelling me forward despite the pain.
I can’t get over the fear I saw in her eyes. I’ll never get over that look.
My fists lash out. Over and over; I violently introduce my knuckles to his jaw, skin splits, teeth fly, and the punishing impact jolts up my arms in shockwaves.
I scream in rage and pain while the light goes out in his eyes.
I hit him twice more while he’s still falling, snapping his head side-to-side like he’s some pathetic puppet.
His limp body collapses to the pavement. I stand over him, illuminated by the streetlamps and the headlights of Melody’s car, my fists clenched, fighting back the urge to beat his worthless, sorry ass into the ground.
I could kill him, just thinking about what he’s done to Melody.
He doesn’t deserve mercy.
Police sirens grow closer, flashing red lights and a duo of cop cars. The sheriff, the same man who helped me out when I got to town, is the first out of his car and he takes me by the shoulders, pulling me back from David’s prone body.
“Easy, easy,” he says, over and over, like he’s calming some wild animal.
Maybe he is. I’m still on the fence about the whole killing David thing. My heart is pounding with rage and the blood pulsing in my ears is screaming at me to finish off that bastard laying prone on the ground.
The two other sheriff’s deputies cuff his unconscious body and heft him up, hauling him into the back of one of their cars.
Eventually, the sheriff lets go and looks over the whole scene: a fender-bender, Melody’s knifed tire, the blood on the pavement, and Melody still behind the wheel, looking both mortified and relieved.
“Ain’t this some shit,” he mutters. “You have a strange way of reintroducing yourself to Rockaway Bay, Mr. Stone.”
“What can I say? I like to keep things interesting.”
My heart beat slows and I unclench my fists as I feel more in control of myself. Pain floods into me from my busted arm, riding in coursing waves as adrenaline fades from my body.
“You know I’m going to need to bring you in for this one so we can sort this mess out,” he says.
“We can meet you down at the station,” I say, my voice strangely calm.
The sheriff looks at me for a second, considering, then he nods. “Famous face like yours isn’t a flight risk. Get your asses down to the station. Pronto. I’ll met you there.”
I beckon for Melody to follow, and she slowly gets out of her car and follows me to my Jag. She settles in beside me. It doesn’t matter that these are strange circumstances, that I’m bloody — again — because I have her next to me.
It’s fucked up, but it feels right.
I think I beat every bit of anger out of myself, leaving knuckle-shaped mementos in her ex’s face. All that’s left to me is relief at finding her, keeping her safe, and an exhausted feeling of understanding.
“Are you ok?” I say to her.
She’s still got this cyclone of emotions swirling across her face. Hesitantly, she pulls this shuddering breath in and lets it out in one slow, steady exhale.
“I never wanted to see his face again,” she says, quiet. “I know it was a mistake not to tell you — one of so many mistakes I’ve made — and I’m sorry for how much I lied to you it’s just… I wanted to leave that part of my life behind. Even talking about it brings up all this shit. It took forever to get my name changed by the courts, hours and hours in front of a judge testifying and going over every little thing he did to me, justifying every bruise and feeling like shit even though I was the victim. I went through so much shame even though I was the victim.”
I place my hand on her arm. She’s shaking.
“It’s all right, now. It’s done.”
“It was almost six months before I felt safe even being alone. Six months before I could go to sleep without feeling like I could hear his footsteps in the hallway every time my house creaked,” she says.
“I’m here now. And it’s over. I won’t let him or anyone else hurt you.”
Glassy eyes look back at me. “I’m sorry, Julian.”
I lean over and kiss her gently on the cheek. “I understand wanting to leave shame behind you; I understand wanting to hold onto your freedom and safety, the things you feel are the most valuable in the world,” I say, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. “That’s why I’m here for you. You’re the most valuable thing in my life.”
She kisses me back. It’s hesitant, timid, but it’s a start down a road I think can lead to happiness. “Thank you.”
“I love you, Melody. We’ve both seen our share of pain, lately. Let’s just do what we can to put this behind us, and start over, together.”
Leaning back in her seat, she smiles weakly. “You know, this is only the second night you’ve spent in my hometown, and already it’s your second time getting in a fight and getting the cops called on you. If you don’t watch out, you’re going to get a reputation.”
I laugh and start the Jag. “Let’s just get on down the police station, alright?”
The edges of her lips rise. It’s nearly imperceptible, but it’s there. It feels good to see her smiling again.