Twelve-years-old

“Here.” Cole takes the stack of branches from my arms and drops them into a pile next to him. “You don’t have to help, Mel. We got this.” I’m graced with a sideways smile, my favorite dimples popping in to see me.

“What do you expect me to do?” I drop my hands to my hips, full of attitude. “I’m not Dawn. Let me help.” I smile wide when I see the humor behind Cole’s dark eyes.

“You really are something else, Melanie Anderson.” He shakes his head and hands me a tape measure. “If you insist on helping, I have something you can do that doesn’t require to you to wander around the woods by yourself trying to find extra material.”

I don’t fully understand the feeling, but my heart warms knowing how protective he is of me. No one ever cared where I wandered alone before Cole. But that’s just how he is with me.

“What do I do?” I ask, looking at the metal device in my hand.

“You’re good with numbers. You can help figure out the length and width of each piece of wood we need for the exterior walls. I have it drawn up here.” He turns and picks up a notebook off the tree stump beside him.

“You can take this,” he continues, gesturing to the tape measure, “and measure from the pile of boards over there.” He points to a large stack of boards his uncle was able to get for us from the lumber yard he works at. “This will tell you how many boards I need for each wall and how long I need them. Use a pencil to draw the line where the board needs to be cut to meet this measurement.”

“Easy enough.” I smile, taking the notebook and pencil from him before heading over to the stack of boards.

I spend the next two hours measuring and marking each board. Even though Cole didn’t ask me to, I measure and mark the roofing boards as well.

I look up just in time to see Cole and Michael making their way over to me, having just finished the foundation.

“How’s it coming along over here, Mellie?” Michael says teasingly, knowing how much I hate being called that.

“Mel,”—Cole looks around, realizing what I’ve done—“you did all of this?” He turns to me with a smile.

“What?” Michael asks, having no idea what Cole is referring to.

“She measured and lined every board we need for both the walls and the roofing. Now all we have to do is cut them and nail them into place. You saved us a lot of time, Mel.” He steps up next to me and drops his arm over my shoulders.

“I told you I could help,” I remind him, nudging his hip with mine.

“That you did.” He chuckles when I softly elbow his stomach.

“Teach you never to question me, won’t it.”

“I should know by now, Melanie Anderson, there’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it.” He looks down at me lovingly.

“And don’t you forget it.”

Time seems to warp and the memory fades like a burning photograph. The image coils and folds inward under the heat, eventually leaving me surrounded in darkness. I blink once—nothing. Twice—nothing. But the third time I open my eyes, a new scene unfolds.

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Fourteen-years-old

The pain in my chest feels like it weighs a billion pounds. Tears prick the back of my eyes but not a single one falls. I’m seconds away from crumbling. I can feel it boiling and blistering to the surface.

I walk faster, push harder, and ignore the sound of Cole’s voice as he pleads for me to stop.

All I can hear are my mother’s words over and over again. “Grandma’s gone.”

Gone? How can she be gone?

I saw her two days ago. She was happy and healthy. How can she just drop dead out of nowhere? No warning, nothing. One minute she’s here, the next she’s not.

“Melanie, please.” Cole’s voice is closer now, but I can’t stop, not even for Cole.

My heart is breaking into a million pieces and I can’t—I won’t—let him see me fall apart.

My grandma was it for me. The last of my family. My mother when my own mom was too busy for me. She took me to lunch every other Wednesday after school, bought me school supplies when my mother couldn’t afford any. She was the one person who refused to let me see myself the way I knew everyone else did—weak, poor, pathetic; never good enough.

“Mel.” I hear him directly behind me seconds before his arms link around my stomach and he pulls me to a direct stop, hugging my back to his chest. “Stop,” he whispers when I try to escape his embrace.

“Let go of me, Cole,” I grind out, giving every ounce of my strength to breaking away from his grasp.

It does me no good. He’s solid as a rock, even at fourteen, and I can’t budge him, but that doesn’t keep me from continuing to fight.

I don’t know why. It’s not like it makes one bit of difference. But it feels good to put my aggression and anger into something. So instead of succumbing to his embrace, I kick my leg out and jam it backward, colliding with his shin.

“Damn it, Melanie.” He releases his hold on me only to spin me around and grip the tops of my arms tightly. “Stop fucking fighting me,” he growls.

“Then let me go!” I scream in his face.

“No!” he roars. “You can hit me, kick me, scratch and bite me until I bleed, and I will still not let you go. You need an anchor, something to ground you. Let me be your net. In here.” He presses my palm to his chest. “You can hide in here as long as you need. No one will hurt you while you’re here.” His eyes are rimmed with tears as he watches me struggle to fight the pain ripping through me.

His words pull emotion from me so deep, I instantly collapse into his arms. He catches me effortlessly, tucking me against his chest as he lowers us onto the train tracks.

“Shhh,” he whispers into my hair as he rocks me back and forth. “I’ve got you, Mel. I’ve always got you,” he promises.

I fall apart right there on the spot. On those dirty, old train tracks I sob for what feels like hours, Cole’s grip on me never wavering.

If this is what death feels like, I don’t know if I want to live, it’s all I can think. But when I feel Cole’s lips brush my head and him tell me he’ll always be here to catch me, I can’t imagine ever leaving either.

I’ve figured out by now that I love Cole more than just my friend, but I don’t think I really understood what that meant until now.

Because when my heart felt like it couldn’t beat anymore, he let me borrow his to get me through the pain.

Like the first memory, this one fades away, the sight of Cole’s arms wrapped around me the last thing I see. But even in the darkness I can hear him.

He’s so close.

I don’t know how to describe it, but I swear I can feel him, like he’s a part of my very being.

Now there are more voices all around me. I chase them, trying to catch them, but each one slips right through my fingertips until suddenly they disappear altogether.

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Nineteen-years-old

“Mel, is she really going to die?” John sits next to me on mom’s bed, his head on my shoulder as we watch her sleep.

Each breath is a struggle, and I know deep down, she doesn’t have long.

John’s fifteen, he’s not stupid. He knows it’s coming. And even though he tries to act all tough, I can see right through him. I know he’s barely holding it together. We all are.

“She is,” I finally answer his question.

“I don’t want her to die,” he whispers, the sound of the heart monitor beeping and Mom’s ragged breathing the only other sound in the room.

“Neither do I,” I admit, swiping the tears that trickle down my cheeks.

“Do you think Heaven and Hell are real?” he asks, sitting up to look at me.

“I like to think so.”

“Do you think she’ll go to Heaven or Hell?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“Heaven,” I answer. “Why would she go to Hell?”

“I don’t know. I was just asking.” He shrugs, sliding off the bed and heading for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go meet Chad and the boys at the tracks.” He slides open the door.

“Don’t be out late. It’s a school night. Home before dark,” I say, knowing that in his mind state, it’s no telling what he might be out there doing.

“Yes, Mother.” His statement make me cringe as he turns and exits the room without another word.

I swear that kid will give a person whiplash. He’s so gentle and sweet sometimes, and others it’s like he does things purposely to hurt other people just because he can. I swear I’ll never understand how out of four children, who were all raised the same, he’s so different from the rest of us.

“Melanie.” My mom’s weak voice pulls me from the thought, and I snap up to see her glazed over eyes locked in my direction.

“I’m here, Mom.” I scoot further up the bed until I’m sitting directly next to her, taking her frail hand in mine.

“My girl,” she says, her voice breaking on a sob. “My sweet, sweet girl. I’m so sorry.” Tears trickle down her sunken in face, and I immediately know what this is; she’s saying goodbye.

“Mom, hold on, I’ll get the nurse.” I move to get up, but her next words have me settling back onto the bed.

“I should have been a better mother to you.” She sucks in a breath, and it gurgles in her throat. “I should have done more, been there more. But you turned out so perfect all on your own.” She reaches up to cup my cheek but can’t hold her hand there more than a second before her arm drops back into my lap.

I wrap my hand around her fingers, giving them a gentle squeeze.

“You did the best you could, Mom. You did what you had to do to make sure we ate and went to school. Please, don’t apologize.”

While I don’t fully disagree that she was never there for me, I’m also not going to say that to her as she’s literally withering away right in front of my eyes.

“Take care of your brothers, especially David. You know how sensitive he is. Bless his heart.” More tears flow from her eyes.

“Of course, I will,” I promise.

“Make sure they graduate. Make sure they get out of this town and make something of themselves. Give them that chance.”

“I will. I promise, Mom, I will.” I try so hard to control the shake in my voice, but it’s too much. It’s all too much.

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a daughter like you, but I thank God every day that I got you anyway.” She struggles to catch her breath, and I can tell she’s near the end. I can feel it in my bones.

“Just let me get the nurse, Mom. She can make you feel better. Let me get the nurse,” I plead, but for whatever reason I can’t get myself to move.

“It’s time, Melanie. It’s time. I think I’m ready to go now.” She looks at me so long it’s like she’s trying to memorize my face, and then her eyes close and the monitor goes flat.

I don’t hear the alarms from the machine. I’m already too far gone. I’m falling again. The same way I fell when I lost my grandma.

I want to run. I want to run hard and fast, but I know I have nothing to run to. Nowhere to go.

The nurse backs me from the room, saying something that doesn’t compute to my deaf ears.

I’m falling.

Deeper and deeper.

The blackness is swallowing me whole, and there’s no one at the bottom to catch me. Not this time.

He said I’d always be safe inside his heart, but then he took his heart away. I’m not safe anymore. I’m not loved. There’s no one here to comfort me, to hold me, to tell me everything is going to be okay.

No one.

Just the darkness that now owns me.

I let it go. I let it all go and give myself over to the pain. If this is what death feels like then I don’t want to live anymore, so I let go.

But then I hear his voice.

It’s faint at first but grows louder.

And then my heart thuds against my ribs, hard and strong in my chest.

And I know I’m alive.

Cole.

My heart kicks again, so hard it almost hurts.

Cole.

It’s my only thought.

Cole.

And then I hear my mother’s voice. It’s plain as day like she’s existing in the darkness with me.

“Open your eyes, Melanie,” she says. “It’s time. Open your eyes.”

Suddenly the darkness drops like a blanket of rain that falls and then washes away.

I open one eye and then the other and blink into light.