Ch.13 - Damsel in Fauxstress
The sound of wheels on gravel stopped Jared’s hammer in mid air from where he sat, crouching on the rooftop by Melanie’s window. He looked up at the long drive leading from the road to the house and felt his chest tighten when Kyle’s truck came to a stop. It was another few minutes before Melanie got out. She had two bags in tow, one the overnighter, one that looked like the result of several shopping trips with Sunny.
Melanie was almost to the house, but she must have sensed him watching her because she stopped abruptly and looked up at him. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or just shock that colored her eyes in those briefest of seconds, but a heartbeat later her expression cleared to simple acknowledgement. Her smile was obviously forced but he let it pass without comment as she vanished from his viewpoint. The wave from Sunny in the backseat of Kyle’s truck told him one last nonverbal farewell had been exchanged, but his own meeting of eyes between him and Kyle did not come across quite so friendly. It would be incorrect to say Kyle was glaring, but there was definite disapproval in his best friend’s gaze. Jared quickly averted it and went back to work, trying to tune out the sound of the truck reversing in the drive and the unusual lightness of Melanie’s feet as they made their way up the stairs and into her bedroom.
…………
She sat on her bed and listened to Jared climb over the top of the house to work on the other side. When the hammering resumed she breathed out in relief and fell back onto her pillow. There was some part of her that wanted to accuse him again of avoiding her – because he’d moved – but she knew this time it was justified, and he was likely even being considerate. The awkward tension that had hummed between them for the last half hour was enough to break glass in its silent obvious presence.
Five days.
It had been almost five full days since she’d last seen Jared. Well, interacted with him at least. She’d caught glimpses of him when Kyle had gone to hang out with him in the evenings and some the day before on Jared’s day off. In not her stealthiest moment, she’d peeked through the door of Sunny’s room to see the boys standing in the living room and sometimes the hallway on their way out.
She reminded herself how she had told Jared that she would be “over it” by now. Over that almost kiss, over thinking Jared returned her more than friendly feelings, over her boiling anger that he’d deliberately avoided her , over feeling lonely and worried when he was gone for three whole days with no real explanation… she’d promised Jared – more or less – that she’d be over all of that by now.
But was she? No.
The problem was she hadn’t dealt with any of those feelings or anything Jared-related at all since she’d left the farm. She’d completely put those things on the back burner and immersed herself in the superficial girly world of Sunny O’Shea. Maybe Ian had meant for her to be a distraction to get Sunny away from Kyle, but Sunny was a distraction for her.
The great thing about Sunny was the sense of lightness and freedom you felt when you were around her. You never did the law-breaking, scandalous things she suggested… like shop-lifting or skinny dipping, but you felt like you could. With her, nothing was serious and anything was possible. If any of these concepts were veered away from, Sunny would disappear – literally – and the next time Melanie would see her she’d be intoxicated or passed out. She hadn’t personally interacted with her during those times, but that was likely because Kyle always seemed to be nearby. When Sunny fell off the deep end, which seemed to be a regular occurrence – Melanie noted, Kyle came to the rescue and in the morning she was back to her old self again.
For the same reason Melanie made a point of not bringing up her Jared issues, she also didn’t press for reasons behind Sunny’s drinking habits. It was probably selfish and not very mature, but she figured if Sunny was really that bad, she’d be in rehab, not just being sobered up by her brother every night. And besides, it wasn’t like she was drinking non-stop all day. She just liked to get friendly with the bar – or with Kyle’s fridge – in the evening. Melanie noticed too that the more she herself declined, the more Sunny felt uncomfortable to keep drinking in front of her. She wondered if that meant she was a good influence. She hoped so. It made her feel less guilty of taking advantage of her new friend’s fun side.
In what had been a completely unforeseen event, one night when Melanie and Sunny were watching The Notebook on the living room TV, Kyle plopped down next to them on the couch and engrossed himself in it. He ignored the amused, confused and bordering on disgust looks the girls gave him, and was very much the cryptic when he left as the credits rolled down saying something along the lines of, “now just think if he hadn’t had the courage to tell her how he really felt that first night at the carnival…”
Sunny shook her head at the remark, reaching for all the pretty nail polish that apparently hadn’t seen the light of day for months. Melanie, though, wondered if there was a little more real-life application to what Kyle had said.
Not that it mattered. She had that conversation with Jared and she was in no hurry to repeat it. The last thing she wanted was for Jared to actually say the words: I don’t like you like that Melanie. And oh, god forbid, if he actually started to apologize. She would likely feel mortified for all eternity.
Still, she didn’t want to be stuck in this awkward limbo for all eternity. They were in a good place before the whole…incident thing happened. There was no reason they couldn’t get there again.
Grabbing onto all the courage and humility she could muster, Melanie forced herself off of her bed and across her room where she stood gazing down into the little empty trash can in the corner. One by one she took all eight band aids off her legs, only three of which had covered legitimate cuts or scrapes from her bike riding attempts in the days when Jared was gone. She didn’t know if he’d noticed them on Wednesday, but even if he hadn’t felt guilty, she was going to make sure he did now. Not for pure torture of course, but if she’d learned anything it was that while Jared sucked at confrontation, nothing forced him into action more than being needed. If she had to act the damsel in the distress – and ok, actually be one sometimes because that bike really did not like her – then so be it. If this relationship was going to work on any level, any time soon, it was clearly going to be up her.
“Ahh!” She cried out fifteen minutes later, hoping her shriek sounded realistic and combined both emotional frustration and physical pain successfully. It helped that her ‘fake’ accident, actually was partially a real one. (Note to self: don’t pretend to do something, you actually can’t really do)
But the desired results came soaring through.
“Melanie?” His form came running around the roof. His eyes anxiously watched her, inspecting how damaging her condition was even from that distance. “Are you okay?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“It just…” She lifted her hand from the nasty cut created when her leg scraped against the bike’s chain as she came crashing to the ground in another pathetic attempt to pedal. The initial scrape wasn’t too bad; there had hardly been any blood until, biting hard down on her lip, she dragged her leg across the sharpest part of the chain again – and maybe some little rocks on the ground.
She hoped this attempt to get Jared’s willing attention wouldn’t result in an infection where she’d end up dying. (Maybe she’d watched too many movies during her half-week sleepover with Sunny.) If that happened, all she’d get would be Jared’s guilt, and that was quite obviously only supposed to be phase one.
“Oh my god,” he said under his breath, muttering about how he’d left the ladder on the other side of the roof. She could see him eyeing a safe way to jump down from the second story.
“I was trying to ride…since you were busy, and I guess I just…” she swallowed – hopefully convincingly, though now it really did hurt.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, as he finally darted across the yard and to her side. “Can you walk?” he asked.
He was just a little too concerned for a cut that was just a little too bloody but probably not life-threatening, Melanie thought. She nodded though, shaky even as he helped her up. For a little extra drama, she stumbled enough to fall into his arms where he was forced to catch her.
God, but those eyes were blue.
“Maybe not,” she offered up.
Without a word, he lifted her up and carried her to the house, undoubtedly to search for ointment, band-aids and maybe an ice pack – if he couldn’t find them, she would help. She fought a smile as she buried her face in his shirt, momentarily ignoring the dampness caused by his sweat and instead focusing on how glorious it felt to be held in his arms.
“I shouldn’t have left,” he muttered, probably to a level he thought was low enough that she couldn’t hear him. But she could, and she had.
No, she thought. You should not have.
Melanie was almost to the house, but she must have sensed him watching her because she stopped abruptly and looked up at him. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or just shock that colored her eyes in those briefest of seconds, but a heartbeat later her expression cleared to simple acknowledgement. Her smile was obviously forced but he let it pass without comment as she vanished from his viewpoint. The wave from Sunny in the backseat of Kyle’s truck told him one last nonverbal farewell had been exchanged, but his own meeting of eyes between him and Kyle did not come across quite so friendly. It would be incorrect to say Kyle was glaring, but there was definite disapproval in his best friend’s gaze. Jared quickly averted it and went back to work, trying to tune out the sound of the truck reversing in the drive and the unusual lightness of Melanie’s feet as they made their way up the stairs and into her bedroom.
…………
She sat on her bed and listened to Jared climb over the top of the house to work on the other side. When the hammering resumed she breathed out in relief and fell back onto her pillow. There was some part of her that wanted to accuse him again of avoiding her – because he’d moved – but she knew this time it was justified, and he was likely even being considerate. The awkward tension that had hummed between them for the last half hour was enough to break glass in its silent obvious presence.
Five days.
It had been almost five full days since she’d last seen Jared. Well, interacted with him at least. She’d caught glimpses of him when Kyle had gone to hang out with him in the evenings and some the day before on Jared’s day off. In not her stealthiest moment, she’d peeked through the door of Sunny’s room to see the boys standing in the living room and sometimes the hallway on their way out.
She reminded herself how she had told Jared that she would be “over it” by now. Over that almost kiss, over thinking Jared returned her more than friendly feelings, over her boiling anger that he’d deliberately avoided her , over feeling lonely and worried when he was gone for three whole days with no real explanation… she’d promised Jared – more or less – that she’d be over all of that by now.
But was she? No.
The problem was she hadn’t dealt with any of those feelings or anything Jared-related at all since she’d left the farm. She’d completely put those things on the back burner and immersed herself in the superficial girly world of Sunny O’Shea. Maybe Ian had meant for her to be a distraction to get Sunny away from Kyle, but Sunny was a distraction for her.
The great thing about Sunny was the sense of lightness and freedom you felt when you were around her. You never did the law-breaking, scandalous things she suggested… like shop-lifting or skinny dipping, but you felt like you could. With her, nothing was serious and anything was possible. If any of these concepts were veered away from, Sunny would disappear – literally – and the next time Melanie would see her she’d be intoxicated or passed out. She hadn’t personally interacted with her during those times, but that was likely because Kyle always seemed to be nearby. When Sunny fell off the deep end, which seemed to be a regular occurrence – Melanie noted, Kyle came to the rescue and in the morning she was back to her old self again.
For the same reason Melanie made a point of not bringing up her Jared issues, she also didn’t press for reasons behind Sunny’s drinking habits. It was probably selfish and not very mature, but she figured if Sunny was really that bad, she’d be in rehab, not just being sobered up by her brother every night. And besides, it wasn’t like she was drinking non-stop all day. She just liked to get friendly with the bar – or with Kyle’s fridge – in the evening. Melanie noticed too that the more she herself declined, the more Sunny felt uncomfortable to keep drinking in front of her. She wondered if that meant she was a good influence. She hoped so. It made her feel less guilty of taking advantage of her new friend’s fun side.
In what had been a completely unforeseen event, one night when Melanie and Sunny were watching The Notebook on the living room TV, Kyle plopped down next to them on the couch and engrossed himself in it. He ignored the amused, confused and bordering on disgust looks the girls gave him, and was very much the cryptic when he left as the credits rolled down saying something along the lines of, “now just think if he hadn’t had the courage to tell her how he really felt that first night at the carnival…”
Sunny shook her head at the remark, reaching for all the pretty nail polish that apparently hadn’t seen the light of day for months. Melanie, though, wondered if there was a little more real-life application to what Kyle had said.
Not that it mattered. She had that conversation with Jared and she was in no hurry to repeat it. The last thing she wanted was for Jared to actually say the words: I don’t like you like that Melanie. And oh, god forbid, if he actually started to apologize. She would likely feel mortified for all eternity.
Still, she didn’t want to be stuck in this awkward limbo for all eternity. They were in a good place before the whole…incident thing happened. There was no reason they couldn’t get there again.
Grabbing onto all the courage and humility she could muster, Melanie forced herself off of her bed and across her room where she stood gazing down into the little empty trash can in the corner. One by one she took all eight band aids off her legs, only three of which had covered legitimate cuts or scrapes from her bike riding attempts in the days when Jared was gone. She didn’t know if he’d noticed them on Wednesday, but even if he hadn’t felt guilty, she was going to make sure he did now. Not for pure torture of course, but if she’d learned anything it was that while Jared sucked at confrontation, nothing forced him into action more than being needed. If she had to act the damsel in the distress – and ok, actually be one sometimes because that bike really did not like her – then so be it. If this relationship was going to work on any level, any time soon, it was clearly going to be up her.
“Ahh!” She cried out fifteen minutes later, hoping her shriek sounded realistic and combined both emotional frustration and physical pain successfully. It helped that her ‘fake’ accident, actually was partially a real one. (Note to self: don’t pretend to do something, you actually can’t really do)
But the desired results came soaring through.
“Melanie?” His form came running around the roof. His eyes anxiously watched her, inspecting how damaging her condition was even from that distance. “Are you okay?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“It just…” She lifted her hand from the nasty cut created when her leg scraped against the bike’s chain as she came crashing to the ground in another pathetic attempt to pedal. The initial scrape wasn’t too bad; there had hardly been any blood until, biting hard down on her lip, she dragged her leg across the sharpest part of the chain again – and maybe some little rocks on the ground.
She hoped this attempt to get Jared’s willing attention wouldn’t result in an infection where she’d end up dying. (Maybe she’d watched too many movies during her half-week sleepover with Sunny.) If that happened, all she’d get would be Jared’s guilt, and that was quite obviously only supposed to be phase one.
“Oh my god,” he said under his breath, muttering about how he’d left the ladder on the other side of the roof. She could see him eyeing a safe way to jump down from the second story.
“I was trying to ride…since you were busy, and I guess I just…” she swallowed – hopefully convincingly, though now it really did hurt.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, as he finally darted across the yard and to her side. “Can you walk?” he asked.
He was just a little too concerned for a cut that was just a little too bloody but probably not life-threatening, Melanie thought. She nodded though, shaky even as he helped her up. For a little extra drama, she stumbled enough to fall into his arms where he was forced to catch her.
God, but those eyes were blue.
“Maybe not,” she offered up.
Without a word, he lifted her up and carried her to the house, undoubtedly to search for ointment, band-aids and maybe an ice pack – if he couldn’t find them, she would help. She fought a smile as she buried her face in his shirt, momentarily ignoring the dampness caused by his sweat and instead focusing on how glorious it felt to be held in his arms.
“I shouldn’t have left,” he muttered, probably to a level he thought was low enough that she couldn’t hear him. But she could, and she had.
No, she thought. You should not have.
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