I had to quickly put my lips to hers to stop the screaming laugh, which was just a wonderful side effect of tickling her.
We were in the glow of the mostly lit Christmas lights in my secret room.
Which really wasn’t that much of a secret because Mel spent more time there than I did.
I was used to finding her there, playing piano or just chilling in the bed.
She had a notebook she would write random stuff down in and try to draw. She sucked at drawing and knew it, but that didn’t stop her.
Everything about her just amazed me.
I loved her.
I needed her.
The world of Brooks Crest was better with her around.
But the world of BC wasn’t the same.
My care…
Whatever.
I stopped kissing her but stayed hovered over her.
She swallowed hard and licked her lips.
“Whats’s wrong?” I asked.
“I did a thing.”
“A thing? What’s that mean?”
“For you, I mean. I did a thing for you.”
“A thing for me? What?”
“You have to trust and follow me.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “What?”
“Come on,” Mel said.
She wiggled against me to push me away.
Oh, the things that did to me…
Mel was out of bed, wearing my hoodie, my sweatpants, but her dirty, white shoes. She looked like a mess. She always did though. And even more so than ever because that messy look meant she was comfortable with me.
When it came to going to class, she dressed up nice, as required, and everyone in those halls knew who she was and who she was with. Nobody spoke to Mel unless she wanted to be spoken to. Nobody dared to try anything funny because once she was done knocking someone down, it was my turn to strike. We were perfect together. Everyone had a mix of hate and jealousy for us.
I loved every second of it.
The only problem was we came from different lives.
My old life was waiting for me down at BFH. Her life was… somewhere.
Mel started to climb out of the window and I grabbed her by her hips.
I pulled her back. “Where are we going?”
“For a walk.”
“Really?”
“Barr…”
“Are you setting me up, love?”
The words poured from my mouth faster than my brain and heart realized what I was saying and who I was saying it to.
Mel’s lip curled and she pushed me back. Her hand came through the air almost in slow motion and I didn’t stop her from slapping me.
“What a fucking jerk,” she said. “I’m leaving.”
She climbed out of the window and I swallowed hard.
I opened my mouth but Mel was on the move. She had mastered how to get up and down the metal steps and railing to my secret room.
I went after her, swinging down like a monkey to try and get ahead of her. Or at least catch up to her.
When she jumped off the last step, I jumped from the last landing.
Our feet hit the ground at the same time, although I had a pain shoot up my legs.
I grabbed her hands and she pulled away.
Her middle finger in my face was her goodbye.
“You’re right, love,” I said. “But shit is crazy…”
“Crazy? You can’t just follow me? See what I did for you?”
Mel turned and I jumped at her again. “Nobody does things for each other here. At least not without some kind of backstabbing reason.”
Mel let out a laugh. “So everything you’ve done for me, what’s the backstabbing reason?”
“There is none. I just love you. I want to take care of you.”
Mel looked at me. “And I’m not allowed to feel the same for you?”
Silence greeted us.
I ran her words through my head a few times.
“Did you just tell me you love me, Mel?” I asked.
“You can either follow me or not,” she said. “I don’t care. I have somewhere else to be right now. You think I’m going to set you up? For what? To get hurt or something? Thanks for that, Barr.”
Mel started to walk and I gave her a few seconds before I did the same.
She was right.
And at the same time, I was right too.
I slowly caught up to her and slipped my hand into hers.
“There’s not much I trust around here, love,” I said as I stared forward and kept walking. “But you I trust. And sometimes things just come out of my mouth. And I sound like a jerk. Around here, it’s either punch or get punched. I didn’t come here to throw punches, but I knew what this place was all about.”
“You never told me why you’re here, Barr,” Mel said.
“I know. That’s on purpose. Nothing you need to ever worry about. I’m just telling you that I’m sorry. I should have never asked that.”
“But you did,” she said. “Which means it’s happened to you before.”
I nodded. But I wasn’t going to talk about that stuff right then.
“I can’t wait to see what you’ve done for me,” I said.
“Don’t get too crazy over there,” Mel said. “It’s not like I bought you a fancy car or something.”
“But you did tell me you love me,” I said.
Mel looked at me. Her cheeks turned red. “No, I didn’t.”
I winked.
She let out a groan and walked faster, pulling me along.
Anyone who saw me would know Mel was my weakness. The kind of weakness that could ruin everything I had worked so hard to build with BC.
The kind of weakness…
I shut my eyes for a second and took a breath without Mel seeing.
The kind of weakness that ended up with me being sent to Brooks Crest.
* * *
She wrestled with the old, metal door and managed to get it open on her own. It squeaked just a little but that little squeak carried and echoed through the entire auditorium.
“What is this?” I asked her.
“I made friends like you did,” she said. “Not sure if you know who Clark is, but he’s kind of cool. He has a granddaughter our age and she’s in some fancy private school in Chicago. He doesn’t see his family much because of his drinking. Well, he used to drink. Not anymore. Anyway, I asked him for a favor.”
We walked through a narrow hall, only lit up by exit signs.
Mel then turned left and we walked into a thick, black curtain. We both swatted our hands to get through it… or around it… and then she made me stop.
“Wait here,” she said.
I waited.
There was a part of me still uneasy.
This was the perfect setup.
Get me into a building that was dark and quiet.
I looked around, wondering if Mac or the others were going to take their stand.
Jump me and leave me beaten half to death…
I heard the click of a light switch and a small lamp spread light around.
Mel stood next to an old piano with the lamp she just turned on resting on top of it.
“What…”
“I told Clark I play piano,” she said. “And that I wanted to practice a little. He told me which door was unlocked. And as long as I didn’t trash anything or move anything…”
“Mel… this is cool. I’ve never been back here. This building really isn’t part of my thing here. I keep the whole piano playing quiet.”
“I know you do,” she said.
“So what are you going to play me?” I asked.
“No, Barr, this isn’t for me. I lied to Clark. This is for you.”
“What?”
“You keep playing that stupid keyboard,” Mel said. “And you don’t have a stand for it. And you try to balance it on your legs. It’s… I don’t know. This is better. And I want to hear you play. Like a real piano.”
I walked towa
rd the piano and grinned. “So this isn’t really a thing for me then, love. This is something for yourself. You’re just using me.”
“Is that wrong?” Mel asked.
I slid my left hand along her cheek. “Mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t care,” Mel said. “Clark will probably get pissed.”
“You don’t smoke though,” I said. “So just tell him it smelled like that when you got here.”
“All these lies… just to be with each other…”
“As long as we don’t lie to each other, Mel,” I said.
She grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away.
I watched her walk to one of the walls and grab a metal, folding chair.
She opened it and sat down.
Then she pointed to the piano. “Well?”
“Right,” I said.
I sat down behind the piano and actually caught myself feeling nervous for a few seconds. I was never nervous playing the piano. I had been doing it for so long, it was just… a thing to do. And it didn’t matter to anything in my life. I wasn’t being graded, judged or making money from it. It was literally just a thing to do.
But with Mel watching… with her counting on me to play…
I lit a cigarette and put my fingers to the keys.
I hit a few chords and heard that the piano was in tune.
I looked at Mel, my cigarette stuck between my lips.
And I curled my lip.
You want a show, love… here you go…
* * *
I played so much I forgot to smoke. I then played with just my left hand and I used my right hand to pluck the cigarette from my lips, drop it to the floor, and step on it.
Then I went back to playing.
Again, I wasn’t playing an actual song. Just a bunch of pieces of songs. Or random notes that worked together. Or sequences that allowed me to look as cool as I already did look.
When I slowed down, my right hand gently hit the keys, playing an almost ballad sounding song. I reached out with my left hand and wiggled my fingers for Mel to come close to me.
She pointed to herself and acted surprised, like she was in a crowd of a thousand and I chose her.
That made me smile.
If you were in a crowd of a million, love, I’d find you and choose you.
Mel walked toward me and I grabbed her by the waist and made her lean against the piano. I then started to play again, never taking my eyes off of her.
She didn’t know what to do.
How to stand.
How to lean.
She tucked her hands into the sleeves of the hoodie, which was her sign that she was either scared or turned on.
I then stood up and stopped playing.
The sound of the piano echoed around for a couple seconds then came to a stop.
“Your turn, love,” I whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Mel said. “This was for you. I don’t understand everything that goes on here but I understand enough that everyone is afraid of you. And I know you need them to be afraid but I don’t know if that’s what you really want. Because it’s your way of surviving this place. And even that… this place… there’s a lot I don’t get, Barr. But you have your secrets. Some I know. Some I don’t know. But I know you like to play piano. No matter what you say.”
“I just wanted you to sit down and play a few notes for me,” I said to Mel.
She shook her head.
She walked away from the piano and walked to the light switch.
The switch clicked and the light turned off.
My eyes needed more than a few seconds to adjust to the sudden darkness.
I eventually made out the silhouette of Mel as she walked toward me again.
“Do it again, Barr,” she whispered. “For me now.”
I put my fingers to the piano and hit a few notes.
They were almost haunting sounding in the dark.
Mel got closer to me.
And closer.
She moved onto the piano bench to give herself a little bit of extra height.
Her arms wrapped around my body from the side and she put her head on my shoulder. It wasn’t exactly comfortable to play like that, but who cared. It was Mel. Showing affection toward me.
Hell, it was more than affection…
She picked her head up and leaned forward and I felt her breath on my cheek.
“Don’t mess up,” she teased.
“Never do,” I said.
She kissed my cheek. “I can make that happen…”
“Nope,” I said.
She kissed again and her left hand moved to the front of my shirt.
I looked down, grinning, loving when she flirted with me.
She moved her hand down an inch when I stopped playing, turned, grabbed her by the waist, and then sat her on the piano.
It happened so fast, her loud gasp echoed where the piano sound had just been.
My lips brushed against hers. “Thank you for doing this, Mel. And you’re right with everything you just said. And there’s no easy way to just walk away from it. So don’t ask about that part. Just sneak me around to play piano once in a while to remind me I’m alive.”
“I think I can handle that, Barr,” Mel whispered.
“Good. And I will always take care of you.”
I kissed her and she slowly shook her head to break the kiss. “Not here. Somewhere comfortable.”
“I know a place,” I said with a grin.
“That’s crammed? That has Christmas lights on the ceiling that are half burned out?”
“If that’s what you want…”
Mel nodded.
I pulled her from the piano and we snuck out of the auditorium.
Back outside, we held hands and walked toward my secret room.
She put her head to my arm and kept it there the entire time.
My eyes scanned left to right, over and over, making sure I was safe. Making sure Mel was safe.
That’s what it had become.
But I had Mel. That was everything I could have ever asked for.
When we got to the old, metal steps that led to my secret room, Mel pulled at my arm.
I turned and looked down at her.
“It’s everything you think,” she said.
“What?”
“What just happened. What’s been happening.”
“What are you talking about, love?”
She swallowed hard. “Barr… I love you.”
She always knew how to make me smile.
Chapter 12
(we gotta go back for a sec)
It was kind of ironic to sit in the office of a philosophy professor and talk about what the next fight was going to look like.
Mac was behind the desk, in a small, wooden chair that squeaked. He had it bent back as far as it could go with his feet up on the desk that was a mile wide and a mile thick with heavy wood.
There were bookcases on each wall, filled floor to ceiling with books. There were some green, vine looking plants in the corner, grown from the dirt and hanging over the edge of the planters, down to the floor, and across.
And there was a fake skull on the corner of the desk.
The hollowed out eyes just looking forward.
Taz and Les sat in the leather chairs across from the desk.
Aric and Raf stood at the opposite wall, arms folded, ready for a fight.
All eyes were on me, of course.
I didn’t like to sit and think. I liked to pace. Keep my feet moving to keep my thoughts moving.
“It’s really not a big deal, Barr,” Mac said as he put his hands behind his head. “We’re just picking up a bag. And we’re driving it somewhere else. It puts us in the good graces of those who could someday help us if we needed it.”
I nodded.
Mac talked like he was spending the rest of his life at Brooks Crest.
Which… was possible.
I wasn’t sure there was an end in sig
ht for him up here. And if there was, he’d probably find a way to fuck that up. Just to stay on purpose. And when he graduated, then what? That’s why he wanted these outside deals. He claimed it was protection. But it was planning for the future. His future.
“It’s never just a bag,” I said. “And it’s never just a drive. If it was, they’d do it.”
“That’s a good point,” Taz said.
“Of course it is,” Les said. “They want to see what we can do.”
“Which is…,” Raf said. “What are we here to do? Thought we were just running BC.”
“We are,” Mac said. “But we’ve made our mark elsewhere. We’re known. Snakes n’ cigs, brothers.”
“That’s right,” Aric said. “Nobody fucks with us.”
“I don’t mind it,” Les said. “We go beyond this place. In case things ever get broken up… our names are known.”
“Who’s leaving?” Mac asked. He looked around. Then to me.
“We’ll do it,” I said. “Take the bag and move it. I want to make sure we’re all dressed as needed. Sleeveless cuts. Make sure we look the part. I want to go right to this place too.” I walked to the skull on the desk and picked it up. I held it in my hand. “I mean, if we’re going to go this way… then do it right. Right?”
“Fuck yeah,” Mac said, slapping his hand to the table. He stood up. “This is beyond everything around us. This is making a statement. To everyone. These assholes want us here, right? We’re like fucking prisoners to them all. The hidden bastards to our parents. But we aren’t silent, are we?”
The others looked at me.
Mac loved to give big speeches.
We all listened.
Then I made the final decision.
I looked at the skull in my hand.
I held my hand out and lifted my eyebrow at it.
“This looks fitting,” I said with a grin. “Right?”
“You look like a bad ass, brother,” Mac said.
“Holding the skull of your greatest enemy,” Raf said.
“You should take that with you,” Taz said. “It could be our mascot.”
“Shit, let’s put it in Danny’s locker,” Les said with a laugh.
“Oh, fuck,” Mac said. “Imagine that? I bet he’d piss himself again.”
“What would that be?” Aric asked. “The fourth time this month?”
BARR: a bay falls high novel Page 10
