Melt My Heart

by Anna Cove

  Laura decided then and there not to go over that terror any longer. All her energy had to be focused on the future, on how she would care for Aaron. The thought occurred to her that she should call Cal, to tell him the baby was here, to tell him everything was going to be okay, but something stopped her. It wasn't just the exhaustion of her body, or the way her mind kept drifting off, but she wanted to keep Aaron to herself for a little while longer.

  "Excuse me? Laura Munro?"

  Laura's eyes fluttered open to see a man standing in the doorway. He wore a dress shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned at the collar, and had a hospital bracelet on his wrist, which meant he was probably a new father. His arms spanned the door and his hair was mussed, but he wore an energetic expression on his face. He looked harmless enough, but something about him put her on edge.

  He knows my name.

  "I'm sorry to bother you, but you are Laura Munro, right?"

  "Sorry. Wrong person."

  He raised an eyebrow, then let his arms fall from the door frame and walked into her room.

  Laura struggled to sit up, her ab muscles protesting. Haven't we done enough in the last nine months, they whined. But she was too vulnerable lying down.

  He took another step toward her. "I'm such a fan of your work."

  "Don't," she said, her voice going raw. She scrambled for the nurse call button but couldn't find it in the sheets. "Don't come any closer."

  "I just want your autograph. My wife—she just had twins and she loves The Beautiful Ones."

  "Get out," Laura growled. Her heart was beating like it would fly out of her chest and smash the man in his face. Her arms were shaking. On some level she knew she was overreacting, but she couldn't stop herself. The threat felt very real.

  "Please, it'll just take a moment."

  "Get away from me." She lost grip on what she was doing. Her hand shot out and grabbed the closest thing it could find—a plastic cup full of water. She launched it at the man. It bounced off his head, drenching the left side of his body.

  His arms unfurled as he looked down. "What was that for?"

  "For coming far too close. Please, get out. Now. Before I have the nurses call the police."

  The man backed out of the room, looking at her like she might launch out of bed and claw his eyes out.

  Laura's head fell forward over her knees, her tangled mess of hair hiding her face. She waited for her heartbeat to slow and her breathing to return to normal. What did you just do? she asked herself. It was worse than before, worse than when she was pregnant. The way her heart galloped, the shaking of her limbs, her visceral reactions to people coming too close. It wasn't normal, was it?

  No, it was normal.

  What wasn't normal was people not hearing no.

  Laura had thought she'd be safe here in Love Falls, but she was learning that wherever there were people, danger lurked. That was the nature of her job, of her fame. From here on out she was going to have to try harder to draw a boundary around herself. It wasn't just her anymore. She had a little one to protect.

  She finally found her call button and buzzed the nurses' station to tell them what had happened.

  One more time, she threatened, and she would leave, dragging the IV and the baby behind her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHENEVER DYLAN HAD a tough call, she got busy.

  The night after Laura Munro's call was no different. As soon as she got off work, she went straight to Mrs. McGregor's house and changed the batteries in her smoke detector, then stayed for cookies and tea. When she arrived home, sleep didn't come easily, which wasn't abnormal for Dylan. She lay awake in her bed and watched the glowing red numbers of her clock change until early morning. Then she got up and headed out to help Sky open the café.

  Saturday morning was the busiest time of the week at The Snuggery, and the cold months the busiest time of the year. Skylar had hired one of Dylan's teens—Jo—to help with the rush, but even then she often needed a third set of hands. Plus, The Snuggery and all its occupants were always better when Sky was free to sprinkle her magic.

  Dylan entered The Snuggery right before it opened. Sky and Jo were prepping the machines and disinfecting the countertops to prepare for the day.

  "Hello, ladies," Dylan said, moving straight through the seating area toward the kitchen to hang up her coat.

  "You're here!" Sky dropped her rag, her face lighting up as if Dylan was her favorite person in the world. "I didn't think you'd be in this morning."

  Jo looked up and gave her a perfunctory smile, which was about all her teenage body could manage at this hour. Dylan preferred that kind of greeting at six-thirty in the morning over the energetic one, but she would tolerate anything that would take her mind off yesterday's call. Off the image of Laura Munro on the side of the road, God knows what'd happened to her. Bleeding out? With more damage than she'd thought from the fall? She couldn't afford to dwell on it any longer. "My schedule opened up."

  "Lucky us," Sky said.

  Dylan slid through the swinging counter door and grabbed an apron from its nook. "Hey Sky, have you read the news today?"

  "I scanned my phone before I came in."

  "Anything interesting?" Dylan neatly rinsed out the coffee carafe. She hoped her voice sounded as casual as she meant for it to be.

  "Not particularly. Just the usual political crap. The world might end, but probably not today."

  So, she wasn't dead. Dylan felt the tension in her shoulders ease a fraction. Stop being so dramatic, she told herself as she toweled off the glass carafe. If you did this with every call, you'd be crazy by now. But maybe something did happen, and Sky just isn't remembering. "How about in entertainment news?"

  A silence followed. Dylan could practically feel Skylar's eyes on the back of her neck as she reached into the cabinet to pull out a set of multicolored mugs for the first customers. She wiped them out one at a time and pretended the silence wasn't there.

  "I heard Jennifer Aniston was pregnant," Jo said.

  "Pssh," Skylar said. "They've been saying that for twenty years. Spoiler alert. She's not. She's in her fifties. I'm so tired of how everyone always wants her to be pregnant—like you can't live a full life without a baby."

  Jo flung her overgrown bangs out of her eyes, pausing in her task of counting the till money. "My mother thinks that. She's already trying to set me up with her friends' sons and constantly talks about grandkids. I'm only sixteen."

  Skylar groaned.

  Dylan swung around and glanced at Jo. "It's totally up to you, you know. It's perfectly fine not to have kids, and it would be perfectly fine if you changed your mind, too."

  Jo's mouth set in a sneer. "My mother would like that just a little too much, I think."

  Dylan hid a smile behind her towel. Jo was so much like her as a kid that sometimes she got the urge to take her aside and tell her everything she had learned up to the ripe old age of thirty-three. How she would graduate and go away to college and get called back to take care of her sick mother and meet a woman and marry her then lose her—the breath caught in her throat as a smiling image of Katie appeared fully formed in her mind. Why was she thinking about her so often all of a sudden?

  "I hear you," was all that Dylan said for now.

  They didn't have time to talk much more as Sky opened the front doors of The Snuggery and its first few customers strolled in. From then on, there was a steady stream, enough to keep Dylan occupied for almost an hour. Serving kept her mind right on the thin edge; it took up just enough space so she couldn't think of anything else if she wanted to keep up.

  But as soon as there was a lull, her gaze automatically shot to the table Laura Munro had occupied just over a week earlier. The chair sat empty, and Dylan's mind flashed to Laura in a hospital bed.

  I have to find out how she's doing.

  Often, the worst part of Dylan's job was that she couldn't find out what happened to her callers. With hundreds of calls coming in most day
s, she had to move right on to the next one, and at some point—except for the tragic or particularly humorous ones—they all blended together. She couldn't pick out one person from the rest.

  But Laura was different. Since Dylan had met her before the call, the image of her in crisis was so concrete. She couldn't shake the feeling that she should do something more.

  That was the crux of the problem.

  Laura had been a champ through most of the birth, but when she had needed Dylan most, she wasn't there. She wasn't heroic for Laura. Not at all. She was just a person who had failed. Who should have stayed on the line and found one of her coworkers to take the other call. Who should have been a support during Laura's actual crisis moment.

  "Dylan?"

  Dylan flinched at the sound of her name. There was a line in her section of the counter, and Sky and Jo were busily helping customers on their side. In the seconds that followed, Jo, who had spoken her name, glanced at her a few times. Dylan turned toward the customer.

  "Can I have a spiced chai with whipped cream on top, please?" the woman said. She wore silk turquoise gloves and her blonde hair frizzed out around her head.

  Blonde hair that was nothing like Laura's.

  What the heck? Dylan shook her head. "Sure. I'll get that right away."

  The woman with the frizzy blonde hair moved over to Jo at the register while Dylan started preparing her drink.

  Dylan had options. She could find out who had been on duty and dispatched to Laura. But then Marcia might find out she was checking up on calls and would not be pleased. But what did Dylan care? She did her job well, and it wasn't like there were people knocking down the door to replace her. In fact, other than Marcia, Dylan was the longest serving operator at the communications center. They would hate giving up an experienced worker.

  Yes, she could afford to check on her.

  Ow! Hot liquid scalded her hands. They spasmed and froze. The mug shattered against the floor. Dylan's breath lodged in her throat like a shard of the mug had found its way in there. It was one of Sky's favorites from Africa, with a bulbous cup, a huge handle, and red, black, and white stripes.

  Dylan bent to pick up the pieces, her face flaming.

  "Are you okay?" Sky whispered as she crouched nearby. She wore jeans and a billowy blouse today, her hair pulled up in a half updo. She looked far classier and put together than Dylan. And her demeanor was much more compassionate than Dylan's would have been if Sky had broken one of her favorite things.

  "I'm fine," Dylan whispered back as she picked up the soaking pieces of china.

  "You've been acting strange today."

  "You have customers waiting. Don't worry about me."

  "They can continue waiting. What's wrong? Do you want to talk?"

  Dylan shook her head. That was really the last thing she wanted to do. It felt like Laura Munro was a cork stopper. And talking about her would wiggle the cork loose and once it came out she would spew all this stuff about Katie and how she was starting to feel like she would never get out from under the darkness and she just couldn't do that. Not now. Not ever.

  Sky placed a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go home and rest?"

  Dylan shook her head sharply. "I can't go home."

  "Okay, then why don't you go sit by the fire with Kell and Jenny? You can play a game with them and you won't have to talk."

  Dylan made eye contact with Sky. Could she read her mind? But the last thing she wanted to do was deal with Kell...

  Kell.

  Kell.

  Kell had forced her to talk to Laura Munro and Laura Munro had given Dylan her phone number.

  Of course. How stupid could she be?

  She stood, untying her apron, moving faster than she had in a long time. "You know what? I just remembered I have something to do. Now."

  "Okay?"

  "I've gotta go." Dylan threw her apron under the counter and ran out of the place, not hearing a thing Sky said as she left.

  "RISE AND SHINE, SWEETHEART."

  A light touch ran down Dylan's arm. At first, she thought it was part of her dream. Slowly, though, she started to fade from the dream world until she realized—

  Someone's in my room.

  She lurched against the wall next to her bed, pulling the sheets up to her chin like a shield.

  Skylar's dancing eyes crinkled as she covered her mouth. "Oh my God, I've never heard you squeal before."

  Dylan's heart throbbed against her throat and her mouth felt dry, like she had drunk a whole bottle of wine last night. Had she? Her eyes darted to the bedside table. A 3/4 empty bottle of wine sat on a crinkled piece of paper. She swallowed, trying to summon moisture to her tongue. "I didn't squeal."

  "You did, and it was delightful. Now, get up."

  Dylan slinked down into the bed, drawing her coverlet back up to her ears. She hadn't fallen asleep until after four, and the clock on her table read 5:16 in red numbers. "Why are you in my room? Am I dreaming?"

  The covers disappeared from over Dylan's head. "I reminded you yesterday that we had crew practice this morning."

  "Good for you. Have fun."

  "You said you'd join the team, remember?"

  Dylan groaned. Light from the overhead lamp flooded the room. Dylan drew the covers back over her head.

  "Come on."

  "No."

  "You promised."

  "I don't make promises."

  "Get up."

  Dylan squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. Sky had never featured in her actual dreams before, just her imaginary dreams, if that made sense. Just the dreams she made up when she no longer wanted to deal with her in the real world.

  The bed started bouncing. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. "Get. Up. Get. Up. Get. Up."

  Dylan flung the covers off her, the cold air of her apartment raising gooseflesh on her arms. "Okay, fine. I'll try your stupid crew team, but I'm not promising anything, okay?"

  Anything to get her to shut up.

  "Yay!"

  Dylan stalked across the room and grabbed the first pair of sweatpants she found, pulling them over her pajama shorts. She snatched a hoodie from the clothes pile on the chair in her room, then headed for the door.

  Perhaps sensing her life was in the balance, Sky said almost nothing on the way to the gym. The moment she got in her Honda Civic hybrid, she handed Dylan a to-go thermos. Then she turned on the radio and sang every song at full volume.

  How is she so damn happy this early in the morning?

  Dylan tried to tune her out while she nursed her coffee and kept quiet, staring out the window until they arrived at the gym.

  She only started to feel partially human as she got out of the car and into the fresh air. Then, without the distraction of tuning out Sky, in the short walk to the gym door, the crushing self-hatred settled in. After she'd left Sky's the night before, she'd found Laura's phone number. Then she proceeded not to call it for the next ten hours. Why—she didn't know. She just couldn't bring her fingers to dial the numbers. For the ten hours after that—until she finally fell asleep—she scanned the news outlets looking for news of Laura's death.

  Laura Munro hadn't died.

  She couldn't have died.

  But Dylan wasn't getting any closer to finding out how she really was.

  Skylar brought her into the gym and told the man at the desk that she was part of the crew team. Then she introduced her to the team. Dylan knew half of them from The Snuggery. They hung out there every Saturday all morning long, staking out a place by the fire. There was the petite Jenny and her wife Alex, who was always on the phone even in The Snuggery. Kell, of course, the burly mayor lady. Beside her was a woman who looked like she had come directly from a raging party and was still possibly drunk. Dylan had only seen her a couple times at The Snuggery, and Skylar introduced her as Nika Lee. The only people she didn't recognize were the twins, who were new to the area, and whose names Dylan forgot the instant they were mentioned.

 
The team's coach and coxswain was named MaryJane, MJ for short. A woman in her fifties who was in incredible shape, she shook Dylan's hand so vigorously Dylan continued vibrating afterward. MJ expressed excitement at Dylan's having joined the team at the moment they needed her most. Dylan still said very little, getting by with an attempt at a smile.

  After the introductions, the women scattered to a long line of machines along the back of the gym.

  MJ guided Dylan to a machine on the end of the line. She demonstrated how to erg, showing her the steps on a neighboring machine, going through them slowly. Dylan only had to do the motion once before she understood, her body falling into an immediate rhythm.

  "Have you done this before?" MJ asked.

  "No," Dylan said.

  "Well, your form is perfect. Keep doing that for a little while to warm up, and I'll be back later to do a test with you."

  Skylar took MJ's vacated machine, talking to one of the twins on the other side of her about someone she had met at The Snuggery and how they would just be perfect together. Dylan's focus shifted to the movements of her body. Bend and push with the knees, lean back and pull with the arms. Bend, push with the knees, lean back and pull with the arms.

  Within a few pulls, Dylan found a rhythm. The world narrowed around her, and all she heard was the whirl of the wheel in the machine. Her breath started to sync with the whirl, creating something akin to music. Her muscles stretched and wakened. Dormant for so long, they protested the strain. But after their initial cries, after a moment where Dylan thought she couldn't go on any longer, they too settled into the rhythm.

  Dylan bent and she pushed and she leaned and she pulled, on and on, until she couldn't push one more time. Only then did she stop, and when she did, she realized Sky had stopped as well. Her friend's eyebrows were raised, her arms crossed.