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So…at least one of the men I’ve dated is concerned enough for my welfare to hang out in a hospital waiting room for hours.
Too bad he’s the wrong one.
Chapter 24
Nick
I tuck my buzzing phone into my pocket and quicken my pace down the street away from the police station, ignoring the wary looks my bruised face earns from the other pedestrians out this early. My jaw hurts, and it’s painful to talk, but that isn’t why I don’t answer Melody’s call.
I’m not answering because this is Sarah Beth all over again, but worse.
A thousand times worse. A million.
My stomach boils with misery, and a bitter, acrid taste rises in my throat.
I’ve never felt so stupid or naïve or so very fucking sad.
I sat across from the guy with the roses and the stuffed bunny for a good twenty minutes last night before I realized he was there for Melody.
By the time I got patched up in the ER—my wounds cleaned and two stitches slipped into a cut beneath my ear that Seth’s ring made when the first punch connected—the other Marches had been talking to the doctors on the floor where Melody was transferred. It wasn’t until Mrs. March rushed out and straight into bunny boy’s arms that I realized the guy must be Melody’s ex, Brian, the one who texted her every few days, but who she’d sworn she was finished with for good.
But apparently almost dying changed her mind.
“She’ll be so glad you’re here,” I heard Sue March mumble into Brian’s yellow shirt before leading him back into the family-only area without a glance my way.
A part of me had shriveled inside, but then I’d thought about how limp and terrifyingly still Melody had felt in my arms as I waited for the ambulance to pull up to the curb outside the shop. It had been the scariest event of my life, bar none. For a few horrible minutes, I was sure I was going to lose her, certain the girl I loved was going to die and it would be my fault.
At that moment, I hated myself. Could I blame Melody if she hated me a little, too? Maybe her ex seems like a more comforting choice right now.
Or maybe this is all her mother’s doing.
Either way, I refused to slink away with my tail between my legs. I was determined to stay, to show Melody how much I love her.
To convince her to give me another chance.
So I waited until the other Marches trailed out of the waiting room—Lark and Mason shooting me sympathetic looks as they hustled an exhausted-looking Bob March out the door, Aria and Nash waving as they pushed a sleeping Felicity toward the parking garage in her stroller—before slipping unnoticed past the night nurse at the front desk and sneaking down the hall to Melody’s room.
Inside, I’d seen no sign of the ex-boyfriend, only Sue March sitting in a chair in the corner, tears still damp on her cheeks. I told her how sorry I was and asked if it would be okay for me to wait with her.
She hadn’t hesitated to tell me no. She told me to go home, that I’d done enough tonight, but it was Melody who convinced me that staying was a lost cause. Only seconds after her mom left the room to get the night nurse to escort me out, Melody moaned in her sleep and called out one name—Brian.
Brian. Brian, like it was the answer to every question. Brian, like he was the lost thing she’d been looking for.
I turned and walked out without another word. I stalked down the hall, out into the parking lot, and kept on walking along the shoulder of the dark road leading away from the hospital at the far southern edge of town.
It had taken two hours to reach the police station on foot, but I didn’t care. I wanted to walk, to be lulled into a thoughtless state by the repetitive rhythm of my footsteps and put the thoughts of losing Melody away until after I finished giving my statement about Seth’s attack to the police.
And now I’m finished and on my way home, and Melody is calling.
Why? To tell me it’s over and she’s back with Brian? To tell me she’s realized that tattoos and sudden love and guys like me aren’t for her? If so, I don’t think I can handle it, not now, after the exhausting, emotion-filled, sleepless night I just had.
I send her second call to voicemail and turn off my phone.
Too bad I can’t turn off my thoughts that easily…
Brooding all the way home, I curse myself for not refusing to tattoo her in the first place. Deep down, I’d known better, hadn’t I? Known that Melody was just going through a wild phase and would come to her senses sooner or later? Known that she would regret the tattoo and dating me and every other out-of-character thing she did during the however many months we would have lasted before our relationship imploded?
