Page 106 of Overkill

Chapter 38

Was That a Question?

Melody

He didn’t come. I don’t know why I expected him to. I’d kicked him out, regretted it immediately, and then made a ham-fisted attempt to make him stay.

Between the drama, the danger, and then being reprimanded about Marc—only to realize my little brother had changed from a bratty boy into a young man who helped and cleaned the house and was nicer to his younger sister—he had no reason to want me. To want this.

Almost two months passed, and life settled. Marc and Miriam helped as I started physical therapy to get me back on my feet until I needed the wheelchair less and less. Eventually, I went from sleeping on the couch on the main floor to occasionally being able to head up the stairs on the few days I felt particularly good.

Marc was still in the film club, and he was making friends who weren’t his piece-of-shit cousins—now ostracized for their associations with the actions of Ian Gray. As it turned out, trying to fake your cousin’s suicide to get money had tarnished their family’s reputation in town. The shine was off the apple, so to speak.

Miriam was busy with the cows and had convinced me to never sell them.

“You want to keep them…as pets?” I asked her.

“No! But…you know…they’re nice to have on the farm. It’s not like we don’t have the space.”

So we are keeping the cows, and they now all have names. Lovely.

The trusts for me and my siblings came in, and despite putting most of their shares away for their college, the low, low salary of $50,000 a year was still damn luxurious compared to what we had been living on. Marc wanted to get a table saw for repairs around the house, starting with our parents’ old bedroom. I told him to try something smaller first, like maybe making a new kitchen table.

I started looking into night school. Maybe I could finish my law degree. It wouldn’t be Yale, but it would be something. I could work as a paralegal. It would be better than working customer service where people screamed at me all night, and I would be able to save more to get the kids into the schools they wanted.

I was at the kitchen table on my laptop when we heard a honk on the driveway. Looking through the daisy window curtains, I saw a familiar orange truck. Familiar, but different. There was a huge cover on the bed.

The truck’s engine cut. A door opened and shut, there were footsteps on gravel. My heart leapt to my throat.

“It’s Greg!” Marc was at the kitchen door, looking at me with hope in his eyes.

My mouth hung open, and I didn’t know what to do. I was still in my pajamas and looked like a wreck.

Miriam turned to me. “Are you gonna be okay?”

I was already crying.

Why was he here? Maybe he had mail to drop off? Did Lotte send him over with vegetables? More importantly, why was I acting like this was something?

Marc scampered to the front door, and I heard it open wide, slamming into the wall because the door stop had been broken years ago. One more thing to fix…

I ran fingers through my hair, trying to comb out the nest growing on my head, but realizing it was useless. Anyway, he wasn’t here for me…what was I even thinking?

“Hey, son. I’m here to talk to Melody. She around?” His voice—his words!—made my knees quiver.

Where the fuck else would I be? I could barely walk, and I was still on drugs. I’d been mostly housebound, because I didn’t have a big, beefy man with long hair to carry me around like I weighed nothing!

“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen.” Marcus, you traitor!

I take back every nice thought I’ve had about him.

“Can I come in?”

God damn him. His footsteps pounded to the beat of my heart, and when I heard the ruffle of laces, for the first time ever, I wished he didn’t fucking respect the rules of the house to take off his shoes! Asshole!

Miriam rushed to the counter and grabbed a paper towel, returning to dab my face and wipe the tears. Then she pinched my cheeks.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered through clenched teeth.