By then it was too late. Alex asked her ‘the question.’
“With such taste in watches, your mom must be a left-brainer,” Alex said. “Is she an engineer too?”
“No… she doesn’t work… she stays home…” Melina said.
Alex stood silently waiting for Melina to continue.
“Excuse me,” Melina said, finally.
Melina grabbed her backpack and disappeared around the corner, leaving Alex with a perplexed look. He started to follow her, but Jean stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“It’s not your fault,” Jean said.
Alex looked as if he were in a daze. “What just happened?”
“It’s Melina’s mom,” Jean began. “About six months ago, her mom was driving home from the store when she got into a car accident. She ran a red light, and another car hit her broadside. Physically, she came through all right, but they believe that she hit her head because she was unresponsive when she got to the hospital.”
Alex leaned in toward Jean and spoke softer. “Oh,” he said. “Did she get better?”
“Since her mom did not appear to have any other injuries, they hoped that her condition was temporary,” Jean continued, “but the doctors are baffled. There does not seem to be any reason why she should not just wake up. It has been six months and yet there has been no improvement.”
“Is she still in the hospital?” Alex asked.
“No. They moved her to a long term care facility across town,” Jean said. “Melina visits her every weekend.”
“I feel so terrible,” Alex said.
Jean reached over and gently grasped Alex’s arm. “Alex, don’t. This is not the first time that this has happened. My best friend is just going through a rough patch. Please bear with her.”
Alex looked in the direction that Melina went. “Should I go talk to her?”
“I’ll talk to her,” Jean said as she started walking. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Tell Melina that I understand and that I will see her in class tomorrow,” Alex said as Jean disappeared.
………………………….
Jean found Melina down the next hallway, standing next to the water fountain, dabbing her eyes with a tissue to soak up the tears.
“You sure have a way with the guys,” Jean said as she approached. “I’m going to have to take notes.”
Melina looked up, her teary expression giving way to a stifled grin. “Very funny.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jean said. “Alex said to tell you that he understands about what just happened and that he will see you in class tomorrow. He seems like a nice guy. I can understand why you have a crush on him.”
Melina looked up quickly. She had never told anyone her feelings about Alex, even Jean. She felt guilty about not mentioning it to her, but these were new feelings, and she was still trying to work through how she felt.
“You can’t lie to me,” Jean said, laughing. “I saw how you looked at him. How long have you felt this way about Alex?”
“A couple of weeks,” Melina said, looking down. “I have talked to him in class a hundred times since he came to the school, but one morning, we were talking in Physics class, and as Alex looked over at me, he smiled a certain way. At that moment, I felt something that I have never experienced before in my life. It is difficult to explain, but I had an overwhelming sense that I wanted to be around him. I’ve felt that way ever since. I am sorry I haven’t told you about it.”
“It’s okay, lady,” Jean said. “I understand.”
“Don’t you think Alex is way out of your league?” a voice boomed from behind Melina.
It was Ellen Barrow and a few of her toadies. It was no secret around school that Ellen was interested in Alex. She had been angling for him to ask her out since his first day in class. Without any luck.
“It is none of your business,” Melina said as she turned around.
“It is so my business,” Ellen said. “When I talked to Alex last week, he remarked how pretty my hair was. It is only a matter of time before he asks me out, and I cannot have anyone get in the way.”
“Well, we’ll have to let him do what he wants,” Melina said as she bent down to get a drink from the fountain.
Ellen then put her finger on the spigot of the fountain so that it sprayed water all over Melina.
“Just stay away from him,” Ellen said as she stormed off, her toadies following not far behind her.
Jean started to wipe the water from Melina with her jacket. “I didn’t hear anything about rain in the forecast.”
“Do you think that she is right?” Melina asked. “That Alex is out of my league.”
Jean stepped back and looked at her friend. “Why, because you choose to wear plain jeans and boys tennis shoes instead of the latest trendy fashions.”
“That’s part of it,” Melina said. “I mean, look at Ellen. I don’t think that she has worn pants since third grade, and she has a different set of shoes for every outfit. She’s tall, and she’s pretty. She has perfect blonde hair…”
Jean put her hand on Melina’s shoulder. “Look, I am just going to say this once. Your clothes are not trendy, but they look good on you. And you are one of the prettiest girls I know with a smile that could light up a room. So do not let Ellen convince you that Alex is out of your league. Besides, you have something that Ellen does not have.”
“What do you mean?” Melina asked.
“He clearly is interested in you,” Jean said.
“Do you think?” Melina asked.
Jean rolled her eyes. “Guys do not just walk up to you out of the blue and offer to lend you a book without there being some interest. That and the fact that he appeared to have the same look on his face that you did. I’m positive.”
Melina put her arm around her friend. “Thanks Jean.”
Jean smiled at her and then turned serious. “There is one thing that I have to ask you, though,” Jean said as she moved in front of Melina and placed her hands on Melina’s shoulders. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but what in the heck is the matter with you? What happened to the Melina that I used to know? The confident Melina. The fearless Melina. I can’t understand why you let Ellen talk to you like that. The Melina I used to know would have broken both of her arms.”
Melina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Jean was right. She had changed. And Jean had a valid point about the broken arms.
When Melina was in kindergarten, she started studying martial arts at a special studio across town. Set up by her dad’s employer, the studio was attached to a fitness complex owned by the company, and it taught only the children of employees and their extended families. The studio offered classes in all of the different forms of martial arts and Melina began studying taekwondo. Focusing almost entirely on punching and kicking forms, but with little sparring, she excelled to the top of her class.
When Melina was in fourth grade, her dad told her that she must switch her study to krav maga. Originally developed by Israeli commandos, this form of martial arts was unique in that it emphasized disabling your opponent as fast as possible by any means possible, even if it meant poking out the opponent’s eye or breaking their neck.
At first Melina did not like the sheer brutality of krav maga. She liked the beauty and grace of taekwondo while this new form of martial arts taught how to harm anyone that was a threat to her in the most efficient way. It did not help that she was at least ten years younger than anyone else that was in the class. Melina pleaded with her dad, to allow her to go back to studying taekwondo, but he insisted that she stick with krav maga. “You will need to be able to defend yourself,” he told her. His explanation didn’t make sense, but he would not discuss it further.
She continued attending krav maga classes all throughout elementary and middle schools, in time progressing up through the different levels of belts. At each belt level, the students were expected to spar with each other and try out what was learned during c
lass on each other. Though Melina was in a class with students that were much bigger than she was, she held her own during the sparring and developed a reputation for having a particularly fierce fighting style.
Her ability gave her tremendous confidence, and it was reflected in her manner both in the studio and at school. In sixth grade, she once was confronted by a group of eighth grade girls that took offense to her trespassing in the eighth grade hallway. After getting shoved around the hallway a bit, Melina unleashed a fury of fists and feet that resulted in broken bones for several of the girls involved. Reviewing the hallway security tape, the principal remarked that it looked like a clip from a Bruce Lee movie.
When she was a freshman in high school, she finally reached the level of black belt. While this is the highest belt level that can be achieved in krav maga, there are nine dan levels of black belt. Each new level being achieved with more intensive training that included the study of advanced weapons. Melina was studying for her black belt, third dan when her mom’s accident happened. At that point, her dad had become too busy to take her to class, so her mom had been taking her. Her dad made it clear to her that it was crucial that she continued her martial arts training, so he said that he would leave work early to take her. But she decided to quit. She had lost the desire. It just wasn’t the same without her mom.
Melina looked up at her friend. “Many things changed after my mom’s accident. I’m just not that person anymore.”
Chapter 2
Melina woke up just before the alarm was to go off. For a brief moment, while she was still in that half-awake state, she smiled, as she believed that it was the weekend. But, as she gained full consciousness, she realized that it was another school day.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz went the alarm clock as if to rub it in.
With her eyes closed, Melina flailed with her left arm until it found the clock and then she pounded on the top of it until it stopped buzzing. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a sea of light purple. Periwinkle, actually. This was the color of the walls in her room. When she was eight years old, she pleaded with her parents for them to paint the walls of her room light purple. They agreed, but told her that because of the expense, she would have to live with that color for a long time. When she reached high school age, she had come to regret that decision. A few years earlier, she convinced her parents that she had reached the age where she should scrap the ‘little girl’ walls for something older. Perhaps a shade of deep blue. They were in the process of lining up a painting contractor when her mom’s accident happened. Her dad said that he would still have the room painted, but Melina told him to leave it how it was. It was now somewhat of a comfort to her. They would paint it when Mom came home from the hospital.
After an extended and exaggerated stretch of her arms and back, Melina got out of bed and trudged across the room to the closet to get her robe. As she passed in front of her dresser, she paused and looked toward the mirror on the wall.
“You look gorgeous,” Melina said, following up the comment with her lips drawn up into a ‘kissy-face’ pucker.
She was joking, of course. By the time she left for school, her long brown hair would be straight and halfway down her back, courtesy of a flat iron, but it always started the day as if each hair were on a separate vacation. She gathered some of her hair in each one of her hands and gave it an extra vigorous mussing. She smiled at the freakish girl staring back at her in the mirror.
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog Toto too,” she said as she pointed a gnarled finger at her reflection.
Satisfied with her witch impersonation, Melina continued to the closet, where she grabbed her robe, and then she headed downstairs to have breakfast. As she walked down the hallway, Melina thought she heard talking coming from the master bedroom. She poked her head in the open door and saw her dad sitting on the bed, his back to her, talking to some clothing hanging on a coat rack in front of him. Melina recognized the clothes as those that her mom was wearing the night of her accident. They had been hanging from that coat rack since the night the hospital returned them. Melina could not hear what her dad was saying, but she was sure that it was directed to her mom. She thought about going to him to ask if he were all right, but she decided against it. Her dad was not the type that enjoyed talking about how he felt. He hadn’t seen her, so she quietly backed up and continued downstairs.
Her brother was in the kitchen, already dressed for school. He was seated at the table eating a toaster pastry with a side of child-sized yogurt. His usual.
“Well, if it isn’t the boy genius,” Melina said. Only she said it the way a cartoon hero greets a villain.
Travis looked up from his cereal. “So, we meet again,” he said, in his best evil scientist voice. “But you’re too late! As soon as I put my evil plans into place, I shall rule the world! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
This made Melina smile. It reminded her of a time when they were younger, and they would tease each other and perform funny voices at the kitchen table.
“Not if I defeat you first,” Melina said, in her best anime cartoon voice. “We will battle. And then after the battle, I will have been the one who will have won and you will have been the one that will have lost.”
“Not so fast, Madame Roberts,” Travis said, matching her anime voice. “My new weapon is very powerful and has a special move that cannot be defeated.”
Travis was waiting for his sister to continue the dialog, but her attention was drawn to the other side of the kitchen as she watched her dad walking toward the kitchen table. On any other day, she would have continued the fun, but after what she saw upstairs, she thought it best to stop.
“Listen up, you guys,” Melina’s dad said as he approached the table, “I have an urgent meeting today, so we have to leave a little early.”
………………………….
“If the sun is a flaming ball of gas,” Travis said, “Then why doesn’t it just burn up or explode?”
Melina was used to this sort of question from her brother. Random and unexpected, his question was the type of thing that he liked to talk about on the drive to school. He asked questions about science. About mathematics. About geography. You name it, and he asked questions about it. If the question had to do with science, chances are her brother was asking a question for which he already knew the answer. Melina usually tried to ignore him in the back seat, but he was relentless. He also had the advantage that he was a morning person and that he could speak at length, seemingly without breathing.
Hearing no answer to his question, Travis continued. “You see, the sun is made of hydrogen atoms. Lots of them. So many that they have a powerful gravitational force at the core of the sun that pulls all of the atoms toward the center. But when they reach the core, the gravitational force fuses them together to become helium atoms. This fusion process releases energy and the helium atoms explode toward the surface only to be drawn back to the core by the gravity. Thus, the sun reaches equilibrium.”
Travis paused and looked around at Melina and her dad. This is where he expects questions about what he has said. When Melina’s mom used to drive them to school, she would indulge Travis by peppering him with questions about what he was saying. Her dad was not as indulgent, so it fell to her to prime his lectures with short questions. Mercifully, on this day, they were pulling into the parking lot at his school, so she looked out the window and pretended not to hear him.
“Okay, keep your seatbelts on until we have reached the curb, and the captain has turned off the seatbelt sign,” Melina’s dad said as the car came to a stop in front of the school. The same stale joke every day, Melina thought. What is it about Dads that they tell the same joke every day? It doesn’t get any funnier.
Travis opened the door, grabbed his backpack and got out.
“Have a good day, big guy,” Melina’s dad yelled to Travis as he shut the door.
Big guy. Her dad had called her brother that as far back as she could remembe
r. He used to call her ‘big girl’ too, when she was much younger, but he stopped when she got older. When she asked him why one day, he said that the word ‘big’ had a different meaning for boys and girls. For boys, ‘big’ was good, for girls it wasn’t. He said it was sad and that it was unfair, but it was true. So he switched to calling her kiddo instead.
After dropping off Travis at his school, Melina and her dad continued down the street to her school and turned into the parking lot. It was an hour before school started, so he pulled over past the usual drop-off area and parked.
Melina’s dad squinted his eyes and scanned the parking lot as if he were a cop on a stakeout. There were only a few cars and no people could be seen. “I thought they opened the doors well before school started so people could drop their kids off early.”
“They do, we’re just a little too early,” Melina said. “I know you have that meeting to go to, why don’t you just let me out and I’ll wait in front of the building until someone comes and opens the doors.”
Melina’s dad gave her a scowl. She had seen that look before. “I don’t care how late I am, I am not going to leave my little girl on the front steps of a locked school and drive away.”
“Little girl?” Melina said with mock indignation. “I’ll have you know I can tie my shoes almost all by myself.”
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he said, smiling. “It’s a cruel world out there, and I worry about you. Will you at least indulge me and let me stay with you until someone unlocks the doors?”
She thought about it for a moment. “As long as you don’t give me the field trip speech.”
The infamous field trip speech. When she was in elementary school, every time that Melina had a field trip, her dad made sure that he called her aside that morning before she left for school and gave her what became known as the field trip speech. Her dad would go over all of the things she should look out for and people she should be wary of. About how she should never, ever be alone. And last, if she ever found herself in any trouble, she was to scream as loud as possible. Her dad finally stopped giving her the speech when she mocked him one day by reciting it to him perfectly word for word.
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