Melody of Us

by A. L. Wood

  I don’t want her to cry.

  Even though I really, really hate her.

  I hate her tears more.

  Mom says that girls cry a lot, and that it’s okay.

  Dad says that Lyrik cries too much, and that it’s not okay.

  I don’t know what an acceptable amount of crying is, but I don’t think it’s okay that Lyrik cries at all and right now it looks like she might.

  All because I walked past my mail box and didn’t look to see if she put a letter in there.

  I think about just walking into my house, pretending that I don’t see her hiding behind that tree in her yard, watching me.

  Waiting for me to acknowledge her words.

  But then I think that I don’t want to see her cry, even when I hate her so much.

  Even though we are not friends.

  Never will be friends.

  I open the mailbox, and just as expected there’s a letter in there.

  On the envelope, it reads, ‘Read this or don’t, I don’t care.’

  Obviously, she cares, or she wouldn’t have written it.

  I tear the seam open and pull her letter out.

  Anson,

  I know that you said we couldn’t be friends, I thought you were lying. Because you talk to me, and you tell me your secrets and I tell you mine. You hold my hand sometimes, and you always help me up when I fall.

  Because of all of that I thought you were my friend.

  I was wrong.

  You’re not my friend, because if you were you would have told Missy that I was.

  When she asked you today if I was your friend you looked right at me and said, “No.”

  I said, “Yes,” and then she laughed.

  Then you laughed.

  You both laughed at me.

  I’m sorry I hurt you, but I only shoved you because you hurt my feelings.

  I hope that you’re okay.

  But I will never be your friend again.

  Goodbye,

  Lyrik Everly

  She doesn’t mean that.

  She’ll write me another letter tomorrow telling me that she wants to be my best friend and she’ll be okay. She’s still standing by the tree, watching me read her letter. Waiting for my reaction.

  This is the last letter I will write her.

  She always does this.

  She knows that I have to write her back because if I don’t then she’ll really not be my friend. Even though I hate her, I want her to kind of be my friend.

  I run into my house, grab a pencil and some paper and write her a quick note.

  Lyrik,

  I am okay.

  And we’re not friends, not really. You know this. I’ve always told you that we can’t be, that’s just the way it is. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings though and I hope you don’t cry.

  Anson Blake

  There, that should be good enough. She won’t cry and she’ll follow me all around tomorrow.

  Instead of putting the letter in her mailbox I just hand it to her.

  I walk back to my house, not looking back at her to see if she reads it.

  Tomorrow we will be fine.

  I still hate her.

  September 9th 2000

  Lyrik

  I still hate him.

  He’s mean and doesn’t care if he hurts my feelings.

  He only wrote me a letter to tell me that he wasn’t my friend. He said he didn’t want me to cry, but when he wrote that note he knew I would. I always tell him that he’s my best friend.

  I am not his best friend anymore. If he cared he would’ve told Missy that we were friends. He wouldn’t have laughed at me with her, he wouldn’t act like he doesn't know who I am when we are in school.

  He’d always write letters to me.

  But he doesn’t do any of those things and I want a friend who cares.

  Mom says that he’s a boy and boys are oblivious to a girl’s feelings, whatever that means.

  I don’t care if he’s a boy or if he’s oblivious, which sounds painful, so maybe I don’t want him to be oblivious, but I just want him to be my friend all the time.

  Not just sometimes.

  Not just when we’re alone.

  Now I need to find a new best friend.

  Who isn’t Anson or that mean girl Missy.

  September 10th 2000

  “Did you want to come play in my yard today? I found this new rock that I think you’ll like, it’s white and you can kind of see through it.” Anson asks me as we walk home from our bus stop, which isn’t that far from our houses.

  “Nope. I don't like rocks anymore.”

  “Lyrik, rocks are one of your favorites and you haven’t seen one like this before. I know you haven’t. Just come over.”

  I want to. I want to see the rock I haven’t seen before, it sounds so pretty and I know that if I want it, Anson would let me keep it for my collection, but he and I aren’t friends anymore.

  He needs to understand that.

  “I can’t come over.” I tell him.

  “Why can’t you? Your mom and dad are never home anyway.”

  That’s because they’re always working, I want to say.

  “Because Anson, we are not friends anymore.”

  “Of course, we are,” he argues.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “You can’t just not be friends with someone anymore, especially when we are best friends. That means something Lyrik.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Not after yesterday, you told Missy, of all people, that you weren’t my friend.” He already knows this.

  “But I was just joking, and you wrote me that letter and I wrote one back to you so that makes it all okay. Plus, you didn’t cry,” Anson fires back.

  “I did cry!” I yell, “Just not in front of you and your girlfriend Missy. You never tell anyone we’re friends, and you always act like I’m not around. You never want to play with me at school, only at home where we’re alone and I am done. I am going to find a best friend that will always be my best friend. Who will play with me everywhere and not tell people we’re not friends. I want a best friend who doesn’t make me cry.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. Anson, you are not my best friend anymore.”

  “Yes, I am! You can’t just get rid of me. I’m sorry Lyrik, I really am and I promise that I’ll tell everyone that you’re my best friend, I’ll tell Missy first, and I’ll even play with you at school. I’ll even write you letters. Every day.”

  “Pinky promise,” I demand.

  “Girls pinky promise, not boys.”

  “Then we’re not best friends.”

  “Fine,” he huffs while holding his pinky finger out.

  “Pinky promise.”

  “Pinky promise, too.”

  September 12th 2000

  Anson

  I told Missy that Lyrik was my best friend, but she didn’t believe me, then Missy told the entire class and they all laughed at Lyrik. Like she wasn’t fun enough to be friends with. Because of that Lyrik and I made some rules.

  Lyrik says that rules prevent heartburn and she never wants her heart to burn and neither do I, heart burn sounds painful and if the rules help we’ll make a bunch of them.

  Dear Lyrik,

  I’m sorry that no one believed me. I thought that, that would fix everything. Everyone would know you’re my friend and then no one would mess with you. I didn’t think they’d all laugh and I don’t want your feelings to be hurt. We can make the rules.

  Anson

  Lyrik

  I’m not mad or upset.

  Okay, maybe I’m a little hurt that no one believed Anson and I could be friends. Just because we have different parents, clothes and houses doesn’t mean we can’t be best friends. It’s mean for them to think he wouldn’t want to spend time with me or talk to me. It hurt that people doubted our friendship. I don’t ever want to go through that embarrassment again.

  It was h
orrible.

  Even some of the girls that sit with me during lunch pointed and laughed. I was the butt of their jokes all day and as soon as school finished I ran out the doors and down the hill, putting as much distance between those mean stares and my eyes.

  Anson ran after me, of course.

  I told him I wanted rules.

  We needed rules, because then I wouldn’t feel the heartburn ever again.

  No one needed to know that we were friends, they wouldn’t believe us anyway.

  On our walk home Anson pulled a letter out of his backpack and handed it to me, he must’ve wrote it sometime during school. I read it quickly and decide that I need to lie.

  I don’t want him to know how much being laughed at hurt. I pause mid-step to sit down on the grass, pull my notebook out and pen him a letter because sometimes written words are easier than talking.

  Anson,

  I’m okay. They didn’t hurt my feelings at all. None of them are my friends anyway, only you. I think the rules will be good because then we won’t get our heart burned and no one will laugh at you for talking to me. I wouldn’t want anyone to laugh at you or hurt your feelings. Today was just a bad day, but it will be okay. Everyone will forget what you said and move on. That always happens. Remember when Steven dropped his chocolate milk and it exploded all over Cindy? She was covered in it all day long and couldn’t go home to change. People laughed at her all day, except you and me. She thought it was the end of the world, but the next day no one remembered that her clothes had been stained. That’s what will happen with us. No one will remember that you claimed to be my best friend. They’ll all forget about it. Now we just have to make the rules. Number one should be that we never tell anyone we’re friends again.

  Lyrik

  May 25th 2002

  Age: Ten

  Anson

  Something’s wrong with Lyrik and she won’t tell me what it is. Her parents are gone all the time, leaving her home alone and don’t come back until late at night. I don’t like her being home alone, in her room all by herself without an adult around.

  So, I always stay up late and watch her through my window. She doesn’t know it, because I keep my lights off. She thinks I’m sleeping, but I don’t want her to see that I worry.

  Because then she’d worry too.

  Her parents don’t care about her anymore though.

  And that’s not okay.

  My parents notice that she’s home alone too. They said they might call some child protection number, but I begged them not to because that means they could take Lyrik away, very far away from me and I would never see her again.

  Instead, I stay up late until her parents get home. Then I go to sleep.

  Tonight, though is different.

  Lyrik isn’t sleeping.

  She’s pacing in her bedroom, back and forth. Waving her hands around crazy like, talking to herself. I know this because I can see her lips moving and no one else is there.

  Lyrik

  I knew it.

  I knew that something was wrong with them. It’s been a few years of late nights and being home alone, but something had changed. My parents were a shadow of their former selves. They didn’t say my name, never spoke to me. They walked around in a zombie like state, all the time.

  Only now, I knew what the problem was.

  I just went downstairs to find something to eat, not that we had a lot of food in the refrigerator anyway. I would’ve settled for a slice of bread, if it hadn’t been moldy. I eventually found a can of corn hidden in the cupboard behind a bunch of empty boxes. Tired of seeing those empty boxes, I decided to throw them all away while my corn warmed in the microwave.

  One by one I shredded each container, while looking inside hoping to find one extra packet of instant oatmeal or microwaveable popcorn.

  I did find something.

  However, it wasn’t anything I would want to eat, could eat, but apparently my parents had no problems with it. I can’t even begin to imagine how long it had been sitting there inside the box.

  It was dusty, at one time clear, so that one could see the amount of liquid inside the glass tube. A dingy steel needle protruded from the end of the tube, not capped off. Just haphazardly thrown into a box. I doubt it was an intentional hide, it was just a storage place. An empty food box was as good as any other thing I guessed. It’s not like I went roving about the house looking for needles, or drugs. I went to school every single day, I came home, did my homework, prayed there was something I could eat each night to subside the hunger pains that would eventually begin attacking my stomach, and then I would keep to myself, hanging out with friends or reading a book in my room.

  My parents were rarely home now, I knew they had to both have jobs for us to afford living here, but I couldn’t tell you what they did or where any of the extra money after bills went to. They rarely bought food, maybe once every other month they’d throw me twenty dollars. I’d walk to the Dollar General and stock up on as many Ramen’s as I could. Sometimes I’d buy myself a treat, cookies or candy but that was rare.

  Twenty dollars didn’t go far when it came to buying food, and I never knew when the next time would be that my parents would feel obligation breathing down their necks so they’d toss me some cash.

  At one point I was the center of their world. We were never rich, we never had brand new cars, furniture or even clothing. Most of what I wore were hand me downs, and my parents cars were always bought from some old guy’s driveway that was just looking to make some extra cash. Needless to say, they’d last us a few months before my parents had to go buying another one, and of course they’d go back to that same old guy.

  They worked, a lot. And it never seemed like they were caught up with bills. They weren’t making enough money to cover what had to go out each month, but they were happy.

  We were a family.

  Until we weren’t.

  Until heroin became my sister.

  Anson

  Would she want me to come over?

  She walks from one end of the room to the other, her hands crossed over her chest and her lips are set in a grim line. She’s thinking, over analyzing and whatever those thoughts are about, it has her upset.

  I’m her friend, and even though most of the time she doesn’t like me, she’s my best friend. I can’t just ignore that something’s bugging her terribly.

  It’s not bedtime yet so my parents won’t come to check on me for some time, I just have to escape the house before they see me. Just in case Lyk is really upset, and I can’t calm her down in time to get back before bed I stuff some clothes under my comforter. I form the shape to look like it’s me, kind of. Maybe if my parents stop in, they’ll just think I passed out.

  I open my bedroom door, look both ways and run out into the hallway. The coast is clear and upon hearing the television in my parents’ room as loud as possible, I know that they’re in there still watching their shows. Which means that once I reach the landing at the foot of the stairs, I am in the clear to walk out of the front door.

  I tiptoe down each step, carefully so that not one square foot creaks with its age. I hold my breath until I reach the bottom, unknowingly, I began gasping for air. I was so afraid they’d catch me, trying to leave on a school night. Not counting that I would have to tell them I was just going next door, they wouldn’t be very happy.

  They have a rule that Lyrik is always welcome here, at any time for any reason, but I cannot ever go into her house, or her yard. Ever.

  My parents threatened that if I do, we can no longer be friends and I’ll be grounded until I graduate.

  Lyrik is worth taking that risk.

  Her being upset is worth anything that my parents could do to punish me.

  I have to make sure that she’ll be okay.

  That she is okay.

  I shut our front door quietly, then run over to Lyrik’s back door. Already knowing that her parents are most likely passed out in the living room that’s rig
ht in the front of the house, I take my chances having to run through the kitchen to get upstairs to her.

  I open her back door and peek my head in, not seeing anyone in the kitchen I walk in and close the door behind me. I nudge my head into the entryway of the living room and see that I was correct in my assumption that her parents had fallen asleep already. I walk on my toes to her stairs, running up with urgency I find her bedroom door fast.

  Not that she’s ever had a different bedroom in this old dusty house. They’ve lived here for five years already and the house has only crumbled down around them. Everything was in a bad way when they moved in, with nothing being repaired or even cared for besides Lyrik’s room, it’s all beginning to fall down. Everything looks abandoned. The stairs once had carpet that’s worn down so much with dirt and mold that the rotten wood is now showing through, her bedroom door, the only thing that’s remotely white in the entire house looks out of place.

  As if it was transplanted here magically, or as if maybe the house itself knew that inside resided someone special, someone important.

  A girl that I loved.

  Meanwhile her parents looked as if they were rotting alongside the house, they had become a part of the house’s being and it ran on them to rot.

  Either way, Lyrik had to get out of this mess.

  Her parents no longer cared, and mine didn’t care enough to fight for her.

  I was the only one left willing to battle any demons for and with her. She will get out of this hell one day.

  Just not today.

  Lyrik

  “What are you doing here? In my house? How did you get in? Did my parents see you? You know you’re not allowed over here, so why did you come?” I fire off questions as soon as I see Anson at my bedroom door.