PRESENT
_________
Melina's POV
For the next few nights I kept thinking about what Melodie told me. 'Close friends... Zara and Dove... Gregg, Theo...'
Who were they really?
What business they had with me?
I wonder if Melodie met with the doctor.
I struggled to even hold a spoon properly. My hands tremble as i try to. But still, here I am gripping a pen in my hand, scribbling whatever came to mind.
Accident.
Hospital.
Doesn't remember.
Friends.
I scribbled all around the writing in my shaky handwriting. The page looked like a lazy scribble done by someone who is not a day older than 8 years.
How can I not remember college life if I had one? I remember my adopted parents, Melodie. How father and mother caressed my head mumbling I love you to me thinking i am deep im slumber. I remmeber how everything changed as I grew up. I remmeber how they kept reminding me of the fact that i am adopted and i doesn't belong here.
How can I only forget about college? Are they pranking me?? The thought died as soon as it appeared. Melodie wouldn't do something absurd to me when i am in this messy state.
My eyes shifted to the calendar on the wall and lingered too long on the year.
I counted the years in my trembling fingers. Twenty-one.
I only remember being Eighteen.
What happened from there? What was I doing in that three years?
And if I was their close friend, why hadn't they come to meet me?
I need answers. Desperately.
Without a single thought I rushed downstairs, half-limping, legs painful.
"Father, Mother!" I panted heavily, clutching the door frame of their room, already exhausted from a few steps.
"Melina!!" Mom's voice was not in scolding tone, her voice dripped with worry. Something I don't remember hearing before.
Without a second thought Mom and Dad rushed towards me.
"What are you doing... Take rest," Father's voice was so comforting while he stroked my head gently.
That was like finding an Oasis in the Dessert. Somehow it was sickeningly nostalgic. That kind which reminded me of the Loneliness crepted on me while I was just a child, in thirsty of Parents' Love.
"Come in now... sleep with us," Mom said, tucking my hair behind my ear.
I didn't respond to her. I just wanted to know something. Know everything.
"F-friends?? Why haven't my friends come to see me??"
Mom and Dad looked a bit taken aback.
"Sweetie, you said you didn't want to see anyone besides us..." Dad said.
"If you want to, we can call them—"
"No no no. Please, no," I muttered, audible enough for them to hear.
I don't want to see faces i doesn't recall.
Melo wouldn't lie to me... I know. But I can't face the truth... not yet. I am running away from it.
Just like right now, how I walked away from my mother and father's invitation to rest with them.
I know how they were to me. I remember every bit of it. Who are they kidding?
Maybe if I have my phone, I would be able to know the truth about everything.
I want answers.
I didn't walk back to my bed, not to the comforting cage of four walls around me.
I instead walked out of the house to the yard, and planted myself on the bench. The breeze felt cold and comforting against my skin.
I looked up with hope to see the bright moon shining. But no. She was hiding behind the clouds, refusing to face me.
Exactly how I am hiding away from my supposedly close friends, refusing to face them.
"Come out... Let me see you," I muttered, looking up, smiling at the moon as if it hears me.
Maybe it does.
I shifted my gaze from the moon to the road. There weren't many vehicles on the road.
I counted—exactly two bikes and a car passed in almost an hour. That's how quiet this time of night was.
Then it caught my eye. A black car parked on the opposite side of the road from our home. What stood out about that car wasn't the black polished surface, or the black tinted windows. It was this cute cherry blossom sticker on the car.
As long as i gazed at the sticker planted on the closed window of the car, I felt like someone was watching me back. but for some reason, I wasn't scared.
Maybe it was just my thought.
I stood up back on my feet, curiosity leading my legs towards the Car. Just as I was about to cross the road to the opposite side—
"Jesus, Melina!!"
She was panicking. She was worried about me. Melodie strode towards me, pulling me inside the house,all the while mumbling,
"How can you be so reckless? Rest and heal those wounds of yours," and blah blah.
I looked over my shoulder towards the car. It was still there. Maybe it was the neighbour's? I don't know.
But I wanted to know.
I wanted to know about the car, about that ridiculously cute sticker on something that didn't match its aesthetics. Pink cherry blossom sticker on a black car.
"Melina! Don't walk out of the house just like that!! What were you about to do?? Cross the road towards that god-knows-who's car?? Hell, Mel! Keep your sense together!"
She nagged me like that and left, slamming the door shut.
Sigh. A good night would have been better.
I peeked through my window. The car was gone...
---
I remembered having a mobile phone.
I need to find my phone.
It will have answers to the questions I am looking for.
Every saved number in the phone book, every text message, every photo.
Yes! A new hope bloomed inside of me.
I stood up and checked my drawers left and right like a maniac. But I couldn't find my phone.
Where was it? I was panicking. I felt my eyes getting blurry, head throbbing, hands shivering.
But I can't stop. I need to keep looking for it. I need to keep looking for my phone. It has the answers to the questions I am looking for. I kept reminding myself.
There was no trace of my phone in the drawers. I checked under the bedsheets, under the bed, like a maniac. Like a mobile addict.
I wasn't an addict. I just wanted to know truths.
Because, even as Melodie filled me in with details of my college life, I felt something missing.
Like missing a very huge part of my life. I felt empty. My lungs were doing it again—crushing my heart between them.
I came in and out of several rooms in my brain, looking for answers. There was my childhood, teenage years, Grandma, Melodie, parents, everything placed in various rooms.
But a few doors were locked shut. I stood there gazing at the locks, waiting for someone to open them from inside me.
I pressed my trembling hand against one of those invisible doors, almost begging it to give me a glimpse. Silence. Cold silence. It felt like those memories were alive, breathing behind the wood, but unwilling to let me in. My chest ached, torn between fear and desperation.
I have two options. Walk away from that closed door forever, or try to open it myself. Except I can't walk away from the door.
I kept looking for my phone for answers.
Then my hand stumbled upon something amidst the baggage from the hospital, half-unpacked.
There it was. My mobile phone.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, eyes smiling, heart finally at ease.
I am going to... get answers now...
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