Melody

Melody Summers groaned loudly out of frustration, ripping another paper from her notebook. "This isn’t working," she said aloud to nobody and brushed her long blonde bangs from her forehead. Her pen tapped repeatedly against the table and her leg shook, but still nothing from her head would escape to paper.

"Hey Mel! How’s it goin’?" Mason Klepski ran up behind Melody and clamped his hands over her shoulders, sticking his head beside hers. She jumped and pushed him away, rolling her eyes at his ignorance.

"It’s going horribly, Mase. The poem is not working and I am still ticked off. Maybe "releasing emotions" in poems is only your thing." Melody sighed deeply and finally threw the pen down, getting up and gathering her books. Her long blonde hair flowed in front of her face as she bent down and she quickly blew it away. Mason laughed and leaned down to push it out of her way behind her ears. Melody smiled and stood up, throwing her bookbag around her shoulder.

"Man, Mase. It’s summer time and you’ve got me at the library. What kinda crap are you trying to pull on me?"

"I’m not trying to pull anything. I just figured you’d need a quiet place to be if you wanted to write something after the fight with your mom so I called the library and reserved the booth for you. You’ve still got another half an hour, want to write some more? I can help." Mason stopped, waiting for her decision patiently.

"Mason, writing is not my thing. There is nothing else I can do, so why not just hate the world for a little while? I’ll eventually get over it I’m sure." Melody walked past Mason, careful to avoid his eyes. She couldn’t let him see the wetness. She’d been crying right before he came.

"Then pray if it’s not your thing." Mason shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal and this bothered Melody badly.

"Mason, honestly, shut-up." Melody stepped further in front of him and started walking faster, fearing he would keep talking.

"No, Melody. You know what’s bothering you, pray that it won’t. It really does work, I promise it does!" Mason tried to lighten the mood and smiled again, revealing the perfect teeth he had. Melody stopped suddenly, trying to control the urge to slap him. She hated it when he did this. He knew the reason she didn’t go to church or pray of all things. He knew he needed to shut his mouth the minute before the word prayer came out of his mouth.

"Mason, please just shut up and quit talking to me about that. You know I don’t do that crap you call praying. I don’t believe in God and I don’t plan on it either." Melody ran off, lugging her bookbag on her shoulders still. The weight hurt too badly for her to run, so she collapsed quickly against the brick wall outside the city library. Sobs escaped her as she started to remember her reasons for the hatred toward "God." Her father had died two years earlier in a car wreck and she had watched him die. If there really was a God why would He do that? Why? Melody laid back against the cold brick wall, punching the ground slightly. Mason hadn’t followed. He didn’t really care and he called himself a friend? Finally Melody stood back up, still in quiet sobs. She walked slowly to the gravesite a mile from her town, crying the entire way there. Sitting down on the slightly damp ground she lay her head carefully on the headstone marking her father’s grave. She stroked the marble stone and cried herself to sleep.