Merlin & Meli by M.J. Garrett & Meli J. Nightly (free ebook reader txt) 📖

She's not just some-” A loud sound of flesh meeting flesh filled the room. Her father’s hand was still in the air and his face showed no remorse. Meli held back her tears, she was not about to cry in front of them. She stormed passed her mother who was holding her hands to her lips in disbelief, but as always did nothing. It was just easier for her not to go against her husband and be the model wife she was molded to be.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He screamed out, to his response, the front door slammed harshly.

The brown-eyed girl was not estranged to her father’s violent antics, especially when they disagreed on so many levels. She didn’t hate her parents, yet she found it hard to love them. Everything had gotten worse after Nelly was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was in and out of mental hospitals. Her situation seemed to worsen when she was out of the institutions and the anti-psychotics were no longer helping. Her father decided the best thing for 'her' was for her to be committed indefinitely. In reality, it was just a way for them not deal with her anymore, at least that's how it seemed.

Meli stared at her black combat boots and her pink and black plaid skirt. She had always had a weird sense of style and her thinking was just as strange. She often wondered why her parents had never committed her. There was a difference between her and Nelly. Meli did not hear the voices like Nelly did. It wasn’t fair. They were identical twins, so why couldn’t they be the same in every way? Why couldn’t they be together?

She pulled out her cell phone from her punk'ed out purse and re-read the last message:

Lacy: You have to get here or they’ll put her in the Hole!

The Hole. The place for misbehaving patients. The place that was kept private from family members or authorities. When she told her parents about this, they told her to keep her conspiracy theories to herself. Just like with everything else that came out of her mouth, it was dismissed. This is why she just didn’t bother trying with adults or anyone for that matter. She figured people were always wanting to believe what they wanted to believe. Anything strange and unknown was just out of the question.

She placed her hand in the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. That is all she had with her at the moment and there was no way she was going to get a cab to see her sister with only a twenty-dollar bill. She cursed under her breath and decided she had no choice but to call someone who lived only an hour away.

With a bit of hesitation, she dialed the number. She thought about what she was going to say. With the phone nestled between her ear and shoulder, he picked up.

“Jason?” She waited for his reply.

“What do you want now? I’m not getting back with you this time,” he said in his British accent.

Meli winced at his antipathetic response. “I’m not calling to get back with you moron!”

“Lovely to hear your voice too, darling...” he scoffed.

“You started it...”

“As I always,” he quickly retorted.

Pulling the phone away from her ear, she glared at it as if he would be able to see her at that moment. Stopping for a moment, she took a breath and reminded herself that she needed his help. They had been on and off for years, but it was her fault they were no longer together. It was her fault that she had no friends left at all. She pushed everyone away, anyone who cared.

“I need you to pick me up,” she spoke in a low voice, “you’re the only one I can rely on.”

A soft sigh was heard from the other side, “I can’t drop everything I’m doing for you love. Not anymore...”

“I really need your help now,” she mustered up the word ‘help’ from the lowest part of her being. Feeling helpless and asking for help was never one of her best attributes. “Don’t make me say please,” she inadvertently pleaded. Her way of asking without really asking.

“I still love you, but I can’t this time, Meli...”

Hearing the sudden click and then the dead tone she knew he had hung up. She kicked a rock that was laying near her foot. “That freaking -- ugh! I’ll just have to deal with this on my own.” And that is what she did. She had done it before and even though her sister was now two hours away, she figured she could catch a bus that would get her as close as possible to the asylum where her sister was kept. She would just have to walk from there. She didn't care what she had to do, she was going to make it no matter what. She began walking to the nearest bus stop.


Chapter 3

“Honey, who is that? She is so cute! Is she one of your new little cartoon characters?” His mom looked over his shoulder as she began to rub his head and murmured words that only a baby could understand. It was often like this at his house. She might as well have been scratching behind his ear while puckering her lips saying “Who's a good boy? Huh, who's a good boy? That's right, you! Now sit! Roll over! Good boy!”

He just smiled and kept drawing. He thought about telling her that he wasn't a little kid anymore, but what would it really accomplish? His dad was just a framed picture that collected dust next to the triangle folded flag and his older brother's belongs still packed in boxes and hasn't been touched since his tragic motorcycle accident. He never really knew either one of them, but he thought today would have been a great day to have them there. He had tons questions that no mom should have to answer. Besides, she's not a girl, she was his mom. What could she really know anyway?

“Honey, can you put that away for now? I need your help with dinner.” She asked for his help every night. He didn't have the courage to tell her that the TV dinners didn't need to be plated, they already come plated in little black plastic trays. He graciously grabbed two plates from the cabinet and set them on the table. She would always sit in the same place and he sat to her right. This made the prayer and hand holding a little easier.

He often occupied his time with headphones and sketching. He didn't have a lot of friends, but he was one of the friendliest kids in school. At his last school, he spent almost all of his time at the park skating and hanging out with his group of misfits, but since moving, he found it easier for his mother if he just stayed home to be her little boy.

It used to not be so obvious. But lately, his mother has been crying a lot more. He would put his ear up to his mothers door as she would bury her face in her hands and cry uncontrollably. He wanted to find friends. He wanted to be popular. It was just so hard for him to be anything other than her quiet little boy.

He walked up the stairs and sat on his bed. Grabbing his headphones, he pushed his shaggy hair back behind his ears and grabbed his pencil. Thinking about this mysterious girl, he began to move the charcoal lead across the paper as a smile began to form. The way her hair gracefully hid her eyes and the way she tilted her head as she spoke to him, did something to his heart to make it beat faster. Sometimes, she even made his heart stop. Not really knowing anything about her, he could draw her from memory.

Sitting there on his bed with his headphones covering his ears, pushing the sound of silence, he penciled different pictures Meli for what seemed to be hours. He had tried to talk to her. He actually pulled his fear from his stomach and ran to her. Maybe his approach was a little barbaric and immature, but there really wasn't anything else that he thought of that could give him an excuse to be rejected. He thought that the chewed pencil routine would have at least put a smile on her face, but all it really accomplished was a good picture of her walking away with a middle finger staring back at him. He smiled as he drew that picture a hundred times.

His mother, peeked into his room to find him sitting on his bed, leaning up against the head board, drawing this girl over and over again. Deep down inside, she knew something was on his mind and being a woman, she knew exactly what it was. This was his dad's expertise. She was suppose to be clueless. She knew that he would never be able to talk to his father and she knew that he was going through a tough time at school. She just really hoped that he would talk to her.

“She's really beautiful.” she smiled as she watched him sketch. She looked at him sitting there in deep concentration. The way he stuck his tongue out of his lips and hunched over the paper, reminded her of her late husband, his father. Realizing that his headphones were probably blaring distorted guitars, fast drums, and some guy screaming his emotions out for the world to hear, she continued to say the things that she needed to. “I'm sorry, Merlin. I know you can't hear me, but I'm sorry. I wish that I had the answers. I wish you would talk to me. I wish I could talk to you and tell you how amazing you are. Your father would be so proud of you, but when I think about him, all I can do is cry. You don't need to parent me, it's my job to take care of you. I just don't know how to do it right now.” She quietly pulled the door shut and headed down the stairs.

Merlin sat there, holding back tears. He heard what his mother had said and he wished that she would just talk to him. He needed her to care about him, just once. Not his dad or his brother, he wanted her to come to him and ask him about this girl. It's not just a little cartoon character, it was Meli.


*

He arrived to school earlier than usual. He skated away from his house a full hour early. He wanted to be the first person there, so he knew that he wouldn't miss her arrival. Sitting on the bench in front of the school with his feet resting on his skateboard, he eyeballed every car passing, hoping that it would be Meli.

He