Melody's Crush

Chapter 17

The bell rang jarring me awake at my desk. Blinking in confusion, I wiped at the drool stringing from my lip to the pool staining my English paper that I had finally finished and printed out by three this morning. My nerves were humming from being jolted out of an almost REM state causing me to feel more tired than I did before knocking out. I shoved my unopened English book into my book bag, checked Chloe's diaper bag and somehow had the strength to make it up to the teacher's desk to hand in the paper.

Miss Lowe raised an eyebrow in question. Taking my forearm, I wiped over the wet spot on the paper. "Sorry. Long ni... weekend. A very long weekend," I said, my lids drooping.

She smiled as I turned to leave.

"Melody?"

I stopped and turned toward her, my body swaying like a tree about to fall over. "Yes ma'am?"

She nodded toward my empty seat. "Forget something?"

Eyebrows together, I turned to see Chloe's harness dangling off the side of my desk chair with Chloe still in it.

"Oh crap," I said slowly under my breath. Letting out a disgruntled moan, I slapped my feet begrudgingly against the floor as I moved toward the kangaroo looking pouch, picked it up and robotically headed out the door.

I could have sworn I heard Miss Lowe chuckling as I left.

Chloe had been in one of her rare moods last night and I was feeling the effects this morning. Kyle was already gone before I woke up. In fact, it was possible he left in the middle of the night. I couldn't be sure.

But he didn't once respond to Chloe's wails in which it had me really missing him come morning time. It had been three days since we started this nightmarish project and in that short amount of time my world had been completely turned upside down. Or at least extremely cockeyed.

I actually felt like a teen mom trying to cope with all the worries of raising a child while trying to earn an income. Only my income was in the form of As and not dollar signs. Somewhere in the past few days, I found a new respect toward those young women who made that commitment.

Making it to my locker, I fumbled with the combination and finally got the thing open. Shoving my book bag into the metal box, I pulled out my lunch only to be met with Chloe crying again. Frustrated, I tossed my lunch back into the locker, slammed it and placed my forehead against the cool door as I tried pulling myself together.

Letting out a long breath, I reached for Chloe on the floor only to see two hands grab her. Looking up, I was surprised to see Kyle standing there.

"Where's the bottle?" he asked tartly.

"In the bag," I replied just as tartly as I glared at him. I was in no mood to deal with his attitude.

"Can you hand it to me?" His voice was a bit sarcastic and that just rubbed my ass the wrong way.

"Get it yourself," I said before walking down the hall leaving him with a crying Chloe.

Don't look back, don't look back! Just keep going.

Reaching the lunchroom, I scanned the bobbing heads for the one face I really needed to see right now. Over in the far corner, it looked like Jake and Tricia were having a heated discussion. In his arms was their project baby while Tricia stomped away.

Smirking to myself, I knew exactly how Tricia felt. For a moment, she actually looked human to me. But that changed when she noticed me across the room and snarled as if I had done something wrong.

Demon!

Shaking my head, I moved through the maze of tables that housed every type of click. It was like every eye that looked at me was a finger pointing daring me to judge them.