A Rocker's Melody (Dust and Bones) (20 page)

“Do you think she’ll like the grapefruit?” he asked, juggling white paper bags filled with ice cream cups as they walked down the hospital corridor.

“I think
I’ll
like the grapefruit, and she can fight me for it if she wants it,” Melody joked.

“Oh, you play dirty, Hopkins.”

“I’m passionate about my frozen desserts,” she said. “And I’m not ashamed.”

Dylan shouldered open the door to Emma’s room. “All right, Gracie, I got you pistachio even though it offends my every molecule to—”

He trailed off as he processed the scene before him. Grace sat beside Emma’s bed, tears streaming down her cheeks, gently brushing the little girl’s hair back from her face. Emma was asleep, seemingly oblivious to her mother’s distress. A doctor and a nurse stood against the wall, somber and sad. Grace’s tears turned to sobs, deep, gut-wrenching cries of agony. And it was then that Dylan realized that Emma wasn’t sleeping.

The gelato hit the floor. Dylan stumbled to his sister’s side, as if in a trance. His knees cracked against the hospital floor; he hadn’t made the decision to kneel, he just simply couldn’t stand upright anymore. A shaking hand touched his head, and strong fingers began combing through his hair. He realized Grace was trying to comfort him. It was instinctual to her. His own hand shook as he reached out to touch Emma’s chest. The cold, unnatural stillness there made horror creep through his veins and settle deep in his bones.

“She just didn’t wake up,” Grace whispered. “She didn’t…they don’t think she even felt it. Her heart just…gave out.”

That was the stupidest thing Dylan had ever heard in his life. She was a nine-year-old little girl—her heart wasn’t supposed to ‘just stop.’ She was supposed to go to birthday parties and high school and prom and college, and eventually she was supposed to marry a boy who didn’t deserve her and have a beautiful family of her own. Dylan saw her entire life flash before his eyes in an instant. It was a life that would never exist, because her body had decided to just
stop
at the age of nine.

“We brought gelato,” Dylan said dumbly. “Emma liked it, remember?”

Grace nodded, her movements awkward and shaky. “She liked it because you always brought it for her.” Her hand in his hair tightened. “She loved you so much. You and the boys. I don’t know what we would have done if you all hadn’t been there. It made it easier, I think, after her father left. She was so sick, but she always had a fleet of dads whenever she needed them.”

“I should have been here more,” he whispered. The numbness of his shock was fading, and he wanted to call it back, to hold onto it, because the terrible reality that was slowly sinking into him hurt so much worse. “I should have spent more time with her. I should have…”

His sister’s arms enveloped him. He forced his own arms up and wrapped them around her in return. Her slight frame was shaking, and only now, holding her so tightly that he feared she might break, did he realize how much weight she had lost over the past few years. She had been suffering the way only a mother could suffer, and what had he been doing?

Whatever body had been willing and able, that’s what.

He was disgusted with himself. How had he gotten so sidetracked from the things that really mattered? Emma and Grace were his family. He should have been there. He should have taken Emma to more concerts, or agreed to babysit so Grace could have had a minute to herself. His sister had been alone for almost five years, with nothing to focus on but a sick daughter.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Grace breathed against his temple. Her arms were around him, keeping him from shaking, too. When had he started shaking? “She’s out of her pain, now. She’s not...” Her words trailed off in a sob. For a moment, Dylan wondered why he wasn’t crying. His eyes burned, and he felt the tightness of bottled-up screams of pain in his chest, but they seemed to have lodged there, and he couldn’t let them out for some reason.

He looked over Grace’s shoulder, searching for Melody. She stood with the doctor, exchanging quiet words. He watched as she bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears. Even Melody, who had known Emma for a matter of hours, could summon the proper response to this terrible tragedy.

Yet here he was, empty. No tears. Emma was dead, and Dylan was still finding new ways to fail her.

**

The worst part was the paperwork. Death was the ultimate bureaucracy, even when the deceased was a nine year old girl. The doctor apologized even as he asked Grace to sign here, and here, and if she wouldn’t mind, could she please authorize them to take her child’s body into a dark room and burn it until there was nothing left but ash?

“I can’t handle a funeral,” Grace confessed as Melody drove them all home from the hospital. She would return to the hospital one last time to collect Emma’s ashes the following day. “I can’t listen to people who didn’t love her as much as I did tell me how sorry they are. I can’t thank them for their sympathy because I don’t want it.”

“Gracie,” Dylan murmured, squeezing her hand from where he sat in the back seat of her Camry. “Don’t say that. I know it’s overwhelming, but you don’t have to think about anything right now.”

“There’s nothing more depressing than a child’s funeral,” Grace continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I remember thinking that once, before I had Emma, when a friend of mine lost her son.
‘What a downer.’
I actually remember thinking that.”

“I was there,” Dylan reminded her. “I’m pretty sure I thought something worse. Knowing me, I probably said it out loud.”

Grace looked lost for a minute. She sat in silence, staring off into space. “Yeah,” she finally told him. “I’m sure you’re right, but I can’t even remember what you said.”

“You don’t have to remember,” he told her.

“We’re home,” Melody announced quietly, as they pulled into Grace’s driveway.

They led Grace inside, and Melody slipped the prescription the doctor had given them into Dylan’s hand. The thing Grace needed most right now was sleep—the stress was often too much on a grieving parent. Dylan popped open the bottle of meds, knocked two pills into his palm, and urged Grace to take them. She didn’t protest. Dylan got her into bed and pulled the covers over her body. She looked so lost, so unhappy...and there was nothing he could do to ease her pain. He felt helpless and useless.

Melody was waiting for him in the guest bedroom. She didn’t say anything when he entered. He felt her gaze on him, and wondered if she felt helpless and useless, too. He figured she must. It was only natural, given the circumstances.

“If you—”

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he muttered, interrupting whatever she’d been about to offer. She nodded slowly as he made a beeline for the bathroom.

**

“Dylan?
Dylan!
”

He jerked, suddenly registering the cold spray of water pounding down upon him. He leaned forward and turned off the tap, his whole body shaking. His teeth were chattering. Funny, he’d always thought that was just a silly expression, something that didn’t actually happen in real life.

“Your skin is like ice,” Melody whispered, wrapping towels around him. “What the hell were you thinking? It’s been half an hour, were you under the cold water this whole time?”

Dylan wasn’t sure; the water had been warm at first, but he hadn’t been able to feel it. He remembered wanting to
feel
something. He’d wanted to make himself cry, and when scalding himself hadn’t done the trick for him, he’d turned the hot water off entirely.

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked as Melody dried his skin vigorously, trying to cause enough friction to warm him up again.

“You’re an idiot,” she said easily, sniffling a little, still crying.

“I should be crying,” he insisted. “I loved that little girl more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life. I should be
weeping
for her.”

“Baby,” Melody whispered, brushing the hair back from his forehead before cradling his jaw in her hands. “You
are
crying.”

Her lips confirmed her words. They pressed soft, sweet kisses against his cheeks and the corners of his eyes before she brought them to his mouth. He tasted the salt of her tears and his, the mixture a bittersweet relief. She pulled back slightly to continue rubbing at his skin with the towels—but he didn’t need her to dry him, he needed her to
consume
him. The cotton pants she wore felt soft against his hands as he ran them up and down her thighs, but he didn’t want soft cotton, he wanted her skin. He pulled roughly on the fabric, and the pants fell to the ground.

Dylan pressed his mouth to her stomach, spreading wet, biting kisses over her hips and the lower part of her abdomen. He slid her underwear down in increments, and she helped him, kicking the scrap of black lace to the ground as she shimmied out of her top. She was as naked as he was by the time she crawled onto his lap, straddling him on the guest bed. A sob caught in his throat as he remembered what he was trying so desperately to forget, and she swallowed it, her mouth open and desperate against his.

He found his way inside her, seeking warmth and comfort. She wrapped her limbs around him, crushing their chests together. Dylan buried his face in her neck, inhaled the smell of sex and oranges, and felt a sense of peace settle over him, shielding him from the agony that was threatening to destroy him. The crook of her neck was wet with his tears, and just the simple fact that he was capable of crying them lit a spark of hope inside his chest. Maybe there was some good left in him, after all.

He rocked against her, wanting their connection to last forever. She felt so inhumanly perfect, in a way that nothing and no one else ever could. He clutched at her hips, her breasts, the curve of her ass. He bit at her shoulder, sucked on her nipple, kissed the perfect point of her chin. He held her tightly as he came, and pressed his ear to her chest as she followed. The rhythm of her breath was like a soundtrack for his fevered thoughts.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

The words still wouldn’t come out loud, but he felt them with every beat of his caged, wounded heart.

“Dylan. It’s time.” 

Dylan’s eyes slowly opened. The glare of the greenroom lights made him wince. He felt hung-over, but he hadn’t had so much as a drop of alcohol since before Emma’s death. He had wanted to, but the memory of how he’d behaved the last time he’d been drunk, what that had cost Melody, and the idea of having to face Hop after, had all been enough to keep him sober.

“You’re on in five,” Big Mike said. The first show since Emma’s death, after they had to cancel several because Dylan couldn’t do it. The old roadie bore the same sympathetic, pitying expression Dylan had grown accustomed to seeing on everyone’s faces over the past two weeks. It was strange how quickly people forgot how to talk to him. They spoke quietly, as if they thought a loud noise might set him off, and they asked him stupid, vague questions like, “How are you today?”

As if they didn’t already know the answer.

Jesper had done what he could to help, but not even Dylan’s best friend had been able to bring him back from the dark depths of despair. Every time Jesper talked to him, trying to soothe his nerves and make things better, it only served to make the pain fresh in Dylan’s mind again. Hop had reached out a few times, asking if he needed anything, or if he wanted to talk. But Dylan didn’t want to talk. He wanted to forget.

The people around him were trying to move on, but Dylan felt stuck. Even Grace was keeping her momentum; she had gone to stay with a friend for a few weeks to give herself a mini vacation while she figured out what she was going to do next. His bandmates, though they’d all been supportive, had their own ways of dealing with their grief—and no matter how much they have loved Emma, they hadn’t loved her as much as Dylan had. He had tried, briefly, to pretend she wasn’t dead. But it was impossible. The knowledge was always there, looming over him.

They had played four shows over the course of the last two weeks, through a fog of grief and blind professionalism. Dylan had always assumed a persona on stage—it was all part of the act—but he really deserved an Oscar for those four shows. Hell, they all did. They had put on brave faces for the world, and while they were caught up in the rush of a performance, it was easy to forget what had happened.

But when the stage lights came down and they were once again on the bus, they allowed the crushing depression to overtake them again. It was affecting everyone differently. Rip had been surlier than usual lately, and had started taking it out on Melody. Dylan had wanted to say something to him more than once, but Melody had forbidden him. She claimed she could handle Rip herself.

It didn’t help that they all seemed to have silently agreed to abstain from simple pleasures, in a kind of twisted tribute to Emma—as if they were refusing to even
try
to let themselves be happy. Tank no longer watched bad reality TV on his phone; Rip ignored his computer; Jesper had hardly spoken to his girlfriend; Melody barely picked at her food; and Dylan…well, he was a ghost of his former self. No alcohol and no sex. It was part of his grieving process, he supposed.

Melody had taken to crawling into his bunk at night. She curled her body around his, providing him comfort and warmth, but that was all. They hadn’t had sex since that night in his sister’s house. The night…

Dylan cut that thought off quickly. It was showtime, and he couldn’t afford to be brooding, not now.
Game face, Bennett.

“You ready?” Melody asked. The streak in her hair was pink again. Another small tribute to Emma. Everyone had incorporated pink into their wardrobe somehow. Melody had tied the pink lanyard Emma had made for him around the neck of his partially singed acoustic guitar. Tank had been wearing a pink shirt at every gig. Rip had bought a pair of pink drumsticks. Jesper wore a pink rubber bracelet on his wrist.

They had been honoring her silently these past two weeks, but it wasn’t until that moment, two minutes ‘til showtime, with an arena of screaming fans in New Orleans waiting for them, that Dylan realized it was time they did more.