Melony and Alex: Unfortunate Caller
Author's note: Because some people seem to have a problem with it, Melony is spelled that way because it's Greek (as explained in the first story). It's also the name of a big tiddied Pokemon somebody? Bunch of nerds.
Alex was dead. Melony had killed him.
She'd called and left a message on his phone two hours ago to confirm that they were getting together that night and she hadn't heard back. Laying on her bed, she was drowning herself in one of her sad song playlists named "Whore-ton Hears a Whiner" that had started with the deceptively upbeat "Never Been Any Reason" by Head East (which she kept calling Heading West because for some reason her brain would combine it with Stabbing Westward). She was convinced it was about a guy trying to win back his ex girlfriend that had found out about him cheating by eating her out really good. This is about all she'd been able to do for the last hour and a half.
While singing along off key to The Mountain Goats "International Small Arms Traffic Blues" she was imagining Alex burning alive in his car or crushed under a tractor because he was in a field for some reason. Maybe to pick flowers for her. Either way she was now convinced the reason he hadn't responded must be that he had met some horrible end and it was because he had met her and made her happy for a few weeks. Logically she knew that wasn't true (probably), but once an intrusive thought marries with deep seated insecurity they set up shop and refuse to leave no matter how much you beg or demand or threaten.
Mel saw that the song coming up was "Little Black Submarines" by the Black Keys and had to shut it off. She sat up and rubbed her face because the irony was too much. Irony? Coincidence? Dammit Alanis, has any one human since Shakespeare done so much to change the meaning of a single word? Did Shakespeare change the meanings of words or just make up new ones? She was too depressed to Google it when she dropped her phone as it started to buzz like an ambushing hornet.
The phone lied and said it was Alex, but when she answered, it was doing a very good impersonation of his voice. "Hey, sorry I missed your call earlier. My phone was being weird and it didn't show that I had missed one. What's up?"
She had been wrong. He wasn't dead.
He had been kidnapped by terrorists and was trying to signal to her to call... the cops? Didn't they always say that if you tell the cops they'd kill the hostage? Was there some other group that dealt with this kind of thing? In the movies it was maybe the FBI... Usually it was a Hemsworth or Gerard Butler. Wait, that was the Secret Service and Alex wasn't the president and didn't look anything like him.
"It's no biggey. I was just checking on tonight," she signaled back, coding that she read him loud and clear. Obviously they must be listening in and he knew that she had been in panic mode because that's what normal people did when they didn't hear back from the person they lllllooo... looked forward to seeing for two hours.
"Yeah, can't wait. I'll see you around, what, 7:00ish?" Did that mean he thought there were about seven people holding him? Or they would be calling with demands at seven? Or they wanted $700? Those cheap bastards!
"Sounds good. See you then, big dog." She'd never called him that before so he would be able to catch on that she was gonna call in the big dogs to get him out. Fuck, the saying was "big guns" wasn't it.
"Oookay, later then, I guess," he responded like she was speaking with some weird accent all of a sudden, which she most certainly wasn't doing this time. The phone clicked as he hung up.
Mel sighed out loudly in dismay, much to Silly Strings enjoyment as it meowed, always eager for the sweet taste of tears. She wasn't worried anymore, now she was just pissed off at herself for always getting carried away at everything. She wanted to claw her own face off in embarrassment and frustration, or go spend a bunch of money online to teach herself a lesson.
After the night when Alex had casually pointed out that Mel had been suffering unknowingly from a developmental disorder her whole life like there was a sign hanging over her head that she never noticed before, they had done a bunch of YouTube watching and some online quizzes and she was somewhere between 85-99% likely to have ADHD. Or she just had clinical depression. Or maybe a concussion. Or she was bipolar. But most likely her problems ADDed up to ADHD. Everything she looked at made sure to point out that she needed to hunt down a head doctor to find out for sure.
A bunch of stuff popped up about ASD and the high comorbidity as well. "How can there be a higher amount of people with ASD and ADHD than ADHD and ASD? Aren't those saying same thing? This thing plus this thing. It's like saying you're more likely to have a broken leg and a broken arm then a broken arm and a broken leg." Mel had asked in exasperation to no one in particular.
"Don't look at me, I'm not a doctor," had been Alex's unhelpful response.
"That's unhelpful," she pointed out, "You're supposed to be the smart one."
"Hey now, stop that," He'd said while wiggling her back and forth in his arms. "The whole point of this is to show you that it isn't about you not being smart."
"Yeah, I know..." She said sullenly. He then neutralized her path to regression by doing this thing with his thumb that involved rubbing the spot where her neck turned in to her shoulder that made her mind go wobbly.
After he left, she'd pretty much been spending the rest of the time up until now going over her entire life with this new piece of information and hadn't yet figured out how to feel about the whole thing. Mel hadn't set up a the appointment with her general practitioner to get a recommendation yet, but had put it on her to do list that never seemed to lack entries. Sometimes she wondered if the tasks were breeding together to make more problems. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that mystery, however. She needed to get ready now that the last minute was approaching since she hadn't made any progress in the last couple of hours for some reason.
They were meeting at her place again because Mel was hoping that if someone was coming over it would motivate her to keep her place cleaner and more organized. This was decided before she'd watched a video on how people with ADHD had wonky motivation mechanisms that both made her feel better about how her apartment was usually a mess, but also made her upset because it made it seem like there wasn't much that she could do to help it.
Melony had the impulse to put her light golden hair in to double ponytails/pigtails. She wondered if Alex was in to the cheerleader thing so she tried for her best slumber party look of pj shorts and a loose tank top to give him a little surprise eye candy. She even added an e-girl eyeliner look to it for emphasis. For some reason this reminded her of
Bring it On
that then transitioned to the music video of Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah", possibly because when she was picking out a top she ran across an Evil Dead II t-shirt Sharon had given her for some reason (it was because Mel had talked to her about the movie for an hour on the phone once after watching it but didn't remember and Sharon had seen the shirt at the store and it reminded her of Mel).
Mel was practicing her demon possessed walk while moaning, "It's the arockalypse, kitty!" in front of a mildly entertained cat that was sitting on her bed when she heard the now familiar knock on her door. She opened it and did a seductive pose. "Hey there, Mister President," she said in her best Marilyn impression.
Alex had just given up on trying to figure out where the names were coming from at this point and just rolled with it. "Hey. You're lookin extra saucy tonight. Is it a special occasion or somethin?"