melody. / seven fin

M   E   L   O   D   Y

we were one, once.

carbon copies of each other, stuffed into the same oversized sweater grams made for us with matching dimples and cheshire grins. thick as thieves, they used to say. back then it was us against the world. we stormed through seven like a hurricane, stirring up a storm everywhere we went. neighbors used to knock on the door and complain to mom that we trampled over their plants when we ran through their yard or that we shattered one of their windows playing with rocks. i always had to be the one to paint on a shocked face and tell ma that i had no clue what they meant. jeri was a little devil at the time, still is in some ways, always a pain in the ass so ma would never believe a word he would say.

i, on the other hand, was a devil with a smile. they would always believe me. perfect little melody who always helps clean up after dinner and gets amazing marks in every single class could never do something like that. there wasn't a mischievous bone in her body. i used to grin on the inside when they said that, gassed myself up into thinking i could be an actress one day. would be better than a singer. ma and dad and jeri already do that, damn well too.

sometimes i remember going to some of the covey's performances as a kid, sitting in front of the stage in a trance with their voices. their melodies. dad says that's what i was named after. when he first heard ma sing, he got lost in her melodies, enchanted by each word that fell from her lips.

things are so different now.

i'm not even sure what happened.

that's a lie.

i changed, no matter how hard i don't want to admit it. i guess i've told myself that so often i actually started to believe it. ignorance is fucking bliss. everything is easier when you look at the world through a picturesque lens.

there was just a point where i had to stop pretending everything was perfect. that's one of the few things he and i can agree on now, that our life is shit. never enough money to pay the bills so we had to fill up water in buckets just so we could bathe. never enough food on the table so our ribs poked through our chest. our parents earned money through the covey but it was just never enough. ever. jeri would rather just complain about all of his problems and stuff them into songs and any money he could scrap up would be immediately spent to get high on a fucking rooftop. he was so convinced that his life was fucked and fate doomed him from birth. i wasn't going to let myself think like that.

jeri says that i was the one who changed, but we screamed like savages and pushed back against the world when we were kids. we never let it run over us. yeah, maybe i did change a little, but i never stopped fighting back. he gave up and i didn't. so who really is the one who changed? there was a path out of seven, and i'd be the one to find it. i might be up against the odds but i don't give a shit.

fuck the odds.

i was going to get out of here and find something better for myself. jeri could do the same if he would just stop feeling so sorry for himself and get up off his ass. i've tried to help him, dragging out of bed by his ears and into school in the morning just to find out he ditched after one class period. and he wonders why his life is so shit. i can't help but roll my eyes.

the covey wouldn't keep us afloat forever. in my eyes, it was a sinking ship, and i was the only one with enough sense to jump before it sunk. i stuck my face in textbooks and roughly scribbled notes from class, drinking in every word and tattooing it in my brain, i would read it over and over until i could regurgitate it up on a sheet of paper. quickly, i rose to the top of all of my classes. i know that i've started to miss out on a lot of things, that part of my life where i knock back a few shots and dance until my vision is blurry and i'm blacked out in a bush. all of that slowly started to slip away. and sometimes it feels like there is a hole in my heart, but being at the top always came with a price. i tell myself after i get out of seven there will be plenty of opportunities to make up for lost memories.

if i was going to be something, i had to give everything in me.

that was the price to be at the top.