Maybe other people would think he was overreacting. It was just a little letter, after all. But to Adden, it had meant so much more than that. Melody had been the only precious thing he'd had in his past.
The entire class waited. Melody lifted her face and stared straight ahead, but remained silent.
"Are you deaf or something?" Adden snapped, making Melody immediately turn to glare at him.
Adden pointed toward Ms. Rirris.
"The teacher told you to come up. Who the hell do you think you are? If everyone else has to do the assignment, so do you."
Melody bit her lip. Her foot could be seen kicking at the chair beneath her desk, making it obvious how annoyed she was by his question. Adden merely raised his eyebrows in challenge.
With an irritated huff, Melody stood and walked to the front, handing over her paper. Ms. Rirris read it while Melody returned to her seat, briefly locking eyes with Barbarra, the guy who always tried too hard to be charming, in the row ahead. Adden watched the way Barbarra's gaze traveled up and down Melody's body.
Melody sat back down. When Ms. Rirris lifted her eyes from the paper, Adden noticed the teacher looked surprised, her gaze sharp and focused.
His curiosity grew.
He wanted to know what the girl had written. He wanted to see whether her writing style had changed since the letter he'd received years ago. Adden knew his thoughts were a little twisted, but that was just how he was. Cold and nosy.
But as always, the perfect moment never came for him.
Right then, the school bell rang loudly.
Damn it.
Melody stepped into the cafeteria. It was far more luxurious and cleaner than the public school she'd attended before.
Even the smell was different. The air was filled with the aroma of freshly prepared food, not the strange stench of frozen meat that tasted like it had been manufactured in a laboratory.
"Whoa... Is this a school or a five-star restaurant?" she thought to herself.
The food here was far more decent than anything she'd usually gotten at the orphanage. Back then, Melody had even had to get creative with leftovers just to keep her stomach from growling.
She chose a seat at one of the long tables and began surveying every corner of the room.
There was a group of athletes wearing team jackets, then the cheerleaders, easily recognizable by the captain's pin on one girl's uniform. To her right sat a group of emo kids.
"They really make their little cliques obvious, huh?" she thought.
But Melody's attention was drawn to a guy sitting alone in the corner. His head was bowed low as he ate in complete silence, as if the world around him didn't exist.
Melody set her food tray down in front of her. Truthfully, she wasn't hungry at all.
Her mind was still replaying what had happened in class earlier. She couldn't believe she'd run into him again.
Adden.
"No fucking way... Is that really him?"
Logically, it was possible, but Melody was nowhere near mentally prepared for it. The look in his dark eyes earlier had been so intense that it made her heart race uncontrollably.
Her legs had trembled violently when she'd seen Adden's muscular, tattoo-covered arms. His body even looked too big and bulky for an ordinary chair.
"How the hell did he get permission to have tattoos like that?"
Adden had changed drastically. He looked cool now, mysterious even.
"But that look in his eyes..."
What had left Melody speechless was the way Adden had looked at her. It hadn't been a look of longing. It had been filled with hatred. Or at least, that's how she'd interpreted it.
"Why did he look at me like that?"
She was certain Adden had recognized her face, and he must have realized that she remembered him, too. Her thoughts immediately drifted back to the past, to the farewell letter she'd left behind with a dried flower tucked inside a book.
That had been the only way Melody knew how to say goodbye back then. She'd had to leave because she was hurt and afraid, even though she hadn't wanted to lose Adden.
"I had no choice back then, Adden..."
Melody had never imagined he'd be this angry. Disappointed, perhaps, but this hateful?
Adden was the only person who had ever truly understood her. He was the reason she'd managed to survive all this time.
But his cold attitude earlier had made her realize something. His feelings might have changed completely.
"People really can change that much, huh..."
Melody knew she wasn't the same person she'd been back then, either. She could only hope Adden had changed for the better. She hoped he was happy.
When she saw the girl sitting beside Adden gazing at him affectionately, a brief pang of jealousy crept into her heart.
"I have no right to be jealous. We haven't been in touch for ages," she told herself, trying to calm down.
But for some reason, deep down, Melody had always felt that Adden belonged to her. She kept their memories locked safely in her heart, drawing strength from them to survive each day.
Back then, she'd fought to keep going with the hope that someone was waiting for her at the end of the road. But now? That dream seemed shattered.
"Maybe no one's ever going to wait for me..."
Melody tried to distract herself by fiddling with her new phone. It was the first phone she'd ever owned, so she was still learning how to use it.
"I'll figure it out eventually. As long as I can text and make calls, that's what matters," she thought.
The cafeteria suddenly fell silent when Adden walked in with Melody's stepbrother and another guy she'd seen in class earlier. The same guy who'd entered with those arrogant girls who'd laughed at her.
Melody studied Adden's appearance. His black hair was neatly styled, and his polo shirt fit snugly against his body, accentuating his muscular build.