The Roommate
The sun was bright and gleaming on top of the many people roaming through the streets of New York City. Birds flying high and chirping lightly. No one ever paid much attention to them, until Melody came along. Noticing every detail from the sounds of the birds above, to the pattern of people and traffic during rush hour. Looking down from her studio apartment in the middle of the city with office buildings meeting her bird level view, she noticed a bus arrive out front, oddly colored, not just a regular city bus. She knew it had nothing to do with her, yet she was nosey anyway. Just as she went to grab her jacket she saw the ten or twelve men jump off the bus with much grace, all dressed in camouflage with large tan duffle bags dangling from their fingers, from what seemed to be effortless. Melody took her jacket off realizing she had no reason to go be nosey. Melody has a large bulldog named Jack who constantly needed love and attention, not that she minded.  Realizing it was Jack’s dinner time, melody made her way to the doggy basket she kept all his things in and saw she was completely out of food. Deciding to just bring Jack with her, she hooked his red leash onto his spiked collar with his initials monogramed into the side. The elevator down to the main floor was shut down for mechanical reasons, so her and Jack had to take the stairs 7 floors down. Opening the door into the lobby, she sees one of the men from the special bus struggling and arguing with a lady at the front desk. She couldn’t help but to overhear his papers were lost from where he was about to start renting an apartment there. Being the kind hearted person she was always taught to be, she went over to him and introduced herself as the girl on floor 7. He shook it off until she continued to offer to rent him her spare bedroom. He looked at her as if she had three heads and thought to himself why she would even begin to think to offer such a favor to a stranger. Realizing he had really no other choice right now, he gladly accepted and continued with her to get Jack’s dinner. They had a nice thirty-minute walk to the pet store. The exchanged numbers and discussed rent. After all the boring conversations they started to tell each other their family stories and things like their favorite colors and favorite animals. She discovered his name was Joshua, but he went by his last name Glatimore. He asked her to also call him that. He continued with husfamily back story, telling her why he was alone and had no where to go. His father died in war, this being the reason he decided to serve. As they got home for the first time, Melody showed him around the apartment, the little that was there, that is. He settled himself in, and did like he was supposed to. He helped clean around the house daily and kept everything in order. Noticing these little things, Melody started to see him a little more than she did before. She started to notice his birth mark on his shoulder that kind of resembled a heart, and noticed the scars he had o his legs and arms, but were never spoken of. Until one night, he asked to take her out for dinner. He used the excuse of “pay back for the company of her home” but they both really knew what was up. He told her to dress fancy, which wasn’t really ever her thing, but that night, it was. She came out of her bed room with her long blonde hair curled loosely, looking almost natural. A tight navy blue dress hugged her hips just enough to look elegant. Her sandals matching the few sequins on her dress, kept her height small and petite, which she figured Glatimore seemed to like. Seeing on her alarm clock sitting next to her bed, she saw it was almost time to leave so she walked out. The minute she opened her bedroom door, she saw him sitting with Jack waiting patiently for her to be ready. He was dressed in a nice suit, black tie, and his brown hair gelled to the back. She took his arm and he led her to the elevator that was finally fixed. He took her to the nicest restaurant in town. Chandeliers hanging over every table and the lighting perfecting dimmed. They talked for hours. Not ever focusing on the gourmet salads and desserts they were brought, all their focus was on each other. Slowly falling for each other over glasses of champagne.  After that dinner date, they never were just roommates again. Dinner dates became a regular thing, adding a kiss at the end of every night. Glatimore met Melody’s parents for lunch one afternoon before he had to tell Melody the new news he had gotten. That night he sat her down and told her and Jack that he had to leave for Iraq in two days. Melody slowly started to tear up as soon as it hit her what he had just said. Was he really about to leave? Were the dinner dates really over? The goodnight kisses? The walks to the per store for dog food? Was it all about to end for good? The next two days were hell. All she could think about was sitting in this apartment now alone, rather than with her love. Packing for the bus that night, she sat patiently and watched him lightly fold and place the same colored shirts and socks in the big bag that made her notice him in the first place. Thinking to herself this wasn’t supposed to happen although she was happy that it did. Thinking about the changes that had been made were now going to go back to normal, as they were before, just her and Jack in her empty studio apartment. The next morning, he walked him down to the bus and gave him a huge hug and slipped a small note in the front pocket of his bag. Hopping on the bus and waving bye to her from the back window, watching her figure fade as he got farther and farther. Going back up to meet Jack, she sat on her couch and cried out her last tears, and then decided she had to go on with her day and her life, and kept reminding herself she would see him again. Months went by, an email sent here and there, and that was all. Sitting on his bunk he opened his front pocket on his bag while looking for a pen. He saw the note and began to read it. it was only one sentence, but it meant the world to him. “Promise you’ll come home to me”. Days went by after that and it had been longer than usual this time between emails. A couple more, long weeks went by and still nothing. Soon it was a month since the last email, and there was a knock on the door. Exactly noon sharp. Opening the door in her baggy pajamas, the delivery man handed over to Melody a black envelope. She opened it and read on until she hit the status of K.I.A., Melody closed the door without saying a word and sat down on her couch. Staring off into midair, a tear slowly started to form in her eye. It dropped onto Jack’s head which got his attention. He came up with Melody and put his fat rough paw onto her moist thigh filled with salty tears he began to lick off. Days went by, Melody glued to her bed. She didn’t eat much, but she wasn’t hungry. After a week of crying all night to the smell of his army shirt and sleeping through the day, she got another knock on the door. She ignored it, although they continued to knock. She finally got up after five minutes of generous knocking and when she opened her door she couldn’t believe her eyes. Glatimore stood there with a large diamond ring with the words “I’ll never leave you again” engraved to the inside of the ring.