Don't Give Me Tainted Love novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: In the Light
Melanie's POV
For eight years I had imagined the moment it would play in front of other people.
In every version, I died.
On the wall, a figure lay on the bed with her face turned toward the lens.
Her dress was green.
Her eyes were half open, and her mouth was soft, and my body did not move at all.
Bradley's voice came out of the speakers, low and pleased, saying my name.
Somebody at the table gasped.
An old man said, "Dear God."
Bradley stood at the head of the room in the flickering light with his glass in his hand, watching me instead of the wall.
He wanted to see my face break.
I could feel it in my knees, in my hands, in the plates of my skull.
Then I felt Dalton's hand settle on the small of my back.
He did not say anything.
He did not look at the wall.
He looked at me, steadily, the way he had in the study with the lamp on, and he waited to see what I would do.
I pushed back my chair.
"Melanie," Bradley said softly. "Sit down."
I stood up.
"You're embarrassing yourself."
I walked around the table, past the deacon and past the two uncles, and into the cone of light.
The picture fell across my dress and my arms and my face.
On the wall behind me the girl on the bed went on lying there, and I turned my back on her and faced the room.
Twenty people looked at me.
My heart was going so hard my vision pulsed.
"That is me," I said.
My voice shook, and I let it.
"That is my husband's father's wake. I had one glass of wine. His son Bradley handed me a glass of water, and I drank it, and the next thing I knew I was in that bed, and the clock said almost two."
"Turn it off," a woman said, from somewhere.
"Don't," I said. "Look at it. I want you to see my face. Look how still it is."
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