Chapter 35 Nick
NICK
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Mel shouts as I scoop up her mom. “I killed her. See, this is what happens when you tell the truth.”
Carefully walking up the steps, I say, “She’s not dead. She’s just in shock.”
“Door,” I motioned with my chin for her to open it, and she quickly obliged.
“Do I need to call 911? Should I call for help? What do we do? I-I”
It’s always apparent when you're around someone who has never been faced with death. Typically it annoyed me, but with Melanie, I just thought she was so damn adorable. She looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“This is why they say no good deed goes unpunished. Isn’t there a prayer we can say? I-I remember your pastor saying something about prayer and power.”
I grab a large glass from the cabinets and fill it up with water then walk over to her mother who’s lying on the couch.
“W-what are you doing? Nick No!”
Too late.
Her mom gasps the second the water hits her face, jolting her body in an upright position.”
“Welcome back, Mrs Thompson,” I say, setting the glass on the table. Loco wags his tail as he pants up at me and smiles. “You’ve wanted that to happen too, huh boy?”
He barks, and I can’t help but smile.
“What is wrong with you!” She stands up and points a long, manicured finger at my face.
“Mom,” Melanie says softly. And just like that, her mom's frown vanishes and realization sets back in at the situation at hand.
“You’re welcome. Now, I know it’s early, but I’m more than willing to make you ladies some breakfast. Melanie, you need to eat and check your blood sugar. I’ll get your mom a towel.”
Her mom turns to face Melanie, not saying a word. Melanie looks like she could use a hug, but her mom just stands, stiff as a statue and cold as ice. Silence passes before Melanie says,
“Okay,” sadness brimming in her eyes again.
I watch as her mom braces herself with one hand as she sits back down on the couch, staring off into space. I whipped up some scrambled eggs and toast, within five minutes and placed a coffee mug and breakfast in front of her mom the same time Melanie was coming back down the stairs.
“Would you like some creamer, Mrs. Thompson?”
She stares up at me and says, “No, I need something stronger.” Then she gets up and goes to the bathroom. Turning on the light a clanking noise is quickly followed after.
Is she lifting the top of the toilet seat?
Then she shuts the light off and Melanie and I watch her come out of the bathroom with a bottle of vodka in hand.
I turn to face Melanie.
“I kept it there for emergencies.” Heat filled her cheeks as embarrassment set in from revealing the truth..
Now I know where the alcohol came from last night that Melanie was drinking, and now I know where she gets her drinking problem from.
Her mom plops back down on the couch and pours a generous amount into her coffee mug.
“Oh, ya,” She says, smacking her lips together. “That hits the spot.”
She then tips her head back and downs the rest of her coffee and pours more vodka. She chuckles to herself.
“Man, ya know. I had my suspicions of him being a ladies' man, but I never thought.” She blew out a breath. “He got me there,” she smacked a hand on her thigh. “Fooled me for sure.”
She laughs.
But it’s not a laugh. Not really. It’s the hollow kind, the sound people make when they’ve broken so cleanly they don’t realize they’ve shattered. Melanie and I exchange a glance—sharp, uneasy. Her mom’s not here anymore. She’s staring down at her plate like it personally betrayed her.
I watch her—this woman unraveling quietly in front of us—and I can’t help but feel a pang of pity. It has to be hell, realizing the man you spent your life with wasn’t just a liar but a predator. A monster wearing a husband’s skin.
“Mom,” Melanie says softly, her voice tiptoeing around a minefield. “Do you want to lie down? We don’t have to talk about it. It’s—”
Without a word, her mom rises, grabs her coffee in one hand and the vodka bottle in the other like she’s reaching for armor, and disappears out the back door. A ghost heading for sunlight.
Melanie stays standing there. Silent. Still. But I see it—the devastation she’s trying to cage inside. It’s in her jaw, clenched hard. In the way her chest rises too fast, too shallow. She’s unraveling and doing everything in her power not to fall apart.
I pull her into my side. “It will be okay.” I rub her arm gently. “Let her be alone for now.”
Melanie gives the tiniest nod. “Ya, okay.”
“Hey, look at me.” I guide her chin up with my finger, not letting her shrink away. “You did nothing wrong. I’m proud of you. That took a lot of courage.”
“Ya.” Her eyes flick away like she doesn’t believe it. Like the guilt still owns too much space inside her.
“C’mon, let’s sit down and eat some breakfast.” I wrap my arm around her, guiding her toward the table. Not for show. Because I needed her to feel me there, feel that she’s not alone anymore. Not with me.
I pull out her chair, sit her down, and press a kiss to the top of her head—soft, steady.
“I’m really not hungry,” she says as I start placing breakfast in front of her.
“Melanie, you need to eat.” I scoop eggs and bacon onto her plate.
“I said I’m not hungry.”
I lower myself down to my knees in front of her, take her hands in mine.
“You have to take care of yourself. I know you’re blaming yourself right now, questioning everything, but you are the victim here.
You were a little girl. You did nothing wrong.
So stop beating yourself up over the truth.
If your mom wants to fall apart, let her.
People process grief in their own ways.”
She doesn’t speak. Just nods, slow and numb. But she heard me. I can see it land somewhere behind her eyes.
“And if you were my little girl…” My voice thickens, but I keep going. “I would’ve wrapped you in my arms and told you how damn sorry I was because that’s what love does. It protects. It doesn’t deny. It doesn’t disappear.”
Her eyes blink slowly, and something changes in her face, like a fog lifting, just enough to see me clearly. Like maybe, for the first time, she believes I mean it.
“I want you to eat something before you go anywhere.”
“I’m supposed to go get my hair done with her later.”
“Oh, okay. Don’t worry about coming to the restaurant, I’ll h—”
“No,” she cuts in quickly. “I want to come in. I’d prefer it. I’m sure my mom is going to drink until she passes out. Staying busy will help take my mind off things.”
It took thirty minutes to convince her to keep her appointment with Abigail. She needed the distraction, the break, something normal to cling to. While she was getting pampered, I helped my mom prep pasta for the dinner rush and handled Diablo’s numbers.
Business was booming thanks to Melanie’s work behind the scenes. If it kept up, in a month, I could make my final payment to Diablo and finally get him out of our lives.
I should have been elated.
But dread clung to my chest like wet clothes.
Because that meant Melanie and I could go our separate ways, just like we promised. And now that her mom knew about the diabetes, she’d probably get a pension, alimony—whatever. She’d have options. She could leave.
But I didn’t want her to go.
I liked our strange little rhythm. Her sarcasm, that dog who thought he ran the place—I didn’t want to lose any of it.
When I pulled into the driveway, Loco came barreling toward me, ears flopping, tail high.
“Hey ya bud,” I knelt, scratching behind his ears. He leaned into me, whining. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
He whined again.
“C’mon ya big baby.” I let him inside, but the moment I stepped through the door, I froze.
The plate of food I made earlier was on the floor—eggs smeared, bacon crushed. Forgotten.
Then I saw her. Michelle. Face down on the couch, arm dangling off the edge, fingers barely clutching an empty vodka bottle. The smell of stale alcohol hit me before I even got close.
Fury surged through me.
Really? This is what her daughter comes home to? I walked over, slapped her cheek—light at first. Nothing. Harder. Still nothing. I flipped her over. She groaned, slurred, and rolled away like I was some inconvenience.
“Michelle. Michelle, wake up.”
She groaned again, swatted blindly in my direction, then turned her back to me.
That was it.
“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath. “Guess she’ll have to sleep it off.”
I fed Loco, refilled his water, and let him back out again before heading to the restaurant.
And the whole time, my hands were shaking.