Chapter 18 Melissa
Melissa
‘Damon?’ Melissa asks when he doesn’t reply. She is trying hard not to show how worried she is about him. Treat him like a patient, she thinks. Listen, assess. Don’t judge.
He takes a deep breath. And for the first time today, he maintains eye contact. ‘I’m not doing so well.’
‘Is it something to do with Brighton?’ She purposely avoids using the word ‘drowned’. It’s ghoulish, and neither of them needs reminding of it. The reality of his death still haunts her. ‘If you need to see a doctor, I can drive us to A&E right now. We’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘And spend all day in a waiting room only to be told what I already know?’
‘Which is?’
‘That there’s nothing physically wrong with me.’
‘Then what is it?’
He cocks his head and hunches his shoulders over the table so he is closer to her.
‘Him,’ he says. ‘The boy.’
‘What boy?’ she asks, genuinely perplexed.
‘The boy,’ he repeats, placing emphasis on the definite article. ‘The one who was dying.’
Now the penny drops. ‘The kid you thought you saw when you were in the water?’
His lips purse. ‘There’s no thought about it, Mel. I know what I saw. What I keep seeing.’
She frowns. ‘What do you mean, keep seeing?’
To her quiet disbelief, he reveals how, for the last six weeks, he’s had repeated visions of the dead, bloodied child, a hole for a mouth, shouting something unintelligible at him.
She nods along as Damon speaks – don’t judge, don’t judge, don’t judge – fighting to maintain her composure and act as if what he’s telling her is all perfectly normal.
The rapid decline in his mental health profoundly disturbs her.
‘What you keep seeing,’ she says with a forced calmness when he’s finished, ‘is in your imagination.’
‘I know that. I haven’t totally lost grip on reality,’ he replies, pushing himself back into his chair. ‘But I’m convinced his presence in my memories is based on something I witnessed. And I need to know if I am responsible for what happened to him.’
‘Of course you’re not. I know you. You wouldn’t hurt anyone, least of all a kid. It sounds to me as if you could be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A by-product of PTSD can be psychotic symptoms like hallucinations. I mean, why wouldn’t you be? And that’s all perfectly treatable.’
‘I’m not psychotic,’ he snaps.
She bites her bottom lip, because she knows, to the untrained ear, what she has suggested probably sounds a lot worse than it is.
‘Ade knows doctors at the hospital who work in the private sector,’ she goes on in an even tone. ‘I could ask if one of them could talk to you? Maybe they could help—’
‘You’re not listening!’ Damon slaps the tabletop, hard.
This is the first time she remembers him ever losing his temper with her.
Even when their marriage was crumbling and he was powerless to prevent it, he never yelled at her.
Instead, he withdrew into himself, which was probably worse – watching a beautiful soul disintegrate, and knowing she was responsible.
But today, she has clearly misjudged the depth of his stress.
The room has quietened and heads have turned to stare at them.
‘Are you okay?’ a woman two tables away mouths at Melissa.
‘I’m fine.’ She nods, grateful that, even though Damon is no threat, a stranger wanted to check on her well-being.
‘Stop treating me as the enemy,’ she tells Damon. ‘I’m on your side.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. Now it’s his turn to rub hard at his face with his palms.
‘I want to help you.’
He drops his hands into his lap and meets her eye. ‘If you really want to help, there’s something you can do.’
‘Name it. Anything. I’m here.’
Damon nods, looking her dead in the eye before he speaks.
‘You can kill me.’