Chapter 65 Melissa
Melissa
Melissa’s stomach folds in on itself as Adrienne turns her iPad face up, accesses a shared Cloud app and a video appears.
How could she have been so stupid? It’s the clip Melissa demanded Damon record before she helped him die the last time, in the hope of exonerating her if she were unable to successfully resuscitate him.
‘This is nothing,’ Melissa assures her, hoping Adrienne won’t spot the goosebumps or fine, raised hairs on her arms. ‘We were being silly. You know what we’re like when we’ve had a few drinks.’
She tries to take the iPad from Adrienne’s hand before the clip finishes playing, but her girlfriend moves swiftly to snatch it away. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she says. ‘I’ve watched it a dozen times and nothing about this video suggests you’d been drinking or were “being silly”.’
‘We were drunk,’ Melissa insists, trying to keep her intonation light. ‘Damon was talking about going swimming in the sea again and I told him not until he makes a video clearing me of any responsibility if something happens. It was a bit of fun.’
Adrienne bangs her fists on the worktop.
‘I’m not an idiot, Mel!’ she shouts. ‘Every day I’m around patients who lie to me.
Lying because they want more meds; lying because they’re in more pain than they care to admit: lying that they’ve injured themselves falling when they’ve been beaten by an abusive partner. My bullshit radar is pretty damn good.’
The game is up. Melissa rests her head in her hands, too ashamed to look at her.
‘Why?’ asks Adrienne.
‘Because if I didn’t help him, he was going to do it alone, and he can’t bring himself back to life.’
She goes on to explain how, each time Damon dies, he discovers chunks of his childhood he’s forgotten and returns with hallucinations of dead people.
‘So instead of getting him psychiatric help,’ says Adrienne, ‘you’re facilitating and actively encouraging him.’
‘You have to believe me, I begged him to change his mind. But when I first told him I was having no part of it, he found some psychopath online who was trying to kill him and had no intention of resuscitating him. If I hadn’t walked in on them, he’d be dead now.
At least if I’m with him, he has a chance of coming back. ’
Adrienne shakes her head. ‘And how many times have you done this with him?’
Melissa hesitates, so Adrienne repeats the question.
‘Twice, since Brighton,’ Melissa eventually answers.
‘Twice,’ Adrienne repeats, as if trying to make sense of it. ‘How do you do it?’
‘I . . . I hold him under the water in the bath until he drowns.’
She wants to say it sounds a lot worse than it is. But of course it isn’t. Adrienne gasps, pushes back her barstool and begins pacing the kitchen. Without looking at Melissa, she asks, ‘How do you bring him back?’
‘Chest compressions at first, but then I had to use the defib and an intraosseous drill.’
This forces a disbelieving, despairing sound from Adrienne. ‘It’d be bad enough if you were there to witness him dying of his own accord and not stepping in to help,’ she says. ‘But to deliberately end his life with your own hands? That’s murder, Melissa. Do you understand that? Murder.’
‘He gave me no choice.’
‘You killed your ex-husband!’ Adrienne all but shouts at her. ‘And you keep killing him! That is your choice, because you don’t have to do it.’ She stops pacing and stares at her, wide-eyed. ‘What if he stays dead? That video won’t prevent you from being prosecuted.’
‘I could make a jury understand he wanted me to do it. It’s no different to assisted suicide.’
‘Are you stupid or just naive?’ She grabs her phone and types something into it as she continues to talk.
‘The law won’t care if Damon wanted this.
You’re still the one who’s killing him.’ She turns the screen around to face Melissa.
‘It says here eighteen years is the average prison sentence for murder. You’d be approaching your mid-forties before you’re released. ’
Melissa tries and fails to hold back her tears. ‘I thought that if I agreed to it, he might’ve got his answers by now and we could return to normal.’
‘Normal?’ Adrienne scoffs. ‘That is never going to happen.’
‘I was doing it for you too, for us, so that we could have our family.’
Adrienne’s laugh dies in her throat. ‘The baby’s father dead and his mum jailed for murder? How did you think that might’ve helped us? How could I explain that to our child?’
‘Damon threatened to withdraw from the IVF donations if I didn’t help him. And I know how desperate you are for us to have a baby. I tried to tell you at the hospital café this might not be the best time.’
Adrienne glares at Melissa and her voice deepens. ‘Don’t you dare try and put this on me.’
‘No, no, that’s not what I’m saying,’ Melissa backtracks. ‘I didn’t want to disappoint you, that’s all.’
Adrienne draws an invisible line around her face with her finger. ‘Look at me. How do you think I feel right now?’
‘Now you know, perhaps you can help me talk him round? Make him see sense. Help him to realise that he doesn’t need answers. That he can have everything he ever wanted when he becomes a dad.’
Adrienne shuts her eyes tight and Melissa’s heart sinks. ‘Do you think I really want to co-parent a child with someone as unstable as Damon? That is most definitely not happening.’
‘But you know how much it means to him.’
‘Him, him, him. I’m sick of it. What about us? Was Damon thinking about how much this means to him when he missed his clinic appointments? When he was threatening to withdraw his consent? No, he doesn’t think of anyone but himself.’
Melissa wants to fight back, but her arsenal is empty. In her heart, she knows everything Adrienne is saying is valid.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to be with him?’ Adrienne asks suddenly.
Melissa tilts her head slightly, unsure if she has misheard. ‘Yes,’ she says emphatically. ‘Of course I don’t want to be with him. Where is this coming from?’
‘I’m a patient woman. I don’t complain when I’m not invited to your Friday film nights.
When the dinner I’ve cooked is getting cold because you’re in the other room FaceTiming him.
Or even when you go over to his flat because you’re worried he’s lonely.
I accept you two are close. But what you’ve been doing is so completely beyond what you might expect from a friend.
Can you blame me for questioning if there’s more to your relationship than exes? ’
‘Ade, I swear to you, there’s not.’
But Adrienne doesn’t appear to be registering Melissa’s answers. ‘You loved him once, perhaps you’re not ready to admit those feelings have returned. Maybe I was an experiment.’
‘As a friend,’ Melissa says earnestly. ‘I love him as a friend. You are the person I am in love with.’
She watches as Adrienne paces the kitchen once again, trying to push together pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit.
‘You keep telling me you wish Damon would move on,’ Adrienne continues, ‘but you’re not allowing him to. He isn’t the only one clinging to the past.’
‘I’m not clinging to anything.’
‘You have allowed and encouraged this co-dependent relationship to develop. I think subconsciously, you want him to keep needing you.’
‘No, it’s not like that.’
‘If we are to stay together, you cannot allow this to continue.’
‘Listen to me, I won’t do it again,’ Melissa pleads. ‘I promise you.’ And she means it. No matter how desperate Damon is and how much he begs or threatens her, she is unwilling to risk losing what she has with Adrienne.
Adrienne shakes her head. ‘No. That’s not enough. You and him . . . it must stop. Right now. Tonight. You do not see him or speak to him again. You block his number, you delete his texts and that video.’
Melissa’s heart sinks. ‘I can’t do that,’ she says. ‘What if he tries to die again without me?’
‘That will be his decision, not yours. I’m warning you now, if you are willing to throw your freedom away for his crazy obsession, then you are throwing away our relationship too.
And that’s already on very shaky ground, because I don’t know if I can be with someone who is willing to kill another human being.
And I don’t care how good your intentions are. ’
Tears stream down Melissa’s cheeks as she watches Adrienne storm up the stairs and hears the slamming of their bedroom door behind her.