Chapter 90 Melissa
Melissa
‘You can’t be here,’ a panicked Melissa tells Damon when she opens her front door to find him there. She steps outside and closes it quietly behind her, hoping Adrienne hasn’t heard the bell chime.
‘You weren’t answering my calls or texts,’ he says. ‘I was worried about you.’
Each time his name has appeared, she’s automatically diverted it to voicemail.
She has also deleted his voice notes and WhatsApp messages without listening to or reading them.
Melissa hates having cut off all contact, but the choice was made starkly clear to her: life with Adrienne, or death with Damon.
Melissa grabs his arm and pulls him further away from the door, careful not to trip over the tools her dad’s left here as he holidays before finishing their block paving driveway.
‘Did you not think there might be a reason I haven’t replied?’ she asks in a half-whisper.
‘I honestly didn’t know what to think,’ he says, ‘but I assumed we were okay.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but we’re not.’
Only now does she register his appearance.
There are scabs on the knuckles of his right hand.
His left shoulder is hunched more markedly and each move is accompanied by a small, sharp wince.
He’s so clearly damaged, in so many ways.
She fights her instinct to ask him what happened or to invite him inside for treatment.
But there’s something else. Something different about him.
Some slight shift in character that she can’t put her finger on. But it’s undeniable.
‘I’ve got so much I need to tell you,’ Damon persists. ‘I went to my dad’s funeral yesterday. Just to pay my—’
‘No.’ Melissa shakes her head. ‘Please, stop. Don’t tell me anything else. I can’t do this anymore.’
It breaks her heart, but she takes a step back, readying herself to slip back into the house and close the door on him.
‘I know who I am now,’ Damon implores her. ‘I know everything, and there’s no one else I can talk to about it but you.’
‘Damon, what we did, it was wrong. I should have been strong enough for the both of us to stop it from happening. I wasn’t then, but I am now.’
‘But—’
Melissa holds her hands up in front of her chest. ‘But nothing. Please, if you care about me at all, you’ll leave.’
A flicker of something passes through him – his expression momentarily hardens, his body tightens – but it’s too fleeting for her to get hold of.
He continues: ‘I need you to—’
To both their surprise, the door is suddenly flung open. Melissa spins to find Adrienne behind her. She’s scowling, her jaw is tight. Melissa has never seen her so angry, even during their own confrontation about Damon.
‘You need her to do what?’ Adrienne directs at Damon. ‘Kill you again?’
His gaze flits back and forth between Adrienne and Melissa as though measuring them.
‘I found the video you recorded,’ she continues. ‘I know you’ve been manipulating Mel into helping you to die, and that she’s been stupid enough to play along with it. But it’s over, do you understand?’
Melissa wills Damon to say ‘okay’ and walk away. But she knows he won’t give up that easily.
‘Ade,’ he says, ‘please let me come in and talk to you both.’
Adrienne takes a step over the threshold and squares up to him. Inches separate them.
‘Do you have any idea of what you have done already?’ she snarls.
‘We’ve had to put our baby plans back a year.
That’s how long it’ll take us to save up for IVF and a new sperm donor.
And that’s if Mel and I last the course, because believe me, we’re hanging on by a very thin thread here.
’ Her look sharpens. ‘But then, that’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it? To come between us? To win her back?’
‘No, no,’ Damon protests.
‘I don’t believe you. I tried my hardest to be your friend and to make you a part of our lives, because I know how much it means to Mel.
But now I see you for what you are. A manipulative, selfish, jealous little prick.
If you want to kill yourself, then go ahead.
But don’t drag my girlfriend into your fucked-up headspace. ’
‘We can sort this out,’ he insists.
Adrienne folds her arms across her chest. ‘How?’
‘I’ll get help. I can get better. Then we can continue trying to start a family. I’ll go to all my clinic appointments. I’ll do whatever I need to, and if you don’t want me around for a while until I can prove to you I’m worthy, then I’ll give you that space.’
‘God, you will say anything. I don’t give a shit if you get help or not. You might not value your life, but I value mine and I value Mel’s.’
‘If you give me a chance, I’ll show you I can be a good dad.’
‘Damon,’ she says, leaning towards him. ‘You will never make a good father, because you’re too self-involved and too utterly obsessed with your admittedly horrendous past to be anything but that.
I’m sorry about all that. I am.’ Here, she takes another small step closer.
The tips of their noses are nearly touching.
‘But we live in a world of pain, Damon. People everywhere go through hell all the time, and they don’t make it worse for themselves and everyone around them, like you have a positively insane genius for doing.
I don’t blame Mel for having that abortion. ’
Melissa’s head turns so sharply to Adrienne it’s as if she’s been slapped. Adrienne’s steely veneer cracks as she realises what she has said.
Damon’s wide-eyed gaze fixes upon his ex-wife’s.
‘What did she say?’ he asks.