Chapter 34 Melanie #2
“No, you won’t. Besides, if she won’t believe me, then there’s no way in hell she’ll believe you.”
“I’ll make her believe.” He says, and I see his jaw muscles clench together.
I groaned. “Nick, you can’t control everything.”
“Like hell I can’t. Besides, how can she not see that he’s an asshole.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a migraine come on.“Because that’s my mom, she is brilliant at ignoring the elephant in the room.”
“Then it’s time for her to wake the fuck up. You’re not going, end of discussion.” He whips around and heads straight for the bathroom but I’m hot on his heels.
“Nick I-” I nearly crash into his back when he stops dead in his tracks and then turns to face me.
“I don’t want that pedophile mother fucker near you. Or I’ll kill him myself. How could you even want to be around your stepfather? Or even go near the guy after what he did to you?”
“Be around who?”
Nick and I froze when we heard my mom's voice behind us. Nick’s gaze flickered behind me as I slowly turned to face her. She was holding two Starbucks coffee mugs in hand as Loco came up to greet her, wagging his tail.
“Uh, no one. No one.” I say, a nervous chuckle slipping from my lips.
“We were just talking about Abigail,” Nick says. Thankfully,ly he realized that now is not the time or place to expose how my stepfather molested me.
“Ya, Abigail. She’s a real pain to be around with the pregnancy hormones and all.”
My mom sets down the coffee cups as she eyes Nick. Then, she slips her purse off her shoulder and sets it on the table.
“Abigail?”
“Ya, she’s a stinker,” I say, and Nick and I laugh nervously. For growing up surrounded by actors and being raised primarily in the acting industry my whole life, I’m indeed sucking at trying to put on a show now.
“Because I could have sworn I heard Nick say, stepfather..” My mom’s gaze beams on me.
“I-I…”
My mom takes a step closer.
“Richard never did anything to you, did he?” My mom’s eyes soften, and for a split second, she’s the woman I used to cry for in the middle of the night.
The one I wished would come and save me.
The look she’s giving me—it’s warm, familiar, safe.
It’s the kind of look that makes little kids believe monsters aren’t real.
And for a split second, I almost break.
My chest tightens so hard I can barely breathe. The truth claws at my throat, begging to be released, but I swallow it back. It hurts. It physically hurts to hold it in.
I turn to Nick, desperate. Say something. Do something. Tell me I’m not crazy for staying silent. But when I catch the look on his face, my stomach drops. He’s frozen too, wide-eyed and unreadable. I don’t know if he’s about to explode or fall apart.
I can’t move. My feet are cement. My lungs are full of smoke.
“Honey?” Her voice cuts through the tension like a blade, and when her hand brushes my arm, it lands like a weight.
I blink. “No. No. Of course not.”
And just like that, I lose another piece of myself.
The lie hits the air and wraps around me like a noose. I want to vomit. I want to scream. But instead, I watch her shoulders fall in relief, and that… that soothes the ache for a second. Because at least she’s not hurt. Not yet.
But why is it always me left bleeding?
“I was going to say, I know you are dramatic but that would be an all time low, if you lied about your stepfather molesting you or some crap like that.”
She laughs. She laughs.
Wiggles a finger like this is some bad sitcom. “You had me going there for a second. You’re a great actress, Melanie. I’ll give you that.”
The laugh echoes in my skull like gunfire. My ears ring. My vision blurs.
Panic whips through me like a storm. Then it’s gone, replaced by something sharper—rage.
“Ya well, I guess I learned from the best.”
She doesn’t even flinch. She’s digging through her purse, totally unfazed.
And that’s when it snaps.
“Richard is by far a way better actor than me, he’s got the whole world fooled, but guess it’s okay since he taught me to do the same.”
There’s a thud—her purse drops to the ground.
“Melanie,” she says, but I’m already gone. I’m moving fast, trying to outrun the tears that are about to betray me. The front door is in reach, and I’m not looking back.
“She’s my daughter,” my mom bites out.
“Then act like a mother,” Nick fires, and it’s so sudden, so raw, that it shatters something in me.
That’s it. That’s the moment. Tears burn the corners of my eyes, hot and insistent. But for once, someone chose me. Someone fought for me. It just wasn’t her.
“What do you think I’m doing?” she hisses.
The door flings open behind me, her footsteps pounding down the porch like a storm closing in. I swipe my tears hard, like I can erase the evidence of what I am.
“Sweetie, I need you to tell me he never touched you. Tell me the truth.” Her hand snatches for my arm—I rip it away like it’s burning me.
I shut my eyes and inhale sharply. My body is shaking.
“I know you can be dramatic and always wanted me to leave Richard so I could work it out with your real dad, but this is a bit much, Melanie.”
I let out this ugly, raw sound—somewhere between a laugh and a sob. My hands fly up in disbelief, my breath hitching. Nick steps out behind me, and when I look at him, his green eyes brimming with urgency, it fills me with something I didn’t know I had left: strength.
“Tell me he never did anything, and stop with this big act you are putting on, Melanie.”
I step toward her.
“He’s never touched me, Mom, happy.”
Nick’s head drops. Shoulders sag. I can feel the disappointment roll off him like smoke.
My mom smiles. Pleased. Triumphant.
“Now was that so hard?”
But I’m not done. I move closer, slow, deliberate.
“He’s never put a hand on my thigh when you weren’t looking. He’s never whispered in my ear things he didn’t want you to hear. He’s never put his mouth on my body.”
Her hands fall limp. Her face goes pale.
“He never took me on car rides just so we could be alone, and he never came into my room at night when you passed out drunk.”
Her hand shakes as she brings it to her chest, like she’s trying to hold herself together. But she can’t. Not this time. And I’m not drunk, not numb, not pretending anymore.
“He never touched me, Mom.”
I watch the words detonate behind her eyes. Like bullets—one after the other.
“Never, Mom.”And then I walk. Right past her. Back up the porch. Back to what’s left of my life. Nick nods, slow and sure. That’s all I needed—one person who sees me.
Then I hear it.
Crunch. Gravel shifts under the collapsing weight.
I spin just in time to see my mom fall.
“Mom!” I yell, and Nick’s already running.