I exhale. Classic Melanie Rose. Saving the worst for last.
Out of everything she’s said so far, this one stings the most.
Seven months down the drain.
“Okay,” I whisper with closed eyes. “Is that all?”
I listen as Melanie rises out of her chair. “Yeah, that’s about it,” she answers.
She releases my hand. I instantly miss it. I keep my eyes pinched closed as her feet shuffle across the floor. The urge to say something, anything at all, rages in my heart, but I’ve exhausted everything I could say at this point to make her stay. If Melanie wants to leave, she’s going to leave. I know that better than anyone.
The door closes.
I bite down hard.
Goodbye, Mela—
“What the hell were you thinking?!”
I open my eyes, startled by the sound of her voice. Melanie stands at end of the bed, her face now covered in tears.
“What?” I ask.
Her eyes burn a hole right through me. “Don’t you ever do anything like that ever again!” she says.
I pause, confused. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You got shot, Robbie!”
“Did you want me to let Nora get shot instead?”
“No!” she says. “God, no! Of course not!”
“Why are you yelling at me?” I ask. “I have a punctured lung.”
“Exactly!” She throws up her hands. “You have a punctured lung!”
“Okay...”
“And two broken ribs!”
“Last I heard, yeah.”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through over the last forty-eight hours? I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. Every second I’ve spent right here watching your vitals and talking to nurses and making sure your next breath isn’t your last, you… stupid, stupid man! And, to make matters worse, it’s freaking Christmas!”
“Why?” I ask.
She glares at me. “Why what?”
“Why did you do all that?”
“Because that’s what a wife is supposed to do!” She exhales hard, just as taken back by her words as I am. “I make the hard choices. I follow my gut and I try to do the right thing no matter how painful it is, and then you go and do something like this?” She twitches, furious. “God, Rob! You make it impossible for me to hate you!”
“I’m... sorry?”
“No, don’t...” She huffs. “Don’t be sorry. Just... be alive, for Christ’s sake.”
I smile. “I’m doing my best here.”
Melanie plops down in the chair again, her chest heaving as tears spill down her cheeks. “And you know what the worst part is?” she asks.
“The bullet, in my opinion,” I quip.
“I have never been happier than I am right now,” she says, ignoring my joke. “I mean, I look at you like this and I am so upset. I am full of rage and anxiety and I can’t stop crying and I just want to smother you with a pillow to get it over with.”
I eye the now closed door. “Uh-huh...”
“But, then...” She holds back a sob. “I look at you like this and I... I’m so happy because I know a man who would take a bullet for someone he cares about and not even think twice about it. He’d do the right thing, no matter how painful it is.” She smiles. “Robbie, you’re my hero.”
“I am?”
Melanie nods. “And that sucks.”
“It does?”
Her lip quivers. “You were wrong before when you said that I deserve better than you. It’s you who deserves better than me. And...” She hesitates. “Aw, screw it.”
Melanie takes a knee next to the bed. I blink twice.
“Robbie, I love you,” she says. “I want to be the woman who chooses you no matter what, if you’ll let me.”
I stare at her, her chin just barely reaching over the top of the tall hospital mattress. “Mel, are you giving me a grand gesture?” I ask.
She places her hand just above my ribs, gently hovering over the spot where my tattoo is. Or was. “I wasn’t there before,” she says. “You needed someone by your side and I wasn’t there. I won’t let you go through that again. And seven months from now...” She smiles as a few more tears fall. “I don’t know, maybe we’ll have the best days of our lives. Or maybe we won’t, I don’t care. I’ll still be there. I promise.”
My heart aches for this woman. From her head to her toes to her dirty cheeks and puffy, red eyes. I look at her looking at me, her face so full of love and longing and I know she means it.
“Wow,” I say. “That was good.”
“Was it?” she asks. “Not too over the top?”
“Just the right amount of over the top. The knee was a nice touch.”
She chuckles. “I thought you’d like that.”
I move my hand toward her. She takes it and places it on her cheek, right where I wanted it to be, and I wipe away a line of tears with my thumb. “So, does all this gesturing mean you will stay in town?” I ask.
Melanie rests against my palm. “If you’ll have me,” she says.
“You spent two days sitting here hoping I don’t die,” I say. “What else am I supposed to do? Say no?”
She smiles.
Someone knocks twice on the door and opens it without waiting for a response.
“Well, what a surprise. He’s alive!”
I glare at Roger as he waltzes inside with a duffel bag in one hand and a to-go coffee cup from Moira’s in the other.
“Yes, I’m alive,” I say.
Melanie lowers my hand back onto the bed and picks herself up off the floor. “Hey, Roger,” she says, sitting down in the chair. “Come on in.”
He slows his stride as he studies our faces. “Did I interrupt something dramatic?”
“Honestly, yeah,” I answer.
“Cool.” He grins as he sets the duffel on the end of the bed. “I brought you some clothes. I wasn’t sure if you’d want the tight, white t-shirt or the tight, white t-shirt, so I grabbed two of each just to be safe.”
“You made the right call.”
“The group sends their regards. There’s a card from them
