why can't you come stitch me up?
title: why can't you come stitch me up? fandom: the pitt pairing: frank langdon x mel king rating: m summary: frank and mel meet in na. / written for day one of @kingdonweek 2026: different first meeting.
author's note: happy kingdon week!
this is my first time writing an au for these two that isn't mostly canon divergence - i hope you enjoy it! tentatively planning to have two more fics up this week, along with some gifsets on my main blog, @langdonfranks. come celebrate with me :)
why can't you come stitch me up?
In the five months since he finished inpatient rehab for the second time, he’s spent most of his Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evenings in the basement of Trinity Lutheran Church, spilling his guts to people he barely knows.
The evening of Wednesday, July 1st is no different.
He gets there only three and half minutes before the discussion starts, because Tanner’s baseball practice ran over and he’d had to drive to the other side of town to drop him off at Abby’s new place – she’d let him stay in their (his?) house, since she reasoned that she was the one who suggested the separation – and Penny had begged him to stay for just a little while, Daddy, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. How the fuck was he supposed to say no to that?
He promised five minutes, which stretched in to seven, eight, nine, ten, during which he tried to ignore the way he could physically feel Abby staring him down. At minute fifteen, her vaguely irritated voice rang out from behind him.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone. 6:32.
“Fu – fiddlesticks,” he muttered, feeling stupid as the word left his mouth, but the last thing he needed is Abby to try to use him swearing in front of the kids to her advantage during a custody hearing, if it came to that.
He keeps telling himself it won’t come to that. Every day, it sounds less and less believable to his brain.
“Fiddlesticks?” Penny asked, her nose scrunching up in confusion at the word.
“Yeah, fiddlesticks,” he told her, reaching out and tweaking her nose gently. She giggled. “Your great-grandfather used to say that all the time.”
“What it mean?”
“It means,” he said, sitting up and stretching slightly as he prepared to get off the floor, “that Daddy has to go.”
Penny pouted again. His heart lurched, stomach churning.
“But I’ll see you again so soon!” he exclaimed quickly, reaching out and smoothing his daughter’s hair.
“So soon?”
“So, so soon. Me, you, and Tan are going to the park tomorrow, remember? So just one sleep.”
“One sleep,” she repeated, nodding her head determinedly.
“Love you, my lucky Penny,” he murmured, and then leaned and kissed the top of her head before he stood, wincing at the sharp pain that shot through his lower back as he did. Tanner was sitting on the couch, already absorbed in a game of Super Mario Galaxy on his Switch. “Love you, bud. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Dad,” Tanner said quietly, not looking up from the screen.
He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the way his heart was sinking. Tanner was having a hard time with everything. He was just old enough to sense the tension between him and Abby, even if they were never hostile toward each other in front of the kids. He always picked up on it anyway.
He exhaled slowly, and then walked to the front door, Abby following him.
“11:00 tomorrow, right?” he asked her while he slipped his shoes back on.
“Yes,” she confirmed, and then sighed. “I’m thinking of coming with you guys.”
He paused. A wave of nausea rolled through him.
“I thought you had a work thing,” he muttered.
“I’m going to cancel it.”
His shoulders slumped.
“Abby, you don’t have to – “
“Frank, we talked about this,” Abby reminded him, her voice quiet but firm. “It makes me more comfortable to be there with you.”
“I know, but I thought – “
“Frank.”
He stared down at his feet. He wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yeah, sure.”
He left, then, without another word, and sped across town to this stupid fucking church basement, slipping into the room and sitting in the second-to-last row. He didn’t even have time to fix himself a cup of shitty coffee.
When it’s his turn, he stands with another wince, because his back still hurts.
“Hi. My name is Frank, and I’m an addict. I’ve been sober for 183 days.”
A few quiet Hi, Franks ring out from the group. He tries to make himself smile, but he’s sure it comes out more as a grimace.
“I don’t have much to say today,” he begins softly, staring at a spot on the wall at the front of the room mindlessly. He doesn’t have it in himself to make polite eye contact with anyone right now. “Sorry I was almost late. I had to drop my son off at my wife’s place. Which wasn’t bad at first – I got to see my daughter there, too – but before I left, my wife basically confirmed that she still doesn’t trust me to be around the kids by myself for any significant period of time. It made me feel…”
He trails off, and then laughs once, humorlessly.
“It made me feel really shitty, to be honest. I know we’re supposed to try and be positive, or whatever, but I just feel…really terrible, right now. And on top of that, I start back to work on Saturday. Which is a good thing, theoretically, but it also feels like I’m walking into the fucking lions’ den.”
He blinks slowly, realizing his vision has gone out of focus, then sighs, kicking slightly at the carpet with the tip of his shoe.
“So, yeah. I think that’s all I have to share.”
“It’s good you’re here tonight, then, Frank,” the group leader (Bill, he remembers, and he only remembers because he actually doesn’t mind Bill most of the time) tells him.
He nods in a jerky movement, and then sits back down, his metal folding chair squeaking as he settles back into it. He expects Bill to dive into whatever he’s prepared for tonight, but instead hears a shuffling behind him, from the last row. He frowns – no one had been sitting behind him when he came in.
He turns in his chair, and finds a young woman standing up in front of her chair. She’s wearing a lilac t-shirt and black joggers, and her blonde hair is in a braid that’s resting on her shoulder. She pushes her blue-framed glasses up her nose and then clasps her hands in front of her.
“Hello,” she says, her voice gentle but firm. “My name’s Melissa, but everyone calls me Mel. I’m an addict. I’ve been sober for eight years today.”
Shit, he thinks. Eight fucking years. Good for her.
“I’ve never been here before,” she continues, but then shakes her head, stumbling over her words slightly. He glances down, sees that she’s holding her hands together more tightly now. “I mean, I’ve been to meetings before, of course. But, uh, never this one. So I think I’m just going to listen tonight. It’s been lovely hearing from you all, though.”
She smiles, and it’s real, genuine. He can tell that she means her last statement, that she really has enjoyed listening to everyone taking their turns speaking.
“We’re glad you decided to join us, Mel,” Bill says, and a few people murmur their agreement.
She nods, and as she sits down, her gaze catches his. She presses her lips together, and smiles softly again. He actually manages to lift one corner of his mouth in response.
And he keeps looking at her, even after her eyes have left him, watching her as she tosses her braid back over her shoulder gently and rolls her neck before sitting up straight and placing her hands in her lap, fingers laced together.
When she looks forward to pay attention to whatever Bill is saying now, he adverts his gaze and turns around before she can realize he’s still staring.
He’s standing by the refreshments table after the meeting wraps, holding his cup of shitty coffee and looking over the baked goods that a middle-aged woman named Janet always brings with her when she attends, when he senses the presence of someone beside him. He goes to quickly walk away so they can’t pull him into any kind of small talk, and he can grab his shit and go home to his fucking depressing empty house and ice his back.
But when he glances over, he sees her, reaching for a styrofoam cup and the carafe of coffee.
And for some reason, he’s talking before he can stop himself.
“Don’t bother.”
Her hand pauses, and she looks up at him with wide, brown eyes. She’s a whole head shorter than him.
“Um. Why?” she asks softly.
“It tastes like shit,” he informs her, taking a sip of his and then grimacing to drive home his point. “Bill is an okay guy, but he couldn’t make good coffee if his life depended on it.”
“Oh,” she says, dropping her hand back to her side. “If you say so. Although, I probably put so much cream in it that it would make even the worst coffee passable.”
His lips twitch up slightly.
“Wait. Why do you have a cup of it, then?” she questions, slightly accusatory.
“Because I’m too lazy to get off my ass and make my own at home.”
She smirks, and tucks a piece of hair that has fallen out of her braid behind her ear. His eyes follow the movement of her hand.
She’s pretty, he decides. Not exactly his type – although, he hasn’t had a type other than Abby since he was nineteen. He’s not sure he knows what his type is anymore.
Not that he should be deciding if Mel is or isn’t his type. He’s not trying to date anyone; he’s not divorced, no matter what Abby likes to pretend. He won’t be getting a divorce, if he has any say in it.
He’s just making an observation. She’s pretty. Sue him.
“I don’t really like to drink caffeine this late anyway,” she tells him, the sound of her voice pulling him from his thoughts. She glances over his shoulder. “What’s your verdict on those snickerdoodles?”
“Now those are actually pretty fucking good.”
She smiles, grabs a paper plate and three cookies from the tray.
“I guess you don’t mind eating copious amounts of sugar this late in the day,” he remarks.
“There’s never a bad time to have dessert,” she tells him, very seriously.
And he grins as he reaches past her to grab a cookie of his own, downing the last of his coffee before eating it in four large bites. He reaches toward the table again, grabbing a napkin and wiping the crumbs from his lips.
He should go grab his stuff now, and head for the door. That’s what he usually does. That’s what he means to do.
His grip tightens around his empty cup, but his feet don’t move.
“It’s Frank, right?” she asks, after she’s chewed and swallowed the last of her first snickerdoodle.
“Yep,” he confirms. “And you’re Mel.”
His words aren’t a question. He doesn’t need to be reminded; he knows she’s Mel.
“I’m Mel,” she says with a nod. She breaks her second cookie in half on her plate. “What do you do?”
His brow furrows. His first instinct is to say benzos – he is at an NA meeting, for fuck’s sake – but he’s not completely positive that’s what she’s asking. When he doesn’t answer, she looks up, must see the confused expression on his face.
“Um, I mean, for work. You said you’re going back to work on Saturday, right?”
“Oh.” Duh, Langdon. Wake up.
He shuffles nervously on his feet, and begins to pick at the foam rim of the cup in his hand.
“I’m an ER doctor,” he manages to choke out. “I mean, I’m a resident. In the emergency department. At least, I was, before – “
“No way!” she exclaims excitedly, thankfully cutting him off before he can spiral and embarrass himself. “I’m an R3 in the pediatric ICU!”
She sets down her plate on the refreshment table so she can turn her whole body toward him. She’s nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Wait, what hospital are you at?”
“Oh, uh,” he stammers, bringing his empty hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. “We’re not really supposed to…”
“Oh, oh. It’s Narcotics Anonymous, jeez. I know that. Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of these.”
“It’s okay,” he assures her, when he sees her start to blush. “You probably don’t have to go to them as often now. I mean, Jesus – eight years is a long time.”
She glances down, picks her cookie plate back up.
“It’s not as much time as it seems,” she murmurs, almost shyly.
“Still. Sometimes I don’t think I’m gonna make it eight more weeks, let alone eight years.”
Her head snaps, and her eyes are slightly wide. Shit. He exhales roughly, and shoves his hand in his pocket.
“Fuck. Sorry. I know I’m supposed to be…optimistic, I guess. Positive self-talk and shit, right?”
He forces out a breathy laugh, and she does smile, but it’s not as natural on her face as her previous one. He sighs. Another thing he’s messed up.
“Well, I should get going,” he mutters, taking a few steps past her to toss his cup and napkin into the trash can. “It was nice to meet you, Mel.”
He shoots her one last smile, and manages to take two steps before he hears her voice.
“Wait, Frank!” she says quickly, and he thinks he likes the way his name sounds in her low voice. When he turns around, she’s wrapping a snickerdoodle up in a napkin. “You should take a cookie for the road.”
“A cookie for the road?” he asks, something close to amusement coloring his tone.
“Yes, a cookie for the road,” she tells him plainly, like it’s something he’s obviously overlooked in his rush to leave. “I assume, since you don’t even make coffee for yourself at home, that you also don’t have any homemade baked goods. It can be a midnight snack.”
And he actually lets out a real laugh at that.
“You’re prescribing me a snickerdoodle for a midnight snack, doctor?”
She smiles, stands up straighter, and hands him the wrapped-up cookie.
“Yes, I am. I already told you there’s no bad time for dessert.”
“You did,” he murmurs, looking down at the gift in his hands and then smirking at her. “It really is nice to meet you, Mel.”
He means it, this time.
“It’s nice meeting you, too, Frank.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around some time?”
He doesn’t get to hear her answer, because he sees Bill gathering his things out of the corner of his eye.
“Shit, I have to catch Bill before he leaves,” he mutters, taking a step away from her. “Excuse me.”
He scurries over to his seat, digging through his backpack for his HR paperwork and a pen and then heading to Bill.
“Frank,” the man greets him when he walks over.
“Bill,” he answers, as he hands over the papers in his hands.
“Looks like you made a friend,” Bill remarks as he signs. He rocks back on his heels, shrugs when Bill glances up. “That’s not a bad thing, Frank. It’s good to talk to people here. Community is vital to recovery.”
“I know,” he mutters. “Yeah, I know.”
Bill hands back his forms, tells him that he’ll see him on Friday, and then gets pulled into a conversation with a woman he knows he’s seen here before, but he can’t remember her name for the life of him. He unzips his backpack and shoves his paperwork inside, and finally heads for the door.
He glances back toward the refreshment table as he walks. Janet seems to be talking Mel’s ear off as she gestures wildly at the various baked goods. He swears he can feel the weight of the cookie in his bag, tucked carefully away in a side pocket so it doesn’t get smashed on the way home.
After a moment, he looks away and pushes the door open.
“A cookie for the road,” he murmurs under his breath as he steps out into the sticky July night.
(And at 11:45, before he goes upstairs and crawls into his king-sized bed that feels ridiculous for one person to sleep in, he unwraps his snickerdoodle, and thinks of Mel.)
* * *
The one good thing about Trinity Lutheran Church being only a four-minute walk from PTMC, other than the fact that he’ll be able to rush over quickly when he has to attend meetings after his shifts, is the fact that he can park in the employee parking garage for free.
He’s been out of a job for ten months, has a bunch of rehab bills, and might need a divorce attorney soon; every five dollars helps.
He pulls into a parking spot in the back corner of the lot, close only to one other car. He recognizes it because it’s been there most times he parked here since he started NA. He hasn’t encountered the driver in ten months, and luckily, he has no idea who it belongs to. He’s hoping the person is a new employee and they wouldn’t know who he is anyway, even if they did pass each other.
He checks the time on his phone when he puts the car in park, sees that it’s quarter part eight. Meetings on Friday nights don’t start until ten at night, which is unfortunate for him tonight, since he has to be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning to get ready for his first shift back. He probably would still be at home and just about to get ready for bed if he was being wise; he’s already met his HR-mandated quota of meetings this week. But he’s been antsy as fuck all day, like he was crawling out of skin. And Abby already left with Tanner and Penny to go to her parents’ house for the weekend. So here he is.
He meant to go grab something to eat at one of the cafés on Western Avenue before the meeting, but now that he’s here, he can feel the stress of the day catching up to him. He sets an alarm on his phone for 9:30 instead, rolls the front windows of his car down and then reclines his seat back slightly before closing his eyes.
“Frank?”
He startles at the sound of his name, blinking his heavy eyelids open a few times and trying to orient himself. He’s in the parking garage. He fell asleep. He glances at his phone. It’s 9:00; he has a meeting in an hour. Mel is standing outside his passenger side door, her head ducked down so she can look through the open window.
Wait, Mel? NA Mel?
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she tells him quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I knocked, but you must’ve not heard it.”
Yes, that’s Mel. He recognizes her voice, her glasses, the braid sitting on her shoulder.
The corner of his mouth twitches up slightly, involuntarily.
He stares at her stupidly for a few moments, still trying to wake up all the way. She frowns, misinterpreting his silence.
“Sorry,” she apologizes again, her voice quieter this time. Her face falls a bit. “I just…I didn’t expect to see you here, and then when I did see you, I just wanted check – “
“It’s fine, Mel,” he says, cutting her off before she can say I wanted to check that you didn’t overdose or something like that. That would certainly ruin his mood, and he doesn’t want to be in a bad mood around Mel. “You just surprised me. Honestly, what are you doing here?”
If he thought about it for two seconds, he’s sure he could figure it out. But his brain is still half asleep.
“Oh, um. I work here?”
“Oh,” he mutters, his eyebrows pulling together. “But you said you’re an R3. I would’ve heard of you before.”
“I transferred here from UVA Children’s during my R2 year. I only started at PTMC last September.”
Ah. So she got here immediately after or right before he got dramatically kicked out. Figures.
“I assume you work here, too?” she asks softly, almost hopefully. “Since you’re in the employee parking garage?”
He nods slowly. A small smile breaks out onto her face. His heart lurches, because it seems like she’s actually excited at the idea.
“Yeah. I mean,” he stumbles, “I mean I did. I got…I left last September. To, you know, take care of things.”
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring at him, a soft grin still on her face. He shifts in his seat.
“So, yeah. I work here. At least, tomorrow I will.”
“That’s…” she trails off, glancing down at the ground for a moment before looking back at him, her smile growing. She bites on her bottom lip, like she’s trying to rein in her expression. He wishes she wouldn’t; her smile is lovely. “That’s really great, Frank. I’m glad.”
And he can tell she means it. He thinks she probably means everything she says, is incapable of not being sincere. And something in his body hums, from his scalp to the tips of his toes.
It’s been so long since someone’s been excited to see him. Excited to have anything to do with him.
“Are you – shit, let me get out of the car so you don’t have to crouch anymore.”
He turns the car on briefly so he can put the windows up, and then gets out, getting his backpack out of the back seat and locking the doors behind him. She turns to face him as he walks around the vehicle, hands clasped in front of her like they were at the meeting on Wednesday, while she was introducing herself.
“Hi,” he says once he’s standing in front of her, his backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Hi,” she answers, smiling almost shyly.
“Are you headed to tonight’s meeting?”
“Oh,” she breathes, humming slightly to herself as her brow furrows. “I didn’t really…”
“Oh,” he mutters, and he glances down at his shoes, grinding his heel down into some loose gravel on the ground. He feels stupid and small, suddenly. “Duh. Eight fucking years. You probably barely have to go to meetings anymore. I mean, you’ve been here ten months and I’ve never seen – “
“I was trying out different meetings around the city!” she explains quickly. “I hadn’t found one I liked yet, until Wednesday. I know I’ve only been there once, but…”
She trails off. When he looks back up at her, her eyes are now on the ground, and there’s a blush coloring her cheeks. It’s barely noticeable in the yellow light of the parking garage, but he sees it, and it makes something almost warm bloom in his chest.
“…but who can resist Janet’s baked goods and Bill’s shitty coffee, right?” he finishes for her.
He can see her cheeks lift slightly as she smiles.
“I actually haven’t tried the coffee yet,” she reminds him, lifting her gaze to him once again. “You talked me out of it last time.”
“Well, I’ll let you put yourself through that torture this time. And Janet usually brings muffins on Friday nights. Something about eating breakfast at this time of night to keep us awake.”
“Do muffins actually qualify as breakfast food?” she wonders aloud, as she unlocks her Subaru hatchback and puts her bags inside, grabbing her wallet, keys and phone before shutting the door.
“You’re the one who said there’s never a bad time to eat dessert.”
“I did say that.”
They fall into step beside each other and head towards the stairs, him listening to her chat idly about maybe bringing lemon bars to tomorrow’s meeting – they’re the best thing she bakes, apparently – but not wanting to offend Janet. He stops suddenly, and it takes a few seconds for her to realize. She turns from her spot a few feet ahead of him, and frowns.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t have to come to the meeting if you don’t want to, or if you don’t feel like you need it,” he tells her, and now he’s the one blushing. He feels slightly embarrassed all of a sudden. “I hope I didn’t pressure you or make you feel like you had to. It’s just…I think you’re the first person I’ve actually enjoyed talking to since I started NA, and Bill always talks about building community, or something, and I just thought – “
She cuts him off again, mercifully.
“Frank.”
He meets her eyes hesitantly.
“I want to come,” she promises. “I get anxious about going places with a lot of people I don’t know sometimes, so that’s why I was hesitating. But I wasn’t lying when I said I liked the meeting on Wednesday, and you’re not pressuring me. I want to come.”
Her expression is somehow gentle and firm at the same time, and leaves no room for him to question if she’s telling the truth. He nods.
“Good, good. Let’s get out of here, then.”
They fall back into step. Mel stops with her hand on the door to stairwell, though.
“I can’t believe you’re the mysterious black Lexus that’s been parking next to me for five months.”
He laughs.
“I can’t believe you’re the mysterious gold Subaru that I didn’t recognize even though I’ve been at this hospital for four fucking years.”
“Subarus are not mysterious.”
“Fair enough,” he says, still smiling. His cheeks are beginning to ache with it. “Let’s go, Mel. We’ll be early, but at least we can get a good seat.”
“In the back row, right?”
“Of course,” he confirms, and leads her toward the stairs, his hand ghosting over the small of her back.
* * *
She becomes a regular fixture by his side at meetings. Wednesday and Saturday meetings can be sketchy sometimes, since shifts end and the meetings start at the same time. Robby is required to let him go ten minutes early on those days so he can make it to enough meetings to keep HR happy, but since she’s been in recovery so long and didn’t fucking steal drugs from the hospital, she isn’t given that same luxury. But she is able to make most of them – apparently the pedes ICU isn’t nearly as hectic as the ED – and she never misses Fridays, so he doesn’t either.
Bill is happy he made a friend; he tells him so every time he signs his paper before he and Mel depart. The first time he’d said it, Bill had looked over at Mel so fondly – she was in the process of giving Janet her recipe for lemon bars – that Frank had felt something almost akin to possessiveness twist in his gut. He stepped into Bill’s line of sight, but thanked the man softly, and then walked back over to Mel, his hand once again hovering over her lower back as she talked animatedly to Janet.
That’s what Mel had quickly become to him – a friend. Not just a fellow doctor, a fellow addict. When he was kicked out of the hospital that fateful September night and no one had bothered to check that he hadn’t overdosed or offed himself the entire time he was gone, he realized he didn’t really have any friends. Certainly, none of that found family bullshit admin tried to push sometimes was true, even though he had thought it was for a bit. It had been a rude awakening.
Mel was like an oasis in the desert, a high that was more addictive than the opioids or benzos had ever been. She was his friend. God, how he’d needed a friend.
They exchange numbers, and they text each other about cool cases they have and interesting news they find in medical journals or on podcasts and random facts about their favorite eras in history once they realize they have a shared love for the subject. Really, he’s started to send her any random thought that pops into his brain, sometimes double or triple or quadruple texting. He apologizes for it once when he’s on the phone with her after a Saturday evening meeting because he couldn’t sleep and the only person he’d wanted to talk to was her, even if he had recently started to worry that he was bothering her.
“Please don’t apologize, Frank,” she said sincerely, her voice warm in his ear, even through the phone. “I love hearing everything you have to say.”
He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face even as he laid in bed that night and finally managed to fall asleep.
He thinks he’s happy. It’s been…so, so long since he’s been happy.
Even Abby notices, telling him he’s seemed, “quite chipper lately,” one evening when he’s dropping off Tanner and Penny one evening after taking them to see the new Cat in the Hat movie. (Abby has started letting him be around the kids by himself. Alarm bells keep ringing faintly in his head, that maybe she’s testing what it would be like to co-parent with him, but he’s so overjoyed that she seems to trust him with his children again that he doesn’t pay them much attention.)
Abby even asks if he’s seeing someone, and he answers her with a measured and honest no. Because he and Mel aren’t seeing each other, even if he thinks sometimes that whatever it is they’re doing is even more significant than fucking would be. Abby looks at him curiously for a moment, and shrugs her shoulders.
Mel doesn’t share many of the more intimate details of her life with him – at least not the ones that have gotten her to this point, eight years sober and doing fucking incredible, in his honest opinion. She has a sister. Becca is her fraternal twin and is on the spectrum. He thinks Mel might be, too, but she hasn’t said anything to him about it one way or the other, so he doesn’t bring it up, and just tries to make space for her and her needs whenever and wherever he can.
She’s Becca’s primary caregiver, has been for years, even though her sister has been spending more and more time at Middle Hill recently.
Her parents are both dead. She says it so matter-of-factly one night when they’re at Pizza Milano after a Wednesday meeting that he chokes on his Diet Coke and then feels like that was an overreaction to the news afterwards. She tells him that it was a long time ago, that she’s adjusted and adapted, and that’s all she offers. Again, he doesn’t push.
She doesn’t say a word about her addiction. He asks her about it only once, and it’s the only time she’s ever shut down around him, saying she doesn’t want to talk about it really, that it’s in the past and she would prefer to keep it there. He doesn’t think that’s necessarily the healthiest coping mechanism – at least that’s what his therapist has told him – but, hell, what does he know? She’s been sober for eight years, so it seems to be working for her.
It makes him sad sometimes, that she doesn’t seem to trust him with those details yet. But he doesn’t let that feeling linger when it comes up; he’ll take whatever parts of her she’s willing to give without complaint.
He first encounters Mel in the Pitt two weeks after he starts back to work. She comes down to consult on one of Samira’s cases, and they both light up when they see each other. (Which, in hindsight, is probably inappropriate. It’s never good when a kid needs a pediatric ICU consult.) She nearly shouts his name from across the room, and when he turns from talking to Dana at central, he sees her power walking toward him, a grin on her face that he quickly and involuntary matches on his. She hugs him gently, but pulls back after only a second, as if she’s just realized that might be an improper greeting in the middle of an ED. He keeps smiling at her, though, hoping to put her at ease. She can hug him while he’s elbow-deep in someone’s chest cavity, for all he cares.
They speak briefly – they are in the middle of their shifts, after all. She tells him to check his phone when he gets a chance, that she’s sent him what she hopes is an obscure fact about the Revolutionary War; early American colonial history is one of his favorite historical periods, and she’s been trying to surprise him with something he doesn’t already know since she found out. She hasn’t succeeded yet, but he can tell she’s not a quitter.
She gets paged, and bids him goodbye quickly but sincerely, telling him she should be done on time tonight and to wait in the parking lot for her unless she lets him know something different. Then, she’s off toward the elevator, and he simply stares after her, a fond smirk on his face.
Dana clears her throat from behind him. When he turns around, the charge nurse is staring at him with raised eyebrows, and he suddenly feels the metal of the wedding ring he still wears for show like it weighs ten tons.
He tells her he needs to check on his patient in North 2, but doesn’t even make it ten steps before Cassie steps into his path.
“What was that?” she asks, before he can even ask what the fuck she’s doing.
“What was what?”
Cassie rolls her eyes.
“That thing with Dr. King,” she clarifies, even though they both know he already knew what she was referring to.
He might be tempted to tell anyone else to fuck off, that it was none of their fucking business, but Cassie is one of the few people here that has been unconditionally kind to him since he returned. (Up until now, at least.) He can say with relative confidence that she’s not whispering about him behind his back.
So he tells her the truth, but not before crossing his arms over his chest defensively.
“Mel and I are friends.”
“Friends? You’ve barely been back two weeks.”
“So?”
“The two of you are hugging friends,” Cassie says almost incredulously, “and you’ve only been back two weeks? Mel will barely get within three feet of me, and I pride myself on being one of the people down here who she’s most comfortable with.”
He exhales in a huff, and grabs Cassie’s upper arm, gently pushing her towards the break room.
“Look,” he says once they’ve entered. He speaks in a hushed tone, even though he’s closed the door behind them. “You can’t say anything to anyone, but I met Mel at one of my meetings.”
Cassie looks at him like he’s grown a second head.
“You met Mel at one of your NA meetings?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows pull together.
“What?” she asks, her confusion apparent in the tone of her voice. “Was she there to observe or something?”
“What? No, Cassie.”
“Then why was she there?”
He almost rolls his eyes.
“Why do think she was there?” he asks, not wanting to say it out loud, because he feels like that would be a betrayal of Mel’s confidence.
Cassie stares at him strangely, then shakes her head.
“Mel is not an addict,” she insists.
“She’s been sober for a long time,” he tells the woman across from him, trying to be as vague as possible, because this is Mel’s story to tell, not his. “But, yeah, Cass.”
She just keeps staring at him, like she’s trying to rack her brain for alternate explanation.
“You’re sure she wasn’t there to observe?”
“No,” he repeats. “We’ve been to, like, six meetings together now.”
“You’re su – “
“Yes, Cassie,” he says, cutting her off with a sigh. “I know her better than you do, obviously, considering we’re hugging friends.”
He attempts to hide his smile when he says hugging friends. He isn’t sure how successful he is, but Cassie doesn’t seem to notice.
“Huh.”
“But like I said, don’t tell anyone. She obviously isn’t comfortable with people knowing.”
“I won’t,” she promises. “But, Langdon, are you s – “
She gets interrupted by her pager going off.
“Shit,” she mutters. “I have to run.”
“Cass, you can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” she tells him again. “I’m just…surprised, I guess. Don’t stay in here too long, or Robby will be pissed.”
He takes a deep breath as Cassie leaves the room, and tries to make his muscles relax. He trusts Cassie, mostly, but he’s still a little on edge now that she knows.
He can’t have anything mess up his friendship with Mel. That might be the thing that finally kills him.
He takes his phone out of his pocket to find pictures of Tanner and Penny to help him calm down, when he sees the text notification from Mel. He opens their conversation, a smile creeping onto his face already.
Some British soldiers were actors on Broadway by night during the war.
Did I get you?
He laughs lightly.
they mostly performed shakespeare plays if I remember correctly.
He goes to pocket his phone, but it vibrates before he can put it away completely.
Darn it.
I’ll stump you one of these days.
He types back quickly, a warm feeling rolling over him in waves.
looking forward to it.
* * *
As months pass, his friendship with Mel continues to grow, steady and sure. In fact, Mel being his best friend – one of his absolute favorite people – is one of the fundamental facts in his life now, alongside only his relationships with his children. Even his relationship with Abby is starting to be outpaced by what he feels when he’s around Mel.
He realizes this one night when they’re sitting in a Sheetz parking lot at 1:00 AM one night after a Friday meeting. The gas station chain is one of the only places in Pittsburgh still open 24 hours. At least they have decent burgers and, even more importantly to Mel, milkshakes. They’ve been sitting in his car for a couple of hours now, talking about nothing and everything. Mel has just started on her second vanilla shake. She takes a sip, and when she pulls away, she’s somehow gotten whipped cream on the tip of her nose.
He tells her this, is tempted to reach out a swipe it away for her, but hesitates. Recently, he’s been more careful about touching Mel. Not because he doesn’t want to touch her. Rather, he thinks he’s starting to want to touch her more than he should.
So she takes care of it. By sticking out her tongue and swiping the whipped cream away that way.
His mouth goes dry at the sight. When he abruptly stops talking in the middle of telling her a story about Tanner’s most recent basketball game, she looks at him questioningly.
“You can – “ he starts, but his voice comes out too gravelly, and he has to swallow once and clear his throat. “You can touch your tongue to your nose.”
“Oh,” she says, smiling like she’s proud of her self. “Yeah. I have a long tongue.”
Almost on cue, she runs it over her bottom lip. The sight makes his dick twitch.
Oh, fuck, he thinks to himself. Shit.
Shit.
So, yeah. He’s been trying to show more restraint. He doesn’t want to scare her away, especially when he’s sure she doesn’t think of him that way. Why would she? He’s a drug addict who’s been sober for less than a year and isn’t even divorced yet. She’s been trying to remind him of all the other things he is too – a good doctor, a good husband, a good friend – but he still has trouble wrapping his head around the fact that he’s not moving through life with junkie tattooed on his forehead in bold, capital letters.
He’s been trying to show more restraint, but it’s hard sometimes. For example, tonight she took her braid out in the parking garage before they walked over to the church, because it was fucking freezing outside and she said having her hair down helped her feel warmer.
So he’s been attempting to talk to Bill for the past ten minutes while staring at the long, blonde hair cascading down Mel’s back in waves from across the room, where she’s exchanging another recipe with Janet. He’s been somewhat successful, even if he’s had to close his mouth a few times to keep from gazing at her slack-jawed.
Bill gets pulled away by someone else, and he turns to go collect Mel and take her to their seats since the meeting starts in five minutes, when Cassie walks through the door.
Shit, he thinks.
He walks over to her immediately, intercepting her before Mel can see she’s here.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Cassie?” he mutters under his breath, supremely annoyed. “I told you Mel didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“Frank,” she says firmly. “I am a recovering addict. I can attend an NA meeting if I want or need to. You know I still go sometimes.”
“Yeah,” he mumbles, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed at his overreaction. He can’t help it when it comes to Mel and his overbearing need to shield her from anything that might make her the slightest bit uncomfortable. “Yeah, shit, you’re right. Sorry. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, Frank. I just feel like going sometimes. You mentioned a few weeks back that you and Mel come to this one, so I figured I’d go somewhere where I have a couple friends.”
He feels especially bad now.
“That’s fine,” he says, assuring himself of the fact as much as he’s assuring Cassie. “I’m sure Mel will be fine with it.”
And he is sure of that, until he turns to lead Cassie to where the two of them are sitting and catches sight of Mel.
Mel has blanched, and is staring in Cassie’s direction with an expression that’s vaguely horrified.
He frowns immediately, concern churning in his gut. But before he can go ask her what’s wrong, Bill calls everyone to attention, and people shuffle towards their seats. Mel plops down beside him like she always does, but he can tell all of her muscles are tense. Her hands are clutched together in her lap, her knuckles white with the force of her grip.
Mel doesn’t share this meeting, which isn’t overly unusual; she skips sharing sometimes, especially if she has a particularly taxing day at work. But she’s also not being a good listener, which is completely odd on her part. She’s usually nodding along to what people say, smiling in encouragement, frowning gently in the appropriate places.
Also, she won’t even glance in Cassie’s direction. Not even when Cassie shares with the group, or when he shares with the group, since Cassie is sitting on the other side of him.
She doesn’t relax for even a second throughout the meeting, and when it finishes, and she’s forced to share a polite moment with Cassie, her voice is stilted, her movements nearly robotic. He can tell her teeth are clenched together, and that she’s probably getting a tension headache. His stomach twists with worry.
Even after Cassie leaves, and they’re making their way back to the parking garage, she’s still wound up tight. He senses that she’s a spring whose ends are being pushed together, potential energy coursing through every cell in her body. He’s afraid if he says the wrong thing, she’ll burst apart.
So they don’t speak on the way their cars, or on the drive to their favorite diner, since it’s Saturday and the meeting is over by 8:30. He parks, but Mel makes no move to get out of the car.
So he breaks his rule, and reaches over toward her, places his hand on her forearm. She doesn’t flinch, and normally, he would take that as a win, that she was comfortable with him touching her. But tonight, it feels more like she’s too out of it to even register the feeling.
“Mel,” he murmurs.
She blinks slowly.
“Mel,” he says again, more insistent this time. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she tells him, and he admits that her voice sounds a little more natural than it had when she’d spoken to Cassie.
But she answers just a hair too quickly, and he can tell the response is said reflexively, not honestly.
“Is it because of C – “
He doesn’t get to finish his question.
“We should go inside,” she says suddenly, cutting him off and removing her arm from his grip before opening the door and getting out of the car.
“Fuck,” he whispers into the still air inside the vehicle, and then quickly grabs his stuff and exits the car when he realizes Mel is already halfway to the door.
They sit in their usual booth. He lets her be at first, watches her as she concentrates intently on the menu even though she always orders the same thing. After they put in their orders, he takes the plunge.
“Mel,” he begins gently. “What’s going on?”
She bites down on her bottom lip.
“Nothing,” she lies through her teeth. “Sorry. I just feel…a little off.”
No fucking kidding, he thinks to himself.
“It’s okay,” he assures her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head, and he tries to ignore the way his heart drops just a little. He knows this is deeper than Mel feeling a little off. Every once in a while, he lets himself be frustrated that she still hides parts of herself from him.
He thinks about trying to ask again, or maybe push her a little, or even just wait her out to see if she’ll start speaking. But he ultimately decides against it. This is – she is – too precious for him to fuck up because of his own hangups.
So – because he feels antsy as fuck and can’t keep his fucking mouth shut for more than two minutes, especially when he’s anxious – he starts talking at her. Telling her that Abby has had the kids at her parent’s lake house for the past week and a half and how it’s really starting to bother him, not only because he misses his kids like hell, but also because his house has been too quiet, and really, it’s always too quiet when he’s there by himself – quiet and empty and lonely. So he’s thinking of just selling it and getting a smaller place, but also doesn’t know if he wants to get rid of the house Tanner and Penny started their lives in.
“I don’t even want to go back there,” he tells her, as he’s eating his last fry. “I hate that I have to go back there. So I might try and keep you out until, like, 3 AM again. Just a fair warning. I won’t be able to sleep anyway – it’s always too fucking quiet.”
He waits for her to laugh, or smile, or for some sort of expression to pass over her face. But instead, she’s staring at a chicken tender platter she’s barely touched and chewing on her bottom lip.
(The chicken tenders are another sign that something’s wrong. She’s told him that they’re one of her comfort meals, because no matter where you get them, they all have the same general taste and texture. They’ve always been one of her and Becca’s safe foods. But she tries not to order them too often, since fried chicken is, really, quite bad for you.)
He’s not even sure she’s been listening to him for the past half hour. He swallows thickly.
“Mel.”
“I could come over,” she says, and his breath catches. “If you want. We could make microwave popcorn and watch a movie. My…my mom always used to do that with Becca and me when one of us was in a bad mood.”
He stares at her with his mouth open for several reasons.
The first is that she has been listening to him, and wants to spend more time with him, even in her weird mood. Secondly, she invited herself over to his house. They have never been to each other’s homes before, spending most of their time in meetings and restaurants and their cars. It’s probably the last boundary they have, as far as their friendship is concerned. And finally, she’s never mentioned her mom to him before, other than to tell him she was dead.
In spite of the way the night has gone, he can’t help the way his insides light up.
“I…would really like that, Mel,” he tells her, and she glances at him for just a second, one corner of her mouth lifting. “That sounds fucking amazing. Shit, we do have to stop at the grocery store for popcorn.”
He pulls his wallet out, throws a couple of twenty-dollar bills down on the table.
“We should go so we can get there before it closes.”
He slides out of the booth and stands up, but she doesn’t follow him. He looks down at her in confusion, and sees her full plate.
“Wait, do you want a box for that? I can flag down the waitress,” he says, already turning his head to look for her.
“Frank.”
She says his name using a tone he’s never heard from her before. It’s some combination of serious and anxious and fucking exhausted. It makes him turn his head back towards her immediately, almost straining his neck in the process.
“I need to tell you something.”
Finally, he thinks, relief flooding him.
“Of course, Mel,” he tells her. “Anything. We can stop at the store and then when we get to my house – “
“Sit down, Frank,” she says firmly.
He gulps, and slides back into the booth without protest.
“Is it Cassie?” he questions, when a few more moments pass without her saying anything. “She won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“How do you know that?” she asks, a deep frown settling on her face.
“Because I know Cassie. She’s a good person. And she makes sure she stays out of other people’s business. If Dr. Santos had decided to drop in, then you might’ve been in some trouble.”
Again, she doesn’t laugh at his joke. He didn’t really expect her to, but he figured he’d try.
“It’s not because of Cassie. Or, maybe it is? I don’t know. It’s not just because of Cassie.”
He tries not to sigh. He’d always suspected that she might be a little…embarrassed? To be an addict. Which he gets. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a little bit, and not only because he worries that if she hasn’t gotten over it in eight years, what does that mean for his prospects of ever not hating himself?
It also makes him wonder what she truly thinks of him. He knows she isn’t embarrassed of him – she never hesitates to interact with him when they encounter each other in the hospital – but it does make him fear that she’ll always see him as a drug addict first.
It makes him sad, contemplating it. So he tries to avoid doing that whenever possible.
He might not be able to tonight.
“I know,” he begins slowly, running a hand through his hair nervously and staring down at his hands on the table, “that there’s a lot of…shame that comes with being a drug addict. Jesus Christ, Mel. I know that. I mean, I’m surprised you even wanted to be friends with me, honestly, and – “
“Wait, what?” she asks, almost sounding offended.
He glances up at her, and her expression is the most animated it’s been all evening. It’s like his words have thawed her. She looks almost upset with him.
“Frank,” she says, reaching across the table and placing her hand over his on the table. It almost startles him at first, but soon sends a pleasant, staticky feeling running through his veins. “I’m not…do you really think I’m ashamed of you?”
He shrugs, and stares down at where her hand is resting on top of his. He has the strong urge to flip his hand over and intertwine their fingers.
“I am not ashamed of you, Frank. I am so proud to call you my friend. I…can’t even put into words how proud I am that I get to do that.”
“Really?” he murmurs.
“Really,” she promises, even though a crease is forming between her eyebrows. “It actually makes me kind of upset that you’ve gone through these past few months thinking that. Anyway, that’s not what this is about. I just…”
She lets out a frustrated sigh, and then takes her hand back, folding her arms on the table and then resting her face on them.
“Mel, sweetheart,” he almost coos. “You’re kind of scaring me here. I promise, whatever it is, we can – “
She mumbles something without picking her head up, and the sound of her words are absorbed by the thick material of her sweater.
“I didn’t hear – “
“I’m not a drug addict,” she says more loudly, sitting up suddenly and staring at him before sucking her bottom lip between her teeth.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. In fact, his brain kind of goes offline for a moment, and he’s unable to comprehend her words.
“What?” he breathes.
“I’m not a drug addict,” she repeats, and suddenly there’s a black hole where his stomach should be, sucking his organs into its gravitational pull. “I’ve been…pretending.”
“You’ve been lying, you mean,” he says, finding his words more quickly than he thought he would.
“I’ve been lying,” she confirms.
“You’ve been lying to me for months,” he says, and God, he thinks he’s going to throw up.
“I’ve…been lying to you for months.”
Her face crumples when she says it, like the words pain her. He stands up from the booth, and turns toward the entrance of the diner.
“Frank, wait,” she tells him, and he can hear her scrambling to get up, but he doesn’t slow down.
She follows after him as he walks to his car, calling out Frank and wait and just let me explain the whole way. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the vehicle, unlocking and opening the driver-side door and getting in. He goes to close himself in, but she grabs the other side of the door before he can, using all her weight to hold it open.
For being such a tiny person, she’s surprisingly strong. And he doesn’t want to yank the door too hard and end up closing it on her fingers, so he lets go. She stumbles back a little as the door flies open all the way, but quickly regains her balance and stands up straight.
“Frank,” she starts, but she doesn’t get far before he interrupts her.
“So, what? You came to gawk at us?”
“What? No.”
“To make you feel better about yourself? ‘Sure, my life sucks, but at least I’m not one of these lousy drug addicts?’”
“Frank, stop it,” she almost yells, and she actually has the gall to sound indignant, like he’s the one doing something wrong. “That’s not it at all. I would really appreciate if you would just let me try to explain.”
They stare at each other for a few moments, in silence. When she opens her mouth, he closes his door in her face. He turns the car on, releases the parking break and is about to shift into drive when he pauses.
He knows he can’t leave her here.
He tries to take surreptitious glance in her direction, and finds her still standing there, tears streaming down her face. His heart kind of breaks, and he kind of hates that it does.
And he knows he can’t leave her here, in a cold parking lot at 9:45 PM, crying.
“Fuck,” he mutters, leaning back against the headrest, and then rolls his window down.
“Get in the fucking car,” he tells her.
She follows his directions. She walks around the car and crawls into the passenger side wordlessly. Her arms are wrapped around herself, and he can see her shivering. He reaches to adjust the vent so the heat blows on her more directly without thinking, and then scolds himself for doing so. She’s been lying to him about a fundamental part of herself for months. The least he could do is let her shiver a little until the car heats up.
They don’t speak during the drive to the parking garage, but instead of the silence being laced with his worry like it was on his way to the restaurant, it’s tense and angry.
He’s angry with her. Before tonight, if someone had asked him if he had it in him to ever be angry at Mel, he would have laughed out loud and said no. He would’ve told them that Mel could push him into traffic and he’d probably end up thanking her for it.
But he’s angry with her. He’s so fucking mad at her. And when he pulls up alongside that gold Subaru that is really pretty ugly now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t even turn off the engine.
“Bye, Mel,” he says.
“Frank.”
“Bye, Mel,” he repeats, his voice sharp and hurt.
She stares at him for a few moments, before reaching for the door handle. But then, she huffs, dropping her hand and turning toward him in her seat.
“Take me to your house like we planned, and I’ll explain everything. And if you don’t want to see me ever again after that, I’ll accept it.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position right now to make any demands, Dr. King.”
“Please, Frank?” she begs, a few more tears making their way down her cheeks.
And she’s definitely not in the position to make any fucking requests. Yet, he still stares at her. She sniffles, and brings her sleeve up to wipe at her eyes.
“Fuck,” he barks out, and shifts the car back into drive. “Fine, what the fuck ever. I don’t even fucking care.”
And he knows that’s a lie. He cares so, so much. Too much. And that’s the worst fucking part of this whole thing.
He thought she cared, too, in some capacity, at least. And instead, she’s been pretending to be someone she isn’t for the past five fucking months.
He pulls away faster than he should. His tires squeal slightly, and the sound echoes in their empty section of the parking garage, making Mel flinch. He turns on one of his Spotify playlists as they leave the lot – one that Mel has described as semi-divorced dad rock with her nose scrunched up in distaste – and turns the volume of the music up, making it loud enough that she won’t be able to hold a conversation with him even if she wanted to.
They pull into his driveway twenty minutes later, and he doesn’t look at her as he turns the car off and reaches into the backseat to grab his bag. He gets out of the car and walks up the front path to the house, and the only thing that lets him know she’s following him is the sound of soft, quick footsteps on the concrete.
His hands shake as he gets his keys out, and it takes him three tries to unlock the door, which frustrates him to no end. He wants to not be affected by whatever the fuck is happening as much as he apparently is. He wants to be able to kick Mel to the curb without feeling absolutely sick about it. Hell, he wants to go back to that first meeting and ignore Mel as she reaches for that shitty coffee, let her drink it with a grimace as he gets Bill to sign his paper before walking out of the church and not turning around.
But he can’t. He knows he likes Mel – hell, he fucking knew that – but he doesn’t think he even realized how much he likes Mel until she revealed her lie while they were in the diner.
He knows now, though. He knows that if he kicks her out of his house tonight and never sees her as a friend again, it’ll hurt for the rest of his life. Mel has twisted her way into his heart so inextricably that she won’t be able to be cut out without permanent damage. He’ll forever have a scar shaped like her name.
When they walk inside, he kicks his shoes off roughly, hangs his backpack on a hook in the foyer and then moves further into the house. Again, he can hear her behind him, her socked feet shuffling softly on the hardwood floor.
When they reach the kitchen, he finally turns to face her, finds her glancing around the large open space that extends into the living room.
“It’s a nice place,” she murmurs. “A little too much gray for my tastes, but nice. I can see how it would be too big for one person, though.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
His question echoes in the quiet air, and her gaze snaps toward him. She looks almost startled.
“Serious about what?”
He rolls his eyes, and crosses his arms across his chest in a way that he hopes looks intimidating and defensive. In actuality, he’s trying to self-soothe. To physically hold himself together.
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to pretend this is fucking normal. You don’t get to do that.”
She stares at him for another moment, and then nods to herself.
“Yeah, okay. That’s fair. I…”
She trails off, and her hands curl into firsts at her sides. He thinks she might mumble something he can’t make out to herself, like she’s trying to psych herself up for the conversation. He tightens his arms around his body.
“I’m not a drug addict,” she begins, and he rolls his eyes again.
“Yeah. I’ve gathered that much already, Mel.”
She continues like she didn’t hear him.
“July 1st – the day I attended that first meeting – was the eighth anniversary of my dad’s death. And the ninth anniversary of my mom’s.”
A heavy silence settles over them. He doesn’t know how to respond to her revelation, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers the irony that he’s finally getting the details he wanted from her at a cost that he might not be able to bear.
She exhales slowly, and then brings her hands up to loop around the back of her neck.
“My mom died a month after I graduated from high school,” she whispers, and he can barely hear her, so he takes a few steps closer. “It happened…really quickly. She had a very aggressive form of stomach cancer. And by the time she was diagnosed, she only had a few months left to live. She went through chemo, but it didn’t do anything except make her sick and miserable. And then, she died.”
He licks his lips. His fingers twitch against his sides with the urge to touch her, but he resists.
“I’m sorry, Mel,” he says, and he means it. He really is sorry. No one deserves that.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, “but you don’t have to be if you don’t want to. I’m not…telling you this so you feel bad for me. I’m not even saying it to make you forgive me. I just want to explain. What I did was really shitty, and you deserve an explanation.”
He swallows thickly as she continues.
“My dad took my mom’s passing really hard. We all did, of course, but something inside my dad broke. He struggled with alcoholism when he was younger, but stopped cold turkey when my mom got pregnant with Becca and me. He was sober for a really long time, but after my mom died, he started up again ten times over.”
She winces slightly, like she’s remembering something that pains her. His fingers twitch again.
“I remember Becca used to call me at college crying because she hadn’t seen our dad in days when he was at his worst. Luckily, we could afford a live-in nurse at that point with the money we got from Mom’s life insurance, or I wouldn’t have been able to leave to go to school. Anyway, I was home for Christmas break my freshman year, and I was doing some of his laundry and found some baggies of pills in his sock drawer.”
He inhales sharply.
“I knew how dangerous it was, obviously. Especially since he was mixing them with the alcohol. I confronted him, because I didn’t know what else to do. I…begged him to stop, or to start seeing someone about it, anything. But he just told me to stay out of his fucking business. So I flushed the pills, and he got so mad that he left and didn’t come home for two weeks. That was the first holiday Becca and I spent without our parents. And when he finally did come home, the day before I was supposed to leave to go back to school, he told me not to come home unless I was willing to leave it alone.
“But I couldn’t,” she says, and she wipes at a tear that’s started to fall from her eye. “He was killing himself, and I couldn’t just…sit there and watch him do it. That had already happened with my mom. I couldn’t do it again. So I didn’t come home until I had to, until the summer. I still kind of hate myself for that. For leaving Becca to face it all on her own.”
“Mel,” he breathes, his arms falling to his sides as he takes another step toward her.
“When I finally did come back, he was so far gone. We barely saw him, and when we did, he was always high or drunk or both. And then, near the middle of June, he…got better all of a sudden? He cut down on the drugs and booze enough that he was actually present with us. And I thought that everything was going to be okay. We were spending time together as a family, and we made plans for the first anniversary of my mom’s death. We were going to do a balloon release in the park and buy her favorite flowers, and Becca and I were going to make her apple pie recipe. But on the day, I went into my dad’s room to tell him I was going to go to the store and pick up the balloons and…I found him in the bathroom. The toxicology report said it was the drugs. There was no alcohol in his system.”
He doesn’t know what to say. When he opens his mouth, a strangled sound comes out. It makes her look up at him, her eyes teary and puffy. He starts to move, all the anger drained from his body, but she puts a hand up, stopping him in his tracks.
“Please wait,” she tells him, her voice thin and wobbly. “Please, just…let me finish.”
So he uses every ounce of his shitty self-control to keep his feet planted where they are.
“I started going to an NA meeting every year on the anniversary of his death. I can’t even remember why I did it at first. I think it was maybe to just hurt myself. To make myself listen to all these awful stories to punish myself, almost? Since I wasn’t there for Becca for such a long time. Since I couldn’t make him get help. But, the meetings ended up being a lot different than I imagined them being. Most of them were really kind of hopeful, almost. And they started being kind of comforting, in a way. That, sure, maybe my dad couldn’t be saved, but these people are really working to get better. So they don’t leave their families the way he did. And…I don’t know. It just kind of made a really hard day the slightest bit better.”
“Mel,” he whispers softly.
“None of this is an excuse for what I did. I shouldn’t have lied, especially to you. Especially for as long as I did. And I really did intend just to go to that one meeting, like I did all the other years. But – ”
Her voice breaks as a sob finally rips from her chest. He rushes to her, holds her against him. Her arms go around his torso, squeezing him tightly.
“But I met you,” she says into his chest, her tears immediately starting to soak through his t-shirt. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about you for two days, and then when I saw you in the parking garage, and you asked me to go with you, I couldn’t stop myself from saying no, and then it just turned into you being my favorite person. And by the time I felt comfortable enough telling you everything, we’d already known each other for weeks, and I liked you so much. And I was afraid that if I told you, you’d be so mad that you’d leave, and I didn’t know how to handle another person I loved leaving me. So, I just…kept lying. And I’m so sorry about that, Frank. I really am. It wasn’t fair to you, or to anyone at the meetings. I’m sorry, and if you don’t want to be my friend anymore, I’d truly understand. If you want me to leave, if you want to leave – “
“I’m not leaving,” he says firmly, and fuck it, he presses his lips to the crown of her head once, twice. “I’m not fucking leaving, honey. I’ll never leave if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t want you to,” she tells him earnestly, tightening her hold on him. “You’re my best friend. My favorite person. And I love...”
Her words get lost as she heaves out another sob.
“I know, baby,” he promises. He pulls back just a little so he can use both his hands to cup her jaw, tilting her face up toward his. Her eyes are red, her nose is running a little, and strands of her hair are sticking to the wetness on her cheeks. He’s never seen anything so beautiful, and he leans down, presses his lips along her hairline, across her forehead and cheekbones, to her nose and to the corner of her mouth. “I love you, too. I love you so fucking much, Mel.”
“You do?” she asks, almost incredulously, and he laughs lightly.
“Yes, Mel. Christ, I’ve been trying to be normal about it for months. I love you so – “
She doesn’t let him finish. Instead, she lifts onto the tips of her toes and kisses him.
Their lips move together gently, almost lazily. It’s sweet and comforting and perfect. It’s like falling in love slowly. It’s like walking into a house for the first time and realizing you’re already home.
When they part, she wraps her arms around the back of neck, and his hands snake around her waist. Her fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, and he closes his eyes.
* * *
Abby serves him divorce papers on January 8th.
Mel’s eyelashes flutter against his skin as she wakes up, the dull early morning light starting to filter in through the blinds. He’s been up for about forty-five minutes already, a new medical journal that arrived in the mail yesterday open in his lap, but he’s mostly been watching her sleep. He smirks as she buries her face further into his forearm before looking up at him with a soft smile, her brown eyes wide and beautiful and bleary.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
She presses a kiss to bicep as she sits up in bed, reaching over to the nightstand to grab her glasses and phone. She frowns once her eyes adjust and she sees the time.
“Why are you up so early? We’re off today.”
“Because I like to watch you sleep. Plus, you kept kicking me in the shins again.”
She rolls her eyes slightly, but can’t hide her smile as she leans in to kiss him. He returns it, of course, but pulls back to look at her in her surprise after a moment.
“Not enforcing the brush your teeth before kissing me rule this morning?”
She shrugs, and then pulls him back in, her left hand tangling in his dark, mussed hair while the other reaches for the waistband of his boxers.
“What can I say?” she says against his lips. “I had a dream about you.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice, as he rolls her onto her back and pulls the covers up over their heads.
He’s had sex with her so many times since that first night in November, but the lazy mornings, when they have nowhere else to be and world is quiet and he fucks into her slowly as they pass gentle kisses back and forth might be his favorite. She comes around him and he spills inside her, and he’s never felt more loved and cherished in his life.
He’s home. He’s exactly where he wants to be.
He’s still inside her, and she’s telling him about the lemon bars and surprise dessert she’s going to make for the meeting tonight – she still goes with him most times, since it’s always been an open session – when there’s a knock on the door. They look at each other in confusion for a moment, before he pulls out of her reluctantly and throws on some clothes.
When he opens the front door, he finds the Allegheny County sheriff standing there, a serious expression on his face.
“What the f – “
His words die in his throat when he sees the manilla envelope in the man’s hands. And he barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Abby would be dramatic and get the fucking sheriff involved.
“Yeah,” the officer says, handing over the folder before crossing his arms loosely. “Do you need any guidance on what these are or what to do?”
“Um, no,” he mutters. “This has…been a long time coming.”
The sheriff says a few more things that he honestly doesn’t pay much attention to because he can’t stop staring at the goddamn envelope. Finally, the man tells him that he’s sorry for his loss, like he’s delivering a death certificate and not divorce papers.
When Mel comes downstairs, the sheriff has been gone for a few minutes already, but he’s still standing there with the front door wide open, letting the cold morning air inside.
“Frank?”
He turns around, mumbles out an apology before pulling the door shut. Mel looks at him for a moment, and then spots the envelope in his hands. Her brow furrows.
“Oh, Frank,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s weird to have his girlfriend apologize to him about his impending divorce, he realizes somewhere in the back of his mind. And he’s not sorry about the divorce. He isn’t, really.
“Are you okay?” she asks him, glancing down at her slippers for a moment. When she looks back up at him, he can’t miss the faint, insecure glint in her eyes.
“Yeah,” he says quickly, tossing the papers onto the couch carelessly. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…I don’t want to think about it right now.”
“Okay,” Mel says, chewing on her bottom lip for a moment before forcing a smile onto her face as she turns toward the kitchen. “I’ll, uh, get breakfast ready then.”
“Mel?” he calls out softly, and when she turns back to him, he takes a steadying breath. “I love you.”
The gentle grin that appears on her face this time is genuine.
“I know,” she assures him. “I love you, too.”
They eat breakfast next to each other at the island in the kitchen. She’s made him over easy eggs, even though she usually can’t stand the sight or smell of them, because she knows they’re his favorite. He kisses her temple as they do the New York Times crossword together on her phone, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.
She tells him she needs to start baking if she’s going to be done in time for the meeting tonight, so he hugs her closer for just a second before she maneuvers out of his grasp and starts rummaging through cabinets and the fridge.
He watches her as she zests lemons and sifts flour and sets out her butter so it can warm to room temperature. She moves around the kitchen like it’s as familiar as her own, because it is. She moves around like she belongs, because she does.
After a while, he gets up, grabs a ballpoint pen from the magnetic cup stuck to the side of the fridge, and walks into the living room. He settles onto the couch, picks up the manilla envelope as he trembles just the slightest bit.
He inhales slowly, trying to calm his nerves. When he breathes in, he smells the baking lemon bars and the apples she’s just started to peel. She’s listening to Hiss by Megan Thee Stallion on the Bluetooth speaker; he’s gotten a lot better at identifying her songs over these past months.
And when he opens the envelope, his hands are steady.
