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Sweetening The Deal. (part 13.)

Summary: while you and Melissa Schemmenti prepare yourselves to meet up with her mother and siblings, the redhead shares her most vulnerable side along with her deepest secrets.

tags: @lifeismomentsyoucannotunderstand @lisaannwaltersbra @italianaidiota @kukikatt @dopenightmaretyphoon @pitstopsapphic @jeridandridge @aliensuperst4rr @writerspirit

WC: 6k. (not revised, i apologize for any mistakes.)

Warning(s): references about pregnancy loss, mentions of s*icide, domestic violence, depressive melissa.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12.

A deep feeling of longing and nostalgia spended on those almost two months, settles deep into the bones of the house, turning everything soft and honeyed. Through the open balcony doors, the untired wind carries the scent of salt and cypress, that smells like summer's long past, like childhood memories buried beneath the weight of time, a whisper from the hills beyond. It drifts over the bed, over the half-packed suitcase that sits gaping like an open wound from a cut that always bleeds, but Melissa Schemmenti barely notices.

She stands at the foot of the king bed, arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring down at the half-packed green suitcase like it’s something foreign, something unwelcome.

Her rough fingers curl against her biceps, itching for the familiar bite of nicotine, but she doesn’t reach for the crumpled pack on the nightstand. Instead, she chews the inside of her cheek, gaze flickering over the disjointed mess inside the suitcase—the neatly folded blouses, the tangled phone charger, the well-worn copy of To Kill a Mockingbird she always takes on long trips. And then, nestled between it all, a bottle of the perfume you gave her last Christmas. The first one you spend together. Here in Lake Como.

It’s half-empty. She doesn’t even wear it that often, but she keeps it. Maybe because it smells like you, or maybe because it reminds her of the way you grinned when you handed it to her, teasing her for not owning a single “fancy” scent that didn’t feel like your eyes were burning when you smelled it. She told you then that she didn’t need a damn ass perfume—she smelled just fine without it. But later that night, when you were asleep after some hours of gentle sex, she’d dabbed some on her wrist, just to see if you’d notice. You did. The next morning, hugging her from behind and kissing her bare freckled shoulder.

Her digits hover over the bottle now, but she doesn’t touch it.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

It’s just packing. Just a suitcase.

But every time the green eyed woman reaches for something, her breath shortens, her chest tightens, and she finds herself frozen, staring at the open bag like it might swallow her whole.

Meanwhile, you move through the bedroom with an ease she envies—folding, gathering, humming under your breath like this is just any other trip. But even as you tuck one of her shirts neatly into the suitcase, she feels your gaze flicker toward her, soft and knowing.

She forces herself to move, reaching for a sweater she probably won’t wear but might need. She folds it carefully, smoothing out every wrinkle with slow strokes, like precision might settle the unease curling in her stomach.

“You feelin’ alright?” your voice comes from the other side of the bed, quiet but steady..

Melissa clenches her jaw, nodding once. “Sure, hun. Why wouldn’t I? We are going back to Philly, it’s a nice thing.”

You don’t call her out on the lie. But she knows you don’t believe it, the way she mentioned Philadelphia sounded a bit forced, like your girlfriend was about to throw up immediately just at the thought of returning. She shoves the sweater into the suitcase a little too roughly, hands lingering on the fabric. Her full fingers flex.

“It’s just weird,” she points out after a long moment, like that explains everything.

You pause, watching her. “Cause it makes it real?”

Melissa swallows. “Yeah....”

The word is barely more than breath.

She can feel her pulse at the base of her throat, can hear the slight unevenness in her breathing. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? To feel this way over a suitcase, over a trip she’s been putting off for too long.

Just a visit. Just an eldest daughter going to see her mother.

But it doesn’t feel simple.

Because the last time she packed like this, she had been leaving from Center City Philadelphia. Running. Throwing clothes into a duffel at two in the morning, her breath short, her hands shaking, Joe asleep in the next bedroom after drinking too much alcohol, oblivious to the fact that when he woke up, she’d be gone. Forever.

And even years before that—on the night she married him, on the night she should have been surrounded by love, by family—her mother hadn’t even been there.

Teresa didn’t mind coming to the wedding of her eldest daughter.

At twenty, she remembers clearly standing in the Catholic church basement, half-drunk off cheap champagne, her new expensive gold band still too tight on her finger, waiting for a woman who never arrived. Countless, countless people had whispered excuses. She probably got caught up at the store. She must’ve forgotten the time. But Melissa Schemmenti had known. Had known even then, even before the years piled on, before her real mother’s memory began slipping like sand through a sieve.

Pearl had been there, though. With her long chocolate brown curls and genuine smile. Sitting in the third pew, hands folded in her lap and dressed in her best, the same way she had been for every milestone of your girlfriend’s life. The woman who raised her, who fed her, who had kissed her scraped knees, who had taught her how to roll out pasta dough from scratch. Who taught her how to braid her hair, the basics and how to curse properly in Sicilian when the world was fucking unfair.

But your girlfriend hadn’t looked at her. No.

Hadn’t paid attention to the woman who had shown up during her entire existence and still does, too busy searching for the one who hadn’t. She had been too paranoid, scanning the room, too busy pretending she didn’t care, too busy laughing too loudly, drinking too much, leaning too hard into the role of a woman who wasn’t hurt, who wasn’t waiting for someone who would never come.

It hadn’t been forgetfulness.

It had been a choice.

And now? Now, the matriarch of the Schemmentis barely even remembers she has a daughter. The thought makes her want to throw up all the edibles she ate compulsively to fight her anxiety and body images. Or hang herself on the closest ceiling with the closest rope. Melissa clears her throat, shaking it off, and reaches for another shirt, folding it with the same forced precision as the last.

You’re still watching her, your eyes patient, waiting.

She doesn’t look up, but after a minute, she speaks, her voice quiet. “I don’t know what I’m gonna find when I get there. In that stupid place.”

You don’t answer right away. Then, gently, “Babe. You won’t be alone, I will be there holding your hand the whole time.”

She stays in silence. Actually, Melissa barely registers the moment her hands start to tremble. One second, she’s gripping the edge of the suitcase, trying to focus on the way the zipper feels beneath her fingertips, and the next, her vision blurs, her chest tightening until she can’t breathe properly.

The older woman clenches her jaw, shutting her eyes roughly. She won’t cry like a stupid child. Not over this. But the weight of it is too much. Too many years of neglect between her and her biological mother, too many words left unsaid, too much anger buried under guilt.

Her breath stutters and quickens, and before she can stop herself, she’s turning on her heel, pushing open the glass doors, stepping out onto the terrace. The air outside is warm, the sky an impossible shade of blue, the scent of lemon trees thick in the breeze. It’s beautiful, really. Straight out of a museum panting.

It should calm her.

But the lump in her throat only swells.

The heiress of the Schemmentis grips the railing, eyes fluttering shut again, her shoulders rising and falling with each uneven breath. The villa stretches before her, the rolling hills of the countryside unfurling like a painting. The wind tugs at her auburn hair, sweeping across her pale skin, but it doesn’t soothe the ache pressing into her ribs.

She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, willing the tears away, but one escapes, trailing down her cheek before she can stop it.

Then, before she can scream in pain, she feels something. Only warmth.

Your arms wrap around her from behind, slow and careful, your chest pressing gently against her back. You don’t speak right away, don’t try to fix it or tell her it’s okay. You just hold her, your hands smoothing over her forearms, anchoring her.

Melissa whimpers, a shaky, painful thing, tilting her head slightly toward yours like a puppy looking for affection.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” your girlfriend admits. “I can’t look into her eyes without crying. Last time, I visited her and Teresa didn’t even react when I was holding her damn hand!”

You press a kiss to the side of her head, your grip tightening just enough. “Melly, you don’t have to do it alone,” you remind her. “I’m right here.”

She swallows, another tear slipping free. She’s still terrified. Still unsure.

Her chest tightens further as she buries her face in your shoulder, her breath shaky but slowing as the steady rhythm of your heartbeat anchors her. She wraps her strong arms around you, pulling you close as if she could merge with you, as if you could absorb all the things she can’t say, all the fears she can’t voice.

For a long moment, neither of you speak. It’s just the gentle press of your body against hers, the softness of the breeze, and the distant hum of the villa that fills the space between you.

Melissa whispers against your neck. “I don’t deserve you. Never did.”

You pull back just enough to meet her green eyes, your hand cupping her cheek, thumb brushing over her skin gently, wiping away the remnants of her salty tears.

“Babe, you don’t have to deserve me,” you say softly. “You already have me. And I’m not going anywhere. Pinky promise.”

A breath escapes her plump lips, a quiet sob trapped somewhere in the depths, but the sincerity in your words, the softness in your gaze it's enough to quiet the fucking storm inside her, even if only for a second. The tension in her body eases a little and she lets out a shaky laugh. “Shit. I don’t know what I’d do without you, you know that?”

You smile, brushing her messy curls from her face before leaning in to kiss her forehead. “You don’t have to find out, my love.”

One of her perfectly manicured hands presses into your chest, fingers curling gently around your black top. “I know… but sometimes, I still feel like I’m on the edge, like if I fall, I might not come back from it alive.”

Your gaze softens even more, a look of deep understanding settling in your features. “You won’t fall again. Not with me by your side.”

Melissa sighs, letting herself sink into the feeling of being held in a way that feels different, grounding. She leans into you more, feeling the warmth of your embrace seeping through her already destroyed soul, a comfort she didn’t know she needed but now can’t imagine being without.

“You’re always taking care of me,” she murmurs, a little unsure. “I don’t know how to take care of myself, let alone anyone else.”

You smile, brushing your lips against her temple before pulling away gently. “That’s not true. You take care of me, too, in your own way. And right now…” you look her over, your eyes filled with a quiet tenderness. “Right now, it’s my turn to take care of you.”

Her heart made of gold but always hidden by rocks skips a beat, the words sending a warm wave of joy through her. “You know, you’re pretty damn good at it.”

Your lips curve—not in triumph, not in amusement, but in something quieter. A smile made of moonlight and mercy. You step back only slightly, just enough to take her in fully. Your gentle hands remain, anchored around the gentle swell of her hourglass waist. Her body is warm beneath your touch, shaped like something holy. Like she was carved to be held.

“Come on,” you whisper, voice low, coaxing. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She doesn’t answer at first. Her olive eyes, dark and rimmed with the fatigue of too many days spent fighting the world and herself, flicker with something ancient and childlike—resistance, pride, fear. But only for a moment. Then her chest rises with a breath so soft it nearly dissolves in the air between you. She nods.

You take her shaking hand, and she follows.

The hallway is dim, cast in the golden hush of quiet evening. The faint scent of lavender greets you before the huge door opens—candle wax melting slowly into itself on the windowsill, steam ghosting against the mirror, fogging the reflection. The deluxe bathroom hums with warmth, like a cocoon spun from safety and silence.

She doesn’t speak as you reach for the faucet, your movements gentle, unhurried. Water spills into the tub like a lullaby, curling in soft spirals, its warmth blooming into the room like spring thawing through snow. You test the heat with your fingers, adjusting the flow like one tunes an instrument—precise, intuitive.

Then, without a word, you turn back to her.

Her eyes are on you. There’s something wounded there, and something brave. You touch the hem of her shirt, asking without asking. She nods again.

So you undress her—not quickly, not perfunctorily. You unfold her. Peeling her layers back like pages of a diary, slow and reverent. Her blouse, soft and worn at the seams. The curve of her tense shoulders, revealed like a secret. Every inch of her is a story, and you read her like scripture, gently, with awe.

Even now, after all the endless nights tangled in each other’s arms, after all the times your mouths have met, after every inch of Melissa Schemmenti becomes familiar—you still find yourself stunned by her. Not just the shape of her, but the way she simply exists in her skin. Bold, even in her fragility. Sacred, even when uncertain.

You are still in love with the sight of her. That hasn’t dulled. It never dulls.

The swell of her hips, the lines of age and fire carved into her thighs, the freckles you find new ones of every time you look. The small, human imperfections she tries to hide, not knowing that you cherish each one like a found shell on a quiet beach.

Her body is not new to you, but it is never ordinary.

Using the purest of your smiles, you undress her with the quiet reverence of a worshipper. Not because she demands it—but because you can’t help it. Because her nude and natural form undoes something in you each time. Because even now, when she’s stripped of artifice, stripped of strength, she’s still the most disarming thing you’ve ever seen.

And your girlfriend lets you see her. That, too, is a gift.

She steps into the bath, the warmth rising to kiss her skin, her breath catching as the water wraps around her like a lover. You kneel beside her, and place your palm against her back, your thumb tracing the notches of her spine. Her breath begins to slow. Her muscles loosen beneath your hand, one knot at a time.

Her body leans into the comfort. Into you.

The steam curls like silk between you both, and when her olive orbs meet yours, there’s a tremor behind them—one of softness, not fear. Something ancient flickering in the dim light.

“Amore, you ever regret it?” she prompts, her tone super hushed, brittle as lace. “That night? The bar? Meeting me?”

The world falls away again. All you can hear is the water shifting, the flicker of candlelight, the tremble of her breath.

“No,” you answer without pause, because the truth is already there, glowing at the edges of your chest. “Not for a single second.”

She watches you. Not as a lover—tonight, not even as someone who is sure she’s loved. She looks at you as someone afraid to be believed. Someone who’s bracing for the absence of tenderness.

And still, you don’t look away.

“I wonder…” Melissa whispers. “If things would’ve been easier. If I hadn’t gone. If I hadn’t let myself fall into this—into you.”

You reach for her, fingertips brushing along her damp face, tracing the warmth beneath the surface. “Maybe,” you admit, your voice like velvet. “But then I wouldn’t have known what it feels like to love someone like this. I wouldn’t have you. And I’d choose this every time. The beauty and the ache.”

The older woman closes her eyes, your words curling around her like warmth. When she opens them again, they’re glassy with something soft—something unguarded.

“I’m not easy to love,” she sighs. “I’m tired. I’m old. I’m flawed. I’ve made mistakes I don’t know how to unmake.”

You lean forward, press a kiss to the space just above her brow. A sacred place.

“You don’t need to be easy. Or fixed. Or anyone else but who you are right now. I’ve seen all of you. I’ve loved all of you. And I’d walk into that bar a thousand times just to meet you again.”

Melissa exhales slowly, a breath that trembles just slightly before slipping free. Her focus stays fixed on the clean water—on the way it ripples around her thighs, glinting faintly in the candlelight like liquid gold. Your hand is still in hers, resting between the soft slopes of her knees. She hasn’t let go.

The question you already answered lies quiet now, like a stone at the bottom of a river. But something else rises to the surface—it feels darker, older. The part she’s always tried to bury beneath silk blouses and thick skin and walls built out of wit and control.

“But I was such a bitch to you,” your girlfriend says suddenly, her voice thick and scraped raw by something she’s held in her mouth for too long.

She doesn’t look at you. Not yet. Her gaze stays on the shifting water, as if ashamed to face the reflection she’s casting in it.

“Back then… when it was just money between us. I acted like I didn’t care. Like you were just another thing I could throw cash at and feel in control again,” her voice breaks—barely, but enough. “And you fuckin’ let me.”

The last words land heavy. Not as blame, but as disbelief—that you could have stayed, knowing the coldness she wore like perfume in those early days. Before she started to fall for you.

The green eyed woman finally turns her head, just slightly, her gaze finding yours. And for a moment, she looks like she’s waiting for you to say it. To tell her she’s right. That she was cruel, and foolish, and undeserving.

Maybe, deep down, she wants you to say it. To confirm what she’s always feared in the quietest corners of herself—that she doesn’t deserve this soft version of love.

Because Melissa Schemmenti is not used to being forgiven. She’s not used to being held with reverence or spoken to like she’s tender, like she’s worth gentleness. She was raised in noise, raised to survive, not to trust. Love, in her world, was always conditional. Earned through grit, or toughness, or silence. And when it came, it came with teeth.

So this? You, sitting in the bath behind her, arms wrapped around her body like she’s precious… your voice warm, patient, steady… it doesn’t fit with what she’s spent a lifetime believing. It almost feels wrong, like wearing silk over bruises. Like dancing in a church with muddy shoes.

And when she speaks—But I was such a bitch to you—there’s something frayed in it. Something more than guilt. Something like… a confession.

Not just of past mistakes, but of the deeper, darker truth she’s afraid to say aloud.

That maybe she isn’t the good one. Maybe she’s not just complicated or guarded or a little rough around the edges.

Maybe she crossed a line. Maybe she burned too much. Maybe she was selfish and cruel and used you like something disposable. Maybe all the cold, transactional ways she treated you in the beginning—when it was easier to call it money than admit she was already starting to care—meant something about who she really is.

Maybe the way she held you at arm’s length, the way she made you earn scraps of affection, the way she tried to stay in control by keeping you emotionally small—that wasn’t just armor.

Maybe it was a mirror.

And maybe what it reflected…was a monster.

So she doesn’t look at you when she says it. She stares at the water instead, at the bubbles breaking apart on the surface like they know something she doesn’t. Her voice is thick, but there’s steel in it—a brittle, defensive kind of strength that says I know who I am and I’m not asking for mercy.

Because that’s what she expects: that you’ll finally agree. That you’ll say yes, you were cruel, and selfish, and I should’ve walked away.

And maybe she wants you to say it. Wants to be punished. Wants to finally have it named so she can stop pretending she’s not afraid of what she’s done. Of who she is. Of what she might have broken in you.

You sigh, quiet but unflinching, tilting your head just slightly as you study her.

“Yeah,” you confirm. “You were kind of a bitch.”

Her mouth twitches, the corners barely lifting, as if she wasn’t expecting you to be that honest. But you don’t stop.

“Closed-off. Controlling. Emotionally constipated.”

That almost gets a smile out of her. Almost.

“But,” you continue, gently, firmly, “I never let you treat me like I was just some accessory. You remember that, right?”

You squeeze her hand. She doesn’t pull away. “I called you out when you needed it. And I stayed. Not because I was naive. But because I knew. I knew there was something underneath all that cold, sugar mommy bullshit. And I wanted to know her.”

Melissa lets out a soft scoff, shaking her head. “Jesus H. Christ. You make me sound like some asshole in a movie.”

You raise your eyebrows, smirking. “Well…”

The redhead groans, but this time, it’s warm. Familiar. The groan of someone remembering how far they’ve come. The groan of someone almost, almost, ready to forgive herself.

“I thought…” she starts again, quieter now. “I thought if I kept my distance, if I just kept things transactional… I wouldn’t feel anything.” She lets out a bitter laugh, eyes flicking back to the water. “But you made it impossible not to.”

You watch her for a long moment, your heart both aching and full. “Yeah, I tend to do that.”

Finally, her eyes meet yours again. And this time, she smiles—but it’s small. Fleeting. Like it’s still learning how to stay.

“I don’t know why you put up with me,” she murmurs. Her fingers tighten around yours. “Why you didn’t just walk away when I acted like a—”

“Because I saw you,” you interrupt, your voice quiet but sure. “Not the version you were trying so hard to be. Not the armor. The real you. And I liked her. Even when she was being an emotionally constipated, controlling bitch.”

That startles a laugh out of her—a real one, unguarded and unpretending. Her head tips back, just slightly, resting against the cool porcelain edge, and for a moment, she looks so young like that. Like an innocent girl learning to be loved.

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters through her grin.

You shift beside the tub, rising from your knees and letting your hand trail down the warm water’s edge. And you watch her for a moment, her body half-submerged, damp tendrils of red hair clinging to her shoulders.

And then, slowly, without breaking her gaze, you slip your shirt over your head.

She watches you, not hungrily, not possessively. But reverently.

You step into the bath behind her, easing yourself into the water, letting it close over your skin with a quiet sigh. Melissa shifts to make room, her back brushing against your chest as you settle in.

You pull her gently against you, wrapping your arms around her waist from behind, your thighs bracketing hers. Her beautiful body melts into yours like it remembers this shape, this belonging. She lets her head fall back to your shoulder. Her eyes close.

“I don’t deserve this,” she whispers.

You press your lips to the crown of her head, your voice just breath against her scalp. “You do,” you murmur. “You always did.”

Melissa doesn’t answer, but you feel the way her hands clutch yours, one of them guiding your palm to rest over her chest. Over her heart.

“I stayed,” you whisper, “Because every time you pushed me away, I saw the way you hated doing it. I saw the way it broke you. And every time you pretended not to care, I could feel how much you did.”

Your girlfriend is quiet. Not because she has nothing to say, but because she doesn’t know how to say it. Her silence is not distance, it’s surrender. So, you kiss the place just behind her ear, then her jaw, then the curve of her shoulder, slowly, without asking for anything in return.

“You can be a bitch sometimes,” you say, your voice teasing but adoring, like it’s the fondest truth you’ve ever spoken. “But you’re my bitch.”

She groans, dropping her head back again, laughing softly. “Oh my God. I hate you.”

You smile into her skin. “You love me.”

“…Fine,” Melissa whispers, after a long pause. “I really do.” And this time, when she squeezes your hand, rough fingers woven between yours, pressed to the quiet beat of her chest—it’s not out of guilt or fear or penance.

It’s just love.

Quiet. Undramatic. Fierce in its steadiness. And it’s hers. And it’s yours.

The silence that follows is comfortable and you hum low in your throat, a soft, instinctive sound as your fingers work through the thick waves of her auburn hair, lathering slowly. The warmth of the water curls around both of you like a gentle fog, lavender-scented and still. She’s totally settled between your legs, her back resting fully against your chest, her skin slick and warm against yours, the heat of her body blooming through the quiet rise and fall of each breath.

It’s rare, this kind of softness from her. Melissa’s a woman made of corners and caution, someone who’s learned to carry herself like a fortress, tense, always braced, as if relaxing might be the thing that undoes her completely.

But here… in this small, silent bath lit by the hush of candlelight… she melts. Slowly. Unfolding beneath your hands like something tightly coiled finally remembering how to exhale.

Your fingers massage gentle circles into her scalp, slow and reverent, like worship. She sighs under your touch, low and quiet, like her body is remembering what safety feels like. You tilt your head slightly, careful lips brushing her temple as the water laps gently around you both.

Then your fingers slip lower, sliding down the nape of her neck, parting the wet strands of her hair.

And that’s when you see them.

Tiny, pale ribbons of skin, just barely raised. Faint silver scars, scattered like forgotten constellations across her scalp. Hidden things. Old things. So subtle they could be missed in the shadows of candlelight—if your hands didn’t know her so well.

You stop.

It’s only for a second—your breath catching, your fingertips hovering mid-motion—but she feels it. Of course she does.

Melissa always notices.

“What?” she asks softly, her voice tight, closed-off. A reflex. The shape of someone who’s already pulled the door shut behind her.

You swallow, slow, and trace one of the marks with the back of your digit—so delicately it barely counts as touch.

“These,” you speak. “I never noticed them before.”

She stiffens instantly. Not visibly—but you feel it. The air sharpens. Her muscles lock, subtle but undeniable, and her breath falters in her throat. The easy intimacy of a moment ago retreats like a tide pulling from shore.

“It’s nothing, ok?” the redhead answers quickly—too quickly. Her voice is brittle, cracking around the edges of a lie she doesn’t want to tell but doesn’t know how not to.

You don’t press. You simply bend forward, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. Your lips linger there, warm and still, letting her feel the steadiness of your presence.

“It’s not nothing, Lis,” you whisper into her damp hair.

Melissa lets out a soft breath, but there’s no relief in it. Just restraint. She leans forward slightly, like she’s trying to make space between you—trying to slip back into control. But you don’t let her go. You wrap your arms around her middle, pulling her gently back to you, her spine aligning to your chest again. A silent reminder: You are safe. You are not alone. I am not afraid of your past.

After a long moment, her head tilts, resting once more against your shoulder. And when she speaks again, it’s quiet. Small. Like a secret said into the night.

“It was Joe. My ex-husband,” your sugar mommy explains. “A long time ago.”

Your arms tighten instinctively. You don’t say anything, not yet. You just listen, your heart suddenly full of ache.

“He never hit my face,” she continues, more to the shadows than to you. “Didn’t want to leave anything people could see. He was smart like that. But my head? My ribs?” her body is shaking in fear now. “Son of a bitch knew where to land it. How to make it hurt without making it obvious.”

Melissa’s raspy voice is even, but inside the smoothness is a jagged edge—sharp with memory. Worn with shame. The years folded into her words like seams in old fabric.

Your hands stay on her. One pressed gently to her stomach, the other cupping her shoulder, grounding her.

She exhales again, but this time it cracks into something bitter. “One time… he broke my wrist after a fight,” she holds back a sob. “Threw me into the stairs and spit on my face.”

Your stomach turns, slow and sick.

“I hit the landing so hard I couldn’t get up. Not for a while. My legs just—stopped. I stayed there for hours,” she laughs, but it’s not a real sound. Just a breath twisted into something cruel. “Just laying on the stairs. Like trash he hadn’t picked up yet. Only God knows how I got the urge to stand up and throw myself into the bed acting like nothing happened.”

“I hate that you went through that,” you whisper, lips brushing her forehead, wishing you could unwrite those nights. Wishing you could hold the version of her that laid there in silence and make her feel anything but discarded.

“Yeah, well,” the Sicilian quips. “I let it happen.”

You shake your head before she even finishes the sentence. “No. He did it. He made that choice. That’s not on you, Melissa. Not ever.”

She doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t agree either. She just sinks back into you, the weight of her memory still wrapped around her like a second skin.

The bathwater sways gently with your breath, soft ripples moving between your legs and hers, rising against her hips like a silent promise that none of that will ever happen again. You reach for her hair, rinse the suds away—your fingers moving gently, reverently, as if you could wash him out of her strand by strand.

“I see you,” you whisper against her ear. “Not what he did to you. Not the pain. Not the scars. You.”

“I was twenty-two when it started,” she murmurs, her voice nearly drowned by the hush of the water and the candlelight whispering against the tiles.

Just above her shoulder, you breathe in. Her words don’t shock you, not really. You’d always known there were things she carried like stones in her chest—buried beneath sarcasm and strength. But hearing it aloud is different. Hearing her speak it, like a ghost climbing out of the well she locked it in… it splits something open in you.

Twenty-two. Barely older than you were when you first met her. A girl still figuring out how to carry her own name without apology. And she had already survived him.

She shifts slightly between your legs, her back still warm against your chest, the bathwater curling gently around both your bodies. One of your arms moves to gently comb through her damp red hair, as if you could untangle the memories with your fingers.

“At first, it was just words,” she says, almost casually, like she’s trying not to sound dramatic. But you can hear the old bruise in her tone. “Little things, y’know? ‘Why’d you wear that?’ ‘Why are you talking to him?’ ‘You gonna eat all that?’”

Melissa mimics his voice, laced with condescension—almost mocking—but you feel the tremor in her. “Shit that made me second-guess myself. Made me smaller.”

You press a soft peck to her shoulder, your lips lingering there, your arm still wrapped firm around her soft belly, grounding her.

“And I stayed.”

You close your eyes and press your forehead to the back of her neck, your breath failing. “Mel…”

“I thought it was normal,” she cries. “I thought maybe I deserved it. He had this way of twisting things—always made it seem like it was my fault.” she lets out a humorless chuckle. “And then you start believing it. That if you just act right, if you just love them hard enough, they’ll stop. They’ll change.”

Your grip tightens around her. Your palm presses flat to her chest, protective. Her hand slides down, finding yours, and she starts to trace soft circles over your skin. A rhythm. A tether.

“When did it end?” you ask, careful, like you’re afraid of scaring the memory back into silence.

“The night I lost the baby.”

Your breath stutters in your lungs.

She’s never told you this.

The words hang in the space between your bodies, heavy and electric, like a storm that’s taken too long to arrive. You feel her stiffen, like she wants to pull them back, as if saying them out loud made them more real than they’ve ever been.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she exhales. And the next words fall out of her like a confession.

“I never told him I was pregnant. That night… he was angry about something. I don’t even remember what anymore. It didn’t matter. It never did,” her fingers tighten around yours. “He threw me into the wall.”

She pauses, and you can feel her body remembering. The pain of it. The helplessness.

“And then there was blood.”

You close your eyes, a sting rising behind them. You press your lips against her damp skin, trying not to let your rage spill out. She doesn’t need your fury right now. She needs your calm. Your arms. Your stillness.

“I didn’t even realize it was a miscarriage until later. I didn’t… know, at first. My body just felt—off. Like it was unraveling.”

“I was in the shower.” The image is unbearable, her alone, under too-bright light, scalding water masking the sound of grief. “There were these cramps. Like something twisting inside me. And then blood. A lot of it. Just rushing down my legs, mixing with the water. I remember holding onto the wall, thinking, This can’t be happening.”

Your fingers stroke her chest again, the motion trembling now.

“I knew what it was,” she continues. “Deep down, I think I knew. But I stayed in the shower. I screamed, shaking, until the water ran cold.”

You hold her tighter, your cheek pressed against her spine like a prayer.

“I wish I could go back,” you hold back tears. “I wish I could find you in that bathroom, take you away from him, wrap you in something warm and safe, and tell you that you didn’t have to stay. That none of it was your fault. That you were already enough.”

Melissa turns then, slowly, the water sloshing softly around you both. She shifts in your lap until she’s facing you, straddling your thighs, her hands moving to your face. Her eyes, green and tired, still shining from the past find yours. She reaches up, tucking a damp strand of hair behind your ear with the gentlest touch.

“You did. Maybe not back then. But you did.”

And before you can speak, before you can tell her again how much she means to you, her lips are on yours.

The kiss is slow. Deep. No urgency. Just years of ache pressed into skin, just gratitude and surrender and the smallest, trembling seed of healing. Her hands slide into your hair. Yours settle on her waist.

And in that warm, candlelit tub, with ghosts drifting just outside the door, Melissa Schemmenti kisses you like you’re the first kind thing that’s ever happened to her.

Because maybe… you are.

Hours seem to pass and she traces looping shapes along your forearm—absent and idle, like her body doesn’t quite know what to do with stillness. You don’t move. You just hold her, your arms gently encircling her, your chin resting in the crook between her shoulder and neck. You wait, not to fix, not to force but to be there. However long she needs.

“I wanted that baby, Y/N.”

The words fall out of her mouth like something broken free after years of being buried. And they land with a quiet kind of violence, like a glass cracking from the inside.

She doesn’t look at you. Your girlfriend can‘t.

“I didn’t even know how much I wanted them until I lost it. It was like—I don’t know, like something in me had already made space. Even before I knew for sure. Like my body was waiting.”

Every single word press against your ribs.

“I used to talk to them,” she says, barely above the sound of water lapping against the porcelain. “Just when I was alone. In the kitchen. In the car. While brushing my teeth. Stupid shit.” her lip trembled. “What our days would be like. What I’d name ’em. What kinda kid they’d be.”

“Babe..”

“I wanted a daughter,” she breathes, like it’s something she’s never let herself say aloud. “I thought I could do it right this time. Give her all the shit I never got. Protect her from everything I couldn’t protect myself from.”

Her voice goes thinner.

“I thought maybe if I had her, I wouldn’t be so fucking alone.”

Your arms wrap tighter around her, as if you could shield her from the past even now.

“When it happened… I couldn’t even scream. I didn’t cry. I just—sat there. In the bathroom. On the floor. Holding myself together like…if I didn’t move, it wouldn’t be real.”

Finally, she turns her head and looks at you. Her green eyes are glassy, rimmed red, and so hollow it nearly breaks you in half. Not because they’re empty but because of what they’ve carried, alone, for so long.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to die more than I did that night,” she confesses.

You reach up, your thumb ghosting over the strong, aching line of her jaw.

“Melissa…”

“I remember looking at myself in the mirror. I was soaking, shivering, bleeding. And I thought, This is it. I’m done,” her voice catches on the memory. “I didn’t even feel sad. Just… gone. Like I didn’t exist anymore. Like maybe I never really did.”

A tear slips free before you can stop it.

Melissa rests her forehead against yours. “But I didn’t do it. I don’t even know why. Maybe I was too much of a coward.” Her hand curls around yours, tighter now. “Or maybe—” she swallows, her voice so small “—maybe some part of me thought there’d be something waiting for me. Something better.”

Your hand finds her waist again. Anchoring. Loving. Unshaken.

And with everything in you, you say nothing. You just stay.

She studies you for a long time, her thumb grazing the back of your knuckles like she’s reading a language she’s only just started to learn.

Then Melissa smiles. It’s small. Barely there. But it’s real. “Turns out. I was right.”

And before you can fall apart, before your throat can collapse with all the things you wish you could’ve done for her—you feel her thumb brush away your tear. She doesn’t comment on it. She just wipes it gently, reverently.

“I got you,” the redhead says, like a vow whispered into skin. “I got us.”

(More coming soon.)

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