All Fall Down

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is. You just do it.”

“The way you left Stan?”

“Yes.” Melanie went around the counter to her sister. She caught her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “Leaving Stan was the hardest thing I ever did. But it was the best. I knew that then. I know it now.”

Mia started to cry. “I’m not strong like you, Mellie. I’m not brave. I never have been.”

“You can be.” She squeezed her sister’s fingers. “I’ll help you.”

Mia shook her head. “No, you can’t. I’m just a sniveling, stupid excuse for a—”

“Stop it! That’s our father talking. And Boyd. It’s not true.” She searched her sister’s gaze. “You don’t think I was scared when I left Stan? I was scared shitless. I’d never had to take care of myself, let alone a child, too. I didn’t know how I would support us, if I could. And I was terrified he’d try to take Casey away from me.”

Melanie shuddered, remembering her terror, the way she had second-guessed her every decision. Her ex-husband was a prominent lawyer, a partner in one of Charlotte’s top firms. He could have wrested custody away from her without even breaking a sweat—he still could. As it was, he had pulled strings and gotten her application to the CMPD academy denied.

She had left him anyway. For herself. And Casey. She hadn’t been the person Stan needed or wanted, though for a long time she had tried to mold herself into that woman. One who needed a man to lean on, one who was satisfied to sit back and let her husband call the shots while she tended to house and home. She had failed miserably. And in the process had become a person she had neither known nor liked.

Their marriage had become a battleground. And a battleground had been no place to raise a child.

“You can do it,” she said again, fiercely. “I know you can, Mia.”

Mia shook her head, her expression defeated. “I wish I were like you. But I’m not.”

Melanie drew her sister into her arms and held her tightly. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”

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