Chapter 4
For a moment, I heard nothing.
Not the rain outside.
Not my own breathing.
Only the sentence Brianna had thrown into the room.
The lease she signed for both of us.
I looked at Melissa.
Her face had gone white.
My voice came out low.
“Explain.”
Brianna laughed.
“Oh, now you want communication?”
I did not look at her.
“Melissa.”
She swallowed.
“It was before I moved in.”
“That is not an explanation.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Brianna’s lease was ending. I still had the apartment. She needed somewhere to go.”
“So you added her?”
Melissa nodded.
“For how long?”
“One year.”
My chest tightened.
“You moved into my house while signing a year lease with her?”
“I panicked.”
“Stop using fear like it wipes out betrayal.”
She cried harder.
“I know.”
Brianna clapped slowly.
“Wow. Very therapeutic. Do you rehearse these wounded-man speeches?”
I turned to her.
“You are still standing in my doorway because I’m choosing not to call the police.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Try it.”
I picked up my phone.
Melissa grabbed my wrist.
“Please. Don’t.”
That touch broke what little hope I had left.
Even now.
Even after everything.
Her first instinct was still to protect Brianna from consequences.
I gently removed her hand.
“You both need to leave.”
Melissa’s mouth trembled.
“Aaron.”
“No. I can’t do this tonight.”
Brianna grabbed Melissa’s purse from the couch.
“Finally.”
Melissa did not move.
I opened the door.
Brianna stepped outside, then turned back.
“You’ll thank me later, Mel.”
Melissa looked at her.
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Brianna’s expression hardened.
Then she walked into the rain.
Melissa stood in my living room, shaking.
“I don’t want to go with her.”
I wanted to say stay.
Every broken part of me wanted to say stay.
But love without trust becomes a cage for both people.
So I said, “Then call your sister.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Call Jenna. Go there.”
“She lives forty minutes away.”
“She loves you.”
Melissa lowered her eyes.
“I haven’t talked to her much. Brianna doesn’t like her.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she didn’t.
“Call her.”
Melissa took out her phone with trembling hands.
I listened as she called her younger sister.
“Jenna?”
Her voice broke on the name.
“I messed up. Can I come over?”
A pause.
Then Melissa started crying.
“Thank you.”
When she hung up, she looked at me like she was seeing the shape of her own isolation for the first time.
“She said she’s been waiting for me to call.”
I nodded.
“Good.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“Do you hate me?”
I thought about lying.
Then I chose truth.
“No. But I don’t feel safe with you.”
That shattered her.
She covered her mouth and bent forward like the words had struck her physically.
I did not comfort her.
I stood there and let the truth exist.
When she left, she took one box.
Just one.
The rest stayed stacked in my living room like evidence.
For three days, I heard nothing.
Grace checked on me.
My mother called and pretended she needed help with her sink because she did not know how to ask if my heart was broken.
My father sent one text.
Proud of you for standing up in your own house.
That one made me cry.
On the fourth day, Jenna called.
I barely knew her.
She was younger than Melissa by five years, blunt, funny, and never impressed by Brianna.
“Aaron,” she said, “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“What happened?”
“Melissa is safe. She’s with me. But Brianna is losing it.”
I sat up.
“What does that mean?”
“She came to my apartment last night. Banged on the door for twenty minutes. Said I was helping you control Melissa.”
“Did you call police?”
“Yes. She left before they came.”
My jaw tightened.
“Where is Melissa?”
“In the shower. She doesn’t know I’m calling.”
“Why are you calling?”
Jenna went quiet.
Then she said, “Because I found something.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Melissa gave me her laptop to help cancel the apartment utilities. Brianna had access to her email. There are messages, Aaron. A lot of them.”
“What kind of messages?”
“The kind where Brianna tells Melissa exactly what to say to you after fights. The kind where she tells her to hide money. The kind where she says if Melissa marries you, she’ll be dead to her.”
I closed my eyes.
Jenna continued.
“And there’s one more thing.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“Brianna contacted your ex.”
My ex.
Lauren.
The woman who cheated on me two years before I met Melissa.
My blood chilled.
“Why?”
“To ask what hurt you most.”
I stood slowly.
Jenna’s voice softened.
“She used your past against you on purpose.”
I looked around my living room.
At the boxes.
At the empty chair.
At the house that suddenly felt less like a home and more like a crime scene of emotional damage.
May you like
Then Jenna said, “Melissa wants to make it right. But I think you deserve to know how deep this went.”
I whispered, “Send me everything.”
