Days, later.
                     ______________

It was Friday, April, the 2nd at around 9:00 am, when Melissa received the phone call from Dr. Serpentine who informed her that Derek was being discharged this morning and that they needed her to come in and fetch him. Extemporaneous, when she told the doctor she would be there soon, she dropped the handset of the telephone down on the floor, as soon as he told her the news and hurried to get everything ready before Derek came home from the hospital.

After she finished settling Holly to sleep, she left the washing machine running, hired a nanny, that paid reasonable hours, took a shower and drove down in Derek's car to Missouri so she could pick up him from the hospital.

It had been a harrowing last couple of days filled with stress, upheaval and financial worries when Melissa had been forced to return to their apartment in New York, during Derek's stay in the hospital, after she got word from Mr. and Mrs. Coombs - their neighbours about a man committing suicide on the Fifth floor, of their apartment and landing on the terrace of their balcony. She ended up going back and forth between caring for Holly, hiring nanny after nanny, all the while trying to keep her head above water and still making time to visit her husband in the hospital.

If that wasn't bad enough, the day that was the end of all days, crept on her like an unwelcome serpent as soon as the landlord came knocking on their door and demanded for the eight hundred dollars in rent money, to which she politely gritted her teeth at the rat-faced, middle-aged man and told him, she would have it by noon tomorrow. A blatant lie of course, but the relentless son of a bitch wouldn't leave until she gave him an answer.

She was running out of options fast and she knew if Derek didn't get this job or something didn't come up within the next twenty-four hours they would be destitute with nowhere to go.

After she left to go pick up Derek, it was about a quarter to four in the late afternoon when Melissa arrived at the hospital. She wandered through the branches of dark green corridors that lead in the direction of his ward, walking on a cloud of uncertainty as she clung to a bag full of some of Derek's personal belongings from home that consisted of a few of his clean pressed clothes, some aftershave and a comb and beard trimmer. She thought he may have wanted to freshen up before he got on the road.

He instantly looked like a child to Melissa when she found him, seated on the edge of his bed, lost in a sea of hopelessness with no recollection of where he was or what he was doing there. His tousled black hair clung to his head in bedraggled misery and his face looked hollow and pale underneath the dim, fluorescent lighting of his ward. This was the lowest she had ever seen Derek since his father died.

Hoping to surprise him, she never said anything to Derek at first, and picked out some clothes for him, meticulously placing them on the bed neatly beside him. She hesitated when an attractive brown-haired, nurse in her late twenties came strutting in Derek's direction, disregarding everyone else in the room and reminded him to take his medication.

At first, Melissa thought nothing of it, until she stood there and closely watched this woman flutter her eyelashes at her husband and burst out laughing every time he would say something that she considered remotely funny to her while touching him on the shoulder blade, every couple of seconds.

As soon as the nurse saw Melissa was standing there, like the odd one out, she gave Melissa an awkwardly wide smile that seemed to make her cheeks stretch and promptly retreated off with her tail between her legs.

"I brought you some clothes," she said, trying to dismiss what happened back there just now. Even though she had been overwhelmed with joy, of Derek coming home today, she knew as soon they returned to the apartment, he would be on her case about this letter.

She just hoped she could talk him out of this before it was too late. He climbed off the thin mattress of his bed, the second he saw her standing there, and cupped Melissa's chin with his index finger, like he always would do when he hadn't seen her in a while.

"I have missed you," he moaned and Melissa had suddenly, forgotten every bad thing that had been troubling her since she picked him up.

He slipped his strong, protective arms around her, pressing his lips against hers, holding her close, as if he'd hated the fact that he knew he would have to let go of her soon.

She cherished these rare, happy moments between them more than anything in this world. Melissa tugged onto his hair with her fingers, her heart warming up to his affections when she pressed herself against him and kissed him back, revelling in every second as he poured the entirety of his love into her.

Even though she knew she should have been mad at him for defying her wishes, she would have been lying if she said these past few days without him hadn't been tough on her. She only realised how much she missed him and needed him when he held her in his arms and told her that he had been going crazy without her.

After Derek let go he peered down at her with soft, gentle eyes and said," How is Holly? I miss her."

"Oh, she's fine," she said, feeling her lids grow heavy with exhaustion the minute she said that.

" The neighbour's wife offered to take care of her for a few hours, while I came to pick you up, so she's in perfectly good hands."

Bringing a hand to her mouth, she tried to stifle yet another yawn from occurring, her head spinning from exhaustion. That seven-hour trip had left her dead on her feet and she still had to drive back because Derek was in no state to.

"She just misses you that's all." Melissa forced a smile that was buried underneath a mountain of sadness and heartache knowing that a lot would change after today.

On their way back to their apartment in New York, they were halfway between Highbury Hills and the Big Apple when they stopped at the gas station to fill up with some gas and bought a soda to share between the two of them. Derek told her to stop what she was doing and hear him out. Melissa knew this would escalate into an argument before she even got in the car, so it came as no surprise.

"Listen, Mel, you have every right to be angry with me," he started saying to her until a scrawny, oversized man came bolting in the direction of their car with a nondescript face and rapped his knobby knuckles on their window.

He smiled and handed Melissa the gas slip as if he had been privately amused that he had been the one to interrupt them. Melissa grabbed the flimsy paper out of the petrol attendant's stubby, hands and half-heartedly thanked him, watching him leave.

"I did this for us, Melissa," she heard Derek, say reminding her that this conversation was far from over.

She tried her hardest to deviate from the topic and started talking about something as ridiculous as the weather, but Derek wouldn't let her change the subject.

"Stop doing that!"Derek burst out in anger.

Melissa shifted in her seat when they got on the road again, drew in her breath and blew it out pop-eyed."Doing what?"

"Changing the subject like you always do, and pretending everything is okay when you and I know damn well, it's not..."

Melissa calculatedly looked away from him. She hated that this was already turning into a huge fight before they got home.

"Look, Mel, a lot of shit went down after I left the apartment, that morning," Derek had said." Peter phoned me up and told me the position had been filled before I could even make it for the interview."

"I figured as much, Derek but did you really need to go down to Highbury Hills? What were you hoping to achieve. Were you hoping to find out who this mysterious man is that left you this house. You could have died out there and then what would we have done? You promised me you would never go back there."

She was flooded with a wave of unresolved emotions and anger, that she didn't know how to express herself right now.

"What choice did I have, Melissa? We are about to be thrown out of our apartment any day now and when I didn't get the job; I just lost it. I did this for us. I couldn't care less about what happens to me as long as you guys are taken care of that is all that matters to me. Why is that so hard to understand?"

"You matter to me too, Derek. I just wish we could have done this together that's all."

Forcing herself to keep calm and stay awake, she flipped a music album into the stereo of Derek's car - an old Cranberries album that they used to play when they first started dating and said after an interminable silence between them, " How did this accident happen? And who were those other men?" She remained silent when linger started playing on the stereo.

"The funny thing is I don't remember what happened," she heard him say gruffly.

Melissa looked at Derek and her brain stuttered for a moment when she had to turn the stereo down because she thought she didn't hear him the first time. "Excuse me?"

Derek ran his fingers along the bandage of his head and nodded.

"I recall waking up with a killer headache, but that's about it."

" So you don't remember what happened or the accident?"

Derek nodded." Nah-ah. All I remember is these hitchhikers waking me up and throwing cold water on my face to revive me."

"I don't know if you saw the news, yet Derek, but the police are investigating this and they are saying they think it was an attempted murder, "Melissa informed him, feeling a burst of relief when she saw the sky-high buildings of New York City approaching them until Derek placed the scrunched letter on top of his lap and looked at it, as if it were his most prized possession.

Melissa stared at the letter as if it were saturated in black widow venom while wishing to God she could burn it and be done with it.

" I do remember coming down here and wanting to meet with the lawyer but that's about as far as my brain can go," Derek had said.

That's when she thought back to Dr. Serpentine telling her that Derek could possibly experience short-term memory loss and forget certain life-altering disruptions in his life. She started to worry that this could be permanent or irreversible despite what the doctor had said.

"Look, I already know about the eight hundred dollars we owe for the rent," Derek mentioned to her out of the blue.

Melissa felt an uncomfortable tightness forming in the centre of her chest now. She thought back to their landlord - Mr Portokalis as soon as he mentioned that. The audacity of that man calling Derek at the hospital, she thought to herself fiercely, wishing she could give him a piece of her mind right now.

"Let's the cut the bull, Mel I know we don't have long at that apartment - heck we were crazy to sign up a twenty-four-month lease in the first place," Derek explained. " If this is real, let's just move there until we get on our feet and if we don't like it we can always find a better place. The main thing is we will have a roof over our heads and it will be fully paid for."

Melissa knew Derek made a valid point, but going back to Highbury Hills? Had things been this tragically severe that they had to be forced to go back to the one place she hated more than anything in this world. She wanted nothing more than to cry right now. Death would have been a preferable option.

"Pull over," Derek ordered. His voice had become loud and authoritative when he demanded her to stop the car. Melissa's emotional state had been a mixture of her complete disdain for that place and an early onset of postpartum depression kicking in.

"Pull over now!" he shouted at her. " We need to talk, baby. You need to hear me out. Please I am begging you."

Covering her face in the sleeve of her cardigan, she lifted a hand off the steering wheel for a second, as a strangled cry came from her mouth and this time she knew couldn't restrain it.

" I am begging you, Derek. Please, don't make us go back there."

She was left with no choice but to pull over to the side of the road. Cars whizzed and flew past them as if they were racing against time to beat one another, while they sat by the viewpoint overlooking New York City arguing.

"One month," Derek said, unbuckling his seat belt, so he could grab her hands to keep them from shaking. "If this doesn't work out, at least you can tell me, I told you so."

Melissa couldn't believe Derek. His incessant need for wanting to find a place to live had clouded his perspective completely. It was as if he had forgotten about every bad thing that happened in that town. If he hadn't gone back there, this accident would never have even happened in the first place.

Her husband had been so blinded by keeping them off the streets that it had stripped his sanity and made him lose all sense of reality. Melissa knew she would live to regret this, and as much as it pained her heart to say this, Derek did have a point. They did need a place they could call home and couldn't possibly have afforded to be left stranded in a city like New York with nowhere to go.

"Okay, "she bit out, feeling the tears passing down her cheeks, choking the words out as if she had just consumed a handful of poison. "One month, but that's all I'm giving you. If we can't get anything in that time, we will just have to go back to my parents and you will have put your differences aside with my father. That goes for David too."

"As long as he stays away from you, then there shouldn't be a problem," he stated firmly.

She knew she was more than likely going to live to regret this as soon as they got home. She was already regretting this and a part of her wanted to take what she said.

" Do you trust me?" he asked her.

"Derek I told-"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do, Derek. I just hate-"

He wouldn't even let Melissa finish the rest of her sentence before he swept his arms around her and kissed her passionately on the mouth.

After they at last came up for air, Derek said," I'm going to make everything right between us, you'll see. I love you."

She was pink-eyed and lachrymose when she fell around his neck and said, " I love you too."

"One day we will both look back on this day and laugh about it all," he promised her, once they got on the road again.

" Just remember tough times don't last, honey, only tough people do."

She gave him, a hopeful smile filled with incredible sadness and a strange feeling of joy after he said that and whispered back at him, " I sure hope so, Derek."

Rewritten.✔

Word count: 2463k

Is Melissa making the right decision? Stay tuned to find out. If you enjoyed this chapter, please don't forget to vote and comment. X