Someone New

Chapter XII

Chapter 12

Melissa watched as Zion snuggled further into Zachary's side. He'd been at her mother's home for less than two hours and had already stolen her child from her. Melissa couldn't be envious though. She loved watching Zachary be a father. And anticipated how he will interact with their new child.

Though Zach seemed more excited for the arrival of their second child Melissa was still worried. She was worried that the counseling sessions he'd been through wouldn't be enough. She was worried that if she did return to him things wuld go back to how they have been before - her being his verbal punching bag.

There'd been no changes made in Zachary's life that would ensure that his stress would be removed and that his anger would not be taken out on her. That scared Melissa the most. It made her want to start making plans to relocate to Washington state to be closer to her mother.

She wanted to be close to some type of family, whether it be her own or her in-laws so she would have the ability to get help with the new baby. She didn't want to always depend on paid help. Though Melissa loved Bailee; she was not family. She knew that Zach would quickly nix the idea of her moving out of state with their children. Especially if he'd be staying in California. But Melissa also knew she had to do what was best for her even if Zachary didn't accept it or not.

In the meantime, she had no plans on moving back to Washington just yet. Melissa and her mother already discussed a few things earlier in the morning. Her mother was willing to go down to California to stay with her for the first three months of baby number two's arrival, which Melissa was happy about. She also knew if her mother was going to be staying with her she'd have to be more honest with her mother on what was going on with her and Zachary.

Truthfully, Melissa was still unaware of what exactly was going on with her and Zach. He hadn't mentioned the separation papers, thankfully he did not bring them with him, and she was still kinda scared to even mention the word divorce.

Not scared of his reaction but scared of her own internal feelings about it. Melissa couldn't deny the fact that she was still heavily in love with Zachary. Watching him still gave her the same butterflies that she'd always had for him. She couldn't help being in love with him. But she should have.

Going from her own therapy sessions from these last few weeks, she understood were her own faults lie in their relationship. She now understood that she should have left or at least put her foot down after the first or seccond occurence. Hell, even at her first abortion.

But she was happy that she finally got the strength to stand up for herself and no longer allowed him to treat her as if she was a second class citizen. Melissa knew her husband loved her but she also knew that he would not leave his job for their family. Whether or not it was destroying them.

All she knew for sure was that she was going to enjoy this Thanksgiving with Zach, Zion, her mother and her brothers. That was all that mattered to her in the moment.

Even watching Zach and Zion together with her mother on the other side of the room was hard. Zion watching and laughing at another Thanksgiving special it was something that Melissa did not want to end. In reality, who really wanted their marriage to end? Even if it wasn't working; it was a bittersweet event.

Sighing Melissa rose from the chair and walked into the kitchen. It was nearing five in the evening and the only thing that wasn't quite done was her mother's mac and cheese. She looked over the finished dishes and picked off a crumb of streusel off the still cooling peach cobbler. "Mmm," Melissa moaned. "Wow, this is delicious." Melissa said out loud to herself barely audible.

"Thank you," the cook stated as she continued to ice the red velvet cake. Melissa honestly didn't know what she was going to do with herself this Thanksgiving. The kitchen was filled with food consisting of a turkey, a ham, stuffing, fresh cranberry sauce, collard greens, candied yams, baked beans, brown rice, mac and cheese, a cobbler and a cake. Two desserts was something out of the ordinary for their Thanksgiving dinners, but Melissa was not complaining.