Rafael

Chapter 50 - Are You Man Enough? (Mel's POV)

Melissa Taylor-Warner's (Mel's) POV
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(1 week after Rafael got stabbed)

My head was spinning.

It's like I could hardly stand on my two feet these days, without falling flat on my face.

I was just tired.

Why me?

I had tried so damn hard to prevent something like this from happening, and now I was being told I was the problem.

James Warner had another thing coming.

"Mel!" My best friend exclaimed as she walked through my apartment door, rushing to hug me.

Mia was always so happy to see me.

At least she made me feel wanted.

I couldn't believe the things she had gone through in the past month with her boyfriend.

It was so weird to me that she had decided to stay with him even though she had broken up with other guys for far less important reasons.

I don't know if I fully approved of somebody like Rafael Montero but what did I fucking know?

My marriage was falling apart; obviously, I knew nothing about what made a relationship work.

I just hoped Mia knew that danger would always be present in her life if she stayed with a man like Montero.

"Mia, I'm so glad to see you," I told her, and I meant it.

I was going through such a hard time these past few weeks.

So much pain and nothing to do with it.

I was depressed and I didn't know what to do.

"Me too! Listen, I'm sorry I didn't tell you what was going on with Rafael but I didn't want anything to happen to my best friend. Now I realize that that was very foolish of me to do because maybe you would have been safer if I had told you the truth. Maybe I was just scared to talk about it because it made everything that much more real. I had been so terrified Mel, especially when Rafael was bleeding out and I didn't know what to do to make it stop."

I tried my best to process all of what she was saying but damn it, it was a lot.

Maybe she had done the right thing, not letting me know everything that was going on.

It was weird because Mia was the scaredy-cat out of the both of us.

You couldn't even get her to watch a horror movie, but now here she was running from criminals, shooting people, in real life!

Rafael was changing her.

I only hoped she would like what he was turning her into.

"It's okay Mia. You had your reasons for not telling me and I would probably have done the same if I were in your shoes," I finally said.

"Okay, thanks so much for understanding. I know it must have been weird for me to keep something a secret from you. We never keep secrets from each other."

I felt bad now because Mia thought she was the only one with secrets.

Maybe I should tell her.

I don't know if it would help ease my depression but it was worth a shot.

"James and I are getting a divorce."

"What?"

Mia looked like I had told her that they had finally invented the time machine.