Prosecutorial Misconduct // Rafael Barba

07 || A LONG AWAITED REUNION

It's just a knock on the door.

That's the only phrase that swirled around Melanie's mind as she lingered outside Mike's apartment, rocking nervously back and forth on her heels as she did nothing but stare absently at her own reflection in the golden numbers before her.

It's just a knock on the door. That's it.

A simple tap tap of her knuckles against the wood and she could easily have jumpstarted the moment she'd been longing for. All she had to do was raise her hand. All she had to do was announce herself and she'd finally get to see her brother again after five long years spent apart.

It's what she'd wanted, after all. To have Mike back in her life and back by her side, but the longer she stood there... The more nausea she let brew in her stomach... The more thoughts she let plague her mind...the less confidence Melanie seemed to have in herself that she could do it.

What if things didn't go the way she planned? What Mike didn't want to see her? What if... What if she had ruined things permanently and was out of her mind in thinking she ever could mend them? What if he hated her? What if he despised her with everything he had because of the simple way in which she had treated him?

It was possible. The likelihood of their bridge being nothing more than a pile of smouldering ash was high and she wouldn't have put it past Mike if he chose to bury it. It's not like she deserved anything less as she hadn't exactly been the best sister to him lately. Hell, she hadn't even been his sister as the way she had treated him... The way she had so cruelly taken things out on him, simply because he just so happened to be there when she needed to? It was nowhere near close to how she was supposed to treat her brother and if you were to ask anyone, they'd happily tell you that she should be downright ashamed of herself.

And she was. She couldn't be more ashamed of herself if she tried, and if she was telling the truth she was absolutely disgusted by it. She was horrified over her own actions as... how could she? Mike was her twin brother — her literal other half, how could she do that to him? How could she hurt him? How could she betray him? After all he'd done for her... After all the times he'd been the only one by her side, she had still had the audacity to throw him away like garbage and now...what?

Now she thought she could just show up to his home with her tail tucked between her legs and beg him to forgive her? Beg him to let her back in, and for what? For her own gain? For her own amends? How selfish could she get? She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve his forgiveness, or his advice, or his love. She didn't deserve anything from him and he sure as hell didn't deserve to be dragged back into any more of her messes.

He may already be being forced into her unit, but that didn't mean he had to be shoved back into her life alongside it and with that in mind, Melanie was quick to spin on her heels and make a run for it. She had to get out of there. It wasn't right for her to be even here and so, with tears already brewing in her eyes, she headed straight for the exit, hoping to make a swift escape before Mike decided to leave the confines of his apartment himself.

Only, as she hurried down the corridor with her heart in her stomach, Melanie quickly came to learn that Mike had never been in his apartment. Not for a single second of her anxiously standing there had he ever been inside those walls, as when she passed the elevator... And when those doors creaked eerily open, he walked right out from between them and almost knocked her clean off her feet.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I..."

As Mike's clumsy gaze rose from the ground and drifted slowly up the short length of his sudden near-miss, his words were quick to fall silent. His mouth drew tightly closed. His eyes failed to complete their path to her face and even so he didn't need to go any further. He didn't need to carry on up and catch a glimpse of her to know her identity, as he already knew who it was. From the mere way in which she stood before him, rigid beneath the hands he'd used to help steady her and fiddling anxiously with an identical bracelet to the one on his wrist, he knew who it was.