Page 76 of Reclaiming Love

But Melissa was crying quiet tears, trying to hold it together. Until she burst, and the floodgates opened. In an instant Nadine had her arms around Melissa’s shoulders. She held her gently. “Shhhh. Shhhh. Nobody else knows. I’m not going to tell a soul.” Melissa held onto her and cried. Nadine said nothing as she held her. After a while, Melissa pulled away.

Nadine handed her a tissue, then sat back down. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Melissa wiped her eyes, her nose, her cheeks. She glanced up. “What about your meeting?”

“I’ve postponed it.”

She took the second tissue from Nadine and blew her nose noisily.

“Melissa,” said Nadine gently, “that looked like a crime to me. I don’t think you can let this go on any longer.”

“He didn’t do that all the time,” said Melissa, defensively.

“It was bad enough that it happened once. You shouldn’t feel you’re to blame. Trust me, I should know.”

Melissa sniffed again, wiped her nose.

“This will go no further—unless you want it to. Do you want to talk about it?”

Now that Nadine already knew about the movie, it made sense to start there.

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