Blessed by Night

After all, she was the victim in all of this.

She had been taken advantage of, and he didn\'t want to punish her any more than she already had been.

But he couldn\'t just make himself stay with someone who he didn\'t love or trust.

Not after all of the wonderful women that he was already with were showing him everyday just how much they cared about him and the family they were building.

He just wanted to move on, and keep Melanie as another close friend.

"I gotta say, you\'re really surprising me here, Mel. I thought I wasn\'t your type anymore." he tried to make a joke, hoping that would lighten the atmosphere a bit.

Mel finally wiped her face of tears and grabbed him by the ear.

"I-I only said that because I didn\'t remember all the things I loved about you! I can get past your manwhorish looks now!"

Malachi\'s brow visibly twitched and he tried to keep a forced smile on his face.

\'Somehow, I think she was nicer to me before I got my powers. At least then she used to lie to me and tell me I was cute.\'

While Mal was remembering the good old days, Melanie got a sudden idea and bit her lip anxiously.

Before Malachi knew what she was doing, she took her hand and placed it directly over his crotch.

"Mel!" The first thing that Malachi did was push her hand away, but she took it upon herself to remove her towel in the hopes of seducing him.

"I know that we can\'t be together… but I want to rewrite my first time and give it to the person who I actually should have in the first place."

"Melanie, stop." Mal denied firmly.

"Just once, Mal! I promise that I will never have feelings for you again if you just help me move on! I know that it\'s selfish of me, but… I just want to not feel like a victim for once..!"

Malachi\'s pupils trembled visibly as he watched Melanie fight to touch him again.

Though he knew what the right thing to do was, the visible desperation in her eyes made making that decision so much harder.

-

Celeste opened her eyes after an unknown amount of time and sat up.

Somehow, she had fallen asleep on the couch while waiting to see if Malachi and Melanie\'s reunion went about as smoothly as she was hoping for.

But once her eyes became heavy, she ended up falling asleep shortly afterwards; and she was known to be quite the heavy sleeper.

An earthquake could shake the whole base today and she would only wake up if the AC went above 65 or her fan stopped.

Therefore, she had no idea if she had missed anything or not while she had been sleeping here.

*Click!*

At that moment, the door to Melanie\'s bedroom clicked open and Celeste sat up with a start.

She quickly tried to correct her posture so as to seem attentive, and waited to see who would come out of the room.

A few moments later, Malachi came back out of the room with a rather despondent look on his face and sweating significantly.

He paused when he saw Celeste sitting on the couch before inadvertently failing to meet her gaze.

"… Sorry about the noise."

Malachi darted out the door without another word, leaving Celeste too stunned to do anything as she stared down the hallway.

-

Malachi reappeared in his room back at the onsen in Wyoming.

He just needed a little peace and quiet to get his mind right for a second.

There wasn\'t a single doubt in his mind that if he went out there now like this the girls would be able to sense what was wrong with him in two seconds.

And he knew that he needed to tell them, but he just wanted to wait for a bit before he did it.

However, at that moment one of the girls came in and totally blew his entire plan to bits.

Like the happy and unassuming bundle of curves that she was, Nadine came into the room humming softly and wiping off her body in a towel.

When she saw Malachi standing in the room, her eyes lit up like fireworks and she prepared to give him the biggest hug she could possibly muster.

That is, until an unfamiliar scent tickled her nose, and her face became one that was scornful and downright frightening.

In the blink of an eye she had leapt all the way across the room and tackled Malachi to the ground.

Her eyes were a very noticeable blood red and there were tears coming out of her eye of the same color.

Her hands were wrapped around Malachi\'s neck so tightly that he couldn\'t breathe even if he wanted to, but he made no move to stop her.

"Why... do... I... smell.. a bitch... on...

you..?"

"Nadine, I-"

Her voice became softer and significantly more broken as the tears running down her face increased their deluge. "Did you cheat on me..? On us...?"

Malachi\'s heart was being stomped on for the second consecutive time today.

"No... of course not."

He touched Nadine lightly on the forehead and showed her all of his memories from the last two hours.

She had a minor headache before all of her heartbreak turned to guilt, then sadness, then sympathy.

"Oh... darling, I\'m-"

"It\'s fine, I get it. Seeing you broken hearted like that... makes me really glad that I didn\'t go through with it."

Malachi and Nadine held each other on the floor of the bedroom without saying a word or turning on a light.

The only sound that could be heard was the beating of their own hearts and the occasional exchanged kiss between the two.

"...Will you talk to me about it?"

Instinctively, Malachi had almost told her no.

After all, things were the way they were.

There was no amount of talking that was going to change it, no words spoken that could undo the past.

However, just this once he was feeling a little bit more inclined to open up.

"Yea... Just promise me you won\'t start crying again, alright?"

"I promise."