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Rafael is an asshole when he's drunk. In truth, he's an asshole when he's not drunk too but Melissa has never been very good about acknowledging hard truths. She feels like it completes her whole young mother persona.
She let's him stay because Scott needs a father. At least, that's what she thinks he needs. So she puts up with the late nights, the vomiting in the morning, the loud arguments. She puts up with it because even though he's an asshole he loves Scott. Loves him more than he could ever love her.
She doesn't blame him for that. No, in fact she feels the same. Scott is a part of her, half her, and she could never love anything as much as she loves her son. She would burn the world down around her for him, and there's no one else who could ever mean so much. She thinks every mother must feel this way. At least, any mother worth having does.
She even let's him stay when he grabs her too hard around her arms and she has dark purple bruises on her shoulders. She hates herself for them, because she is stronger than this. She is. She always told herself this would never be her. She would never let anyone do this to her but Scott needs a father. She wants him to have a life that means she can stay home with him during the day and let Rafael work. She wants things to be easy for him even if they're hard for her.
She let's him stay.
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Everything changes when Scott gets pushed down the stairs. Pushed, mostly, but she knows some of it was his own natural born clumsiness.
It doesn't matter either way. Rafael's gone by morning and everything he left behind she throws in the trash. Except for a vase. A stupid, horribly ugly vase they bought when they visited some of her family down in Florida. It's orange with turquoise stripes around the base and a giant purple snake slithering around the neck. It makes no artistic sense, and it doesn't match the living room. But Melissa remembers that trip. It was nice. Before the drinking got too bad and before the bruises. Before Scott had a scar on the back of his head. She keeps it, because the memory isn't so much about Rafael as it is about Scott's face on the beach.
She let's it stay.
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Melissa would be lying if she said it wasn't hard, being a single mother in Beacon Hills. It is hard, but she has Scott and Scott has Stiles and so by extension Melissa has the Stilinski family. Claudia is a charmer, always smiling and cracking jokes and making sour candies just so she can watch the kids faces scrunch up. Melissa is drawn to her like a flower to the sun, and she bends her life around Claudia and Matt's compassion, Stiles and Scott's friendship.
Her life becomes a schedule of chaos, waking up at night to go to the hospital only to find Stiles it spending the night and there are popcorn bowls in every room of the house. Picnics, night shift, homework help, clean the house, take Scott to look at dogs, fix dinner for Scott and Stiles, homework help, night shift. It is dizzying but warm and friendly and Melissa is happy even though it is challenging.
Then Claudia gets sick, and it is worse.
Her life is carpool and doctor's appointments, hiding the liquor and teaching Scott what not to say to Stiles, crying in the shower because kids shouldn't see their parents cry, it'll scare them.
Melissa cries in the shower a lot, because Claudia is her best friend and she helped Melissa be strong when she thought she had ruined her sons life by sending his father away. Melissa cries because after everything Claudia has done for her family, Melissa is helpless now to return the favor. All she can do is wait, and pick up the broken pieces when everything is done.
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There are a lot of broken pieces.
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Scott and Stiles are inseparable, and Melissa somehow finds herself raising two teenage boys instead of the one she signed up for. It makes her chest ache in a good way, when Stiles can smile at her without looking even a little bit resentful. She doesn't begrudge him that resentment, even if she's glad it's passed. She got to live, and Claudia died. Scott has a mom and he doesn't. She understands.
She doesn't mind so much, raising two teenage boys instead of one.
She let's him stay.
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In some ways it is harder, bringing Matt back from the edge of his own grief. He drinks too much and works too late. It reminds Melissa too much of Rafael for her to be comfortable, so she is less gentle than she should be when she tells him to get his act together. In some ways, it is easier, because all she has to do is pour the bottle down the sink and make him stare at a picture of Stiles until he puts his head down on the table and his shoulders shake.
"He needs you." Melissa says into the empty space between them, space that used to be filled by Claudia's presence, her pure and bright energy. The house is darker than she remembers. Somber and cold. She understands now, why Stiles spends so many nights at her house.
He doesn't respond, but she knows she's got him. The Stilinski's are good parents, and they love - well, now only Matt - loves Stiles the way she loves Scott. Unquestionably. It is the unyielding love of a parent that saves Matthew Stilinski from himself, and Melissa refuses to take the credit for that. She knows the raw strength of that love. It's what made her tell Rafael to get out. It's what makes Matt lock the whiskey away and take fewer shifts.
To love someone that much is the bravest thing Melissa knows how to do, and in love Melissa is fearless.
That is the night she knows she will fall in love with Matt. But not yet. Not now. Not today.
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Peter Hale is a memory she chooses not to revisit very often, knowing what she does now. Still, it's important. It was the first time she ever opened herself back up to any sort of romance. The first time she ever found a spare moment to.
It ended terribly, obviously, but she doesn't purge the memory like she maybe should. She is proud of herself, for being able to dress up and go out. She is not proud of the phone call she made the following morning, or the tears she shed outside her house. She is not proud of that moment but she needs it so she can learn from it, grow from it, and remind herself that she's human too.
She let's the memory stay.
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Her son is a werewolf, and even through the initial fear she loves him more than she loves herself. She loves him.
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Isaac Lahey is someone she doesn't even have to hesitate to care about. When Scott comes to her, asking her if he can stay she already knows she'll say yes. Of course she'll say yes. She knows what it is to be trapped. She never felt the pain or the fear the way he did, but she knows the feeling to a lesser degree. She had Scott to keep her strong. Isaac had no one. So she raises three teenage boys, because of course she says yes.
He is such a quiet presence, she sometimes forgets that he even takes up space. That he even lives there, but as he heals the house is louder than it was before, sometimes shaking with supernatural rough-housing. She scolds them, but she smiles to herself when she turns away because it makes her heart warm to have fun in the house. To have laughter and arguments over girls and who is going to do the dishes tonight.
Melissa feels strong. So strong. She is strong.
She let's him stay.
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Melissa knows people fall in love more than once. It's not a lie when she tells Scott that. What she doesn't tell him is that the first love never leaves. It's something you can't get rid of. An itch or a doubt in the back of your mind. A scar. A stupid vase that doesn't match the rest of the house. At least, that's what it's like for her.
She watches Scott grow into himself. Become his own person. Become a force of will in his own right and she is so proud. She's proud she gets to see him make the tough decisions but the right ones. She's so proud her chest hurts when she thinks about it for too long because all she ever wanted for him was for his life to be easy and happy. But easy happy lives don't make strong men. And that's what Scott has become.
Allison dies. She dies and Melissa cries in the shower because she was so young and so strong. She cries because she knows it hasn't hit home for Scott yet, that she's gone.
When the dust has settled, and he clings to her arm at the kitchen table and sobs, she knows he understands. She holds him, holds him and runs fingers through his hair and presses kisses to his forehead even though it's sweaty and hot from crying. He cries for a long time and she just let's him.
It is hard to be strong.
She loves him.