Chapter Text
Mel had always hated summer.
Even when she was a little girl, she would walk the mile and a half to the public library from her childhood home and disappear into rows of air-conditioned books, her hair sticking to the back of her neck and a red flush burning across her cheeks that never seemed to fade in the summer.
But as she’s gotten older, that hate in her ran deeper. It wasn’t the casual feeling that it used to be. Now it was a quieter hate that sat in the back of her head every time she stepped outside.
She would never admit it out loud to anyone, but she hated summer because summer was when everything changed.
The year Mel turned twenty, the heat hung over Ohio like a thick, damp blanket. The town she grew up in baked—the brick buildings that lined the streets radiated warmth, the buses sighed with every stop, and the rivers glittered under the sun that always seemed to be beating down.
It was the summer that Mel stopped being just a sister. It was the summer that she became responsible for someone else’s entire life.
People liked to say that she was strong when she told the story. They always said it the same way too, with soft voices and sympathetic smiles.
Mel stepped up.
Mel did the right thing.
Mel took care of her sister.
As if any of it had been her choice.
For years afterward, Mel’s life moved in careful, predictable steps that always led back to the same place.
She never went to any college parties, always darting away from campus before anyone had the chance to ask her. She took the early morning bus across town in the winter so she could make it to her shift after making sure Becca had breakfast. Mel always turned down late nights, trips, and spontaneous plans, and eventually, she stopped getting invited altogether.
She learned to smile when people told her that she was a good person.
Mel always said, “It’s fine," because it was fine. It had to be fine.
Becca was her sister; she was her responsibility. Becca was—and will always be—the most important person in Mel’s life, and Mel never resented that.
Not really.
But sometimes, late at night when the house was quiet and she could hear the sounds of the city brush past her apartment windows, Mel wondered what it would feel like to make a decision that only affected her.
Just once.
Just a single, selfish choice.
She never did.
Mel had always been the person that did the right thing.
Until that afternoon, when Becca showed up at the worst possible time.
As if she wasn’t worried enough about her deposition, now she had to worry that something was seriously wrong with Becca. The only thing that held her together was the fact that Dr. Langdon was the one to take care of Becca.
In the twenty-nine years of her life, Mel had never fought with Becca; the only time she ever even so much as raised her voice towards Becca was when they were in a heated game of Mario Kart. But something in her snapped that afternoon.
Maybe it was the fact that Mel had shared her entire life with Becca (regretfully so, since Becca threw Mel under the bus as soon as she met Dr. Langdon), and Becca didn’t share everything with Mel. Maybe it was the fact that Mel was a little jealous of her sister. Hell, Mel would go as far as to say she envied her sister. She didn’t know what caused her to finally snap, and she knew she should feel bad for fighting with Becca, but she didn’t. And that almost made her feel worse.
Which is how she found herself walking alone after work with her feet dragging and a heavy heart in her chest.
Even after the sun disappeared behind the Pittsburgh skyline, the heat clung to her skin, and the pavement still radiated warmth through the soles of her shoes.
She didn’t really have a destination in mind at all. She didn’t feel like going home after Becca cancelled their plans to watch the fireworks, but she didn’t have any friends she could turn to either. So she just walked.
Her scrubs were wrinkled after her shift from hell, and her hair was half falling out of the tight braid, the stray pieces clinging to the thin sheen of sweat on the back of her neck. Somewhere behind her, laughter spilled from the ER entrance where a group of nurses were leaving together, already planning drinks or fireworks or whatever normal people did on nights like this.
She just ignored them.
The bench came into view near the edge of the hospital lawn, facing out towards the city. Small fairy lights were strung along the pathway for the holiday; they glowed softly in the dark like a trail of tiny lanterns.
Mel dropped onto the bench.
For a long time, she just stared at her hands folded in her lap.
They were still faintly trembling after the shift. She would chalk it up to adrenaline that hadn’t quite drained away yet. Her fingers felt rough from all of the hand sanitizer and all of the hours spent doing things that mattered.
Mel had always been good at things that mattered.
She thought it all started when she was twenty, but when she really sat down and thought about it, she was taking care of Becca and doing things that mattered well before that.
It all started when they were five. When Becca finally got diagnosed.
Mel always got dragged along to the doctor's appointments and the therapy sessions. She would listen at each appointment to adults using words that Mel didn’t quite understand yet, but she knew they were important. Her parents had looked exhausted all of the time, so Mel quickly learned how to make things easier.
She would pack her and Becca’s lunches. She would remind Becca about her homework. She would sit beside her sister at loud family gatherings, and she would translate conversations when Becca was too overwhelmed to listen.
By the time they were in high school, it was just understood that Becca needed her, and Mel didn’t mind.
Not really.
Other kids had sports or dances or boyfriends, but Mel had IEP meetings and speech therapy sessions and spent nights sitting on Becca’s bedroom floor explaining algebra problems three times.
And she had been happy.
Because Becca would look at her sometimes with this bright, uncomplicated trust, and she would say things like, “You’re the only person that explains things right.”
Mel had built her entire life around being the person who explained things right.
And right now, it all felt like it was for nothing.
Mel leaned back against the bench, closing her eyes as the memory of the fight replayed itself in brutal clarity.
Mel swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. The echo of Becca’s words ricocheting in her ears.
She was sitting on the gurney, ready to head back to the center. Her voice was shaking. “You don’t get to decide everything for me.”
Mel had blinked at Becca like she had been slapped. “Becca, I’m not deciding things for you, I’m just–”
“You always do.”
The words hit Mel harder than she expected them to because Mel hadn’t even known Becca felt that way.
“I’m helping you,” Mel had said, her defense automatic and instinctive. “That’s what I’ve always done.”
She watched Becca’s face crumple in frustration. “I know.”
Her words sounded tired and softer than before. “You don't have a life, Mel. You work and you take care of me and that’s it. "You're twenty-nine,” she reminded Mel as if Mel wasn’t acutely aware of all of these things. “That’s not normal.”
Mel had tried to laugh it off then because the alternative was admitting that maybe Becca was right.
But Becca hadn’t laughed.
“I want to stay at the center for a while,” she said instead. By myself.”
Mel had stared at her. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know I can be overbearing sometimes—"
“I don’t want to prove it to you.” Becca lifted her chin slightly. “I want to prove it to myself.”
The conversation should have ended there. Mel tried asking about Becca's sex life and if she was being safe—because she needed to be if she wanted to be independent and live on her own—but when Becca refused to answer, Mel raised her voice. Then Dr. Langdon made her leave the room. Becca has refused all of Mel’s Facetime messages since then.
Mel opened her eyes again, staring out towards the city.
For as long as she could remember, her life had been built around doing the right thing. She was the reliable one. The responsible one.
And Mel had always been okay with that.
Until today.
Because today was the first time someone had looked at the life she’d built and said it was small.
Mel exhaled slowly, the sound disappearing in the warm summer air.
Somewhere in the distance, a firework cracked loudly against the night sky.
Then another.
And another.
Mel watched them silently. Everyone else in the city was celebrating freedom, and for the first time in her life, Mel realized she wasn’t entirely sure what hers was supposed to look like.
Another set of fireworks sparkled in the sky, scattering silver light over the skyline of Pittsburgh. The colors reflected faintly in the lenses of her glasses as she sat on the bench with her shoulders slightly hunched and her hands folded between her knees, like she was trying to hold herself together.
Behind her, she heard footsteps walking down the trail. Mel didn’t bother turning around; people had been coming and going all evening, stopping along the lawn to watch the fireworks before heading home.
Footsteps crossed the grass, and then she heard someone sit beside her on the bench.
Mel stiffened; she turned her head just enough to see who sat down.
Frank Langdon.
Of course it was him. Mel had purposely been avoiding him since her fight with Becca. He was in the room when it happened, and Mel was still embarrassed that he witnessed her breakdown. She was also embarrassed over Becca’s comments—how she told Langdon that Mel liked him in a roundabout way, but she figured she could play that off if it was brought up again.
He sat at the far end of the bench like he wasn’t trying to intrude. His elbows rested loosely on his knees as he looked out towards the skyline.
“Hi,” Mel finally said.
Frank glanced over. “Hey.”
A red firework exploded above them, leaving bright, gold sparks raining across the sky. The light briefly illuminated his face before it faded again.
Neither of them said anything else; they just watched.
The fireworks continued in uneven bursts—blue then yellow, then a wide bloom of red that stretched across the sky.
Mel wasn’t sure how long they sat like that. Maybe a minute, maybe two. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly; unexpected if anything.
“Good view from here,” he uttered, nodding towards the sky.
Mel hummed softly in agreement. “Yeah.”
Mel thought that might be the end of the conversation, but after a moment, she felt his gaze shift towards her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Mel asked, genuinely confused. Did he want to talk about the fight? The things she said? The things Becca said? She thought in horror.
“I don’t know,” he trailed off. “You still haven’t told me about how your deposition went.”
Somehow, the deposition felt like the easiest thing to talk about.
“I knew when I woke up that today was not going to be fun,” she started, her shoulders finally sagging. Reaching up to undo her braid, Mel stared off towards the sky. “I woke up hot and sweaty because it’s unreasonably hot right now, and I really don’t like the summer all that much anyway, but waking up like that is the worst feeling.”
“I have to agree with you there, but I grew up in the mountains; I like it cold,” Frank said, resting his back against the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“I grew up in Ohio,” she replied plainly, another burst of fireworks going off in the distance. She grew distracted with the fireworks, turning her head towards the explosions.
Frank knocked his foot against hers; his eyes followed her fingers as they combed through her hair. He cleared his throat and said, “Keep going.”
“And it snowballed from there. I knew I had the deposition, so I was already a little stressed out and really not in it mentally,” she sighed heavily before continuing. “Then someone flirts with me for the first time in God only knows how long, and he proceeds to tell me that my hair and my glasses remind him of his dead mother and he was a criminal…so not great. Then I was off all morning up until the deposition. They suggested I was incompetent even though the tap was perfect. I was already terrified going in there, then the lawyer told me that they weren’t nearly as hard on Ellist.”
Frank sat up straight, turning his entire body towards her. “I don’t like that.”
Mel lazily dragged her eyes to him, but she didn’t turn her head. She felt oddly affected by the way his jaw tensed and the way his voice was sharp and angry, and she didn’t want him to notice. “I wasn’t a big fan either,” she finally mumbled.
She pressed her lips together, trying to gather her thoughts. He pretty much knew the next part. “Then I find out my sister has a whole boyfriend she hasn’t told me about. I thought we told each other about everything, but we don't, and then she doesn’t want to tell me if she’s being safe, and I blow up. Dr. Langdon, I don’t like getting angry—especially with Becca. Anger is not a feeling I am good at. I hate that I yelled at her.”
“I know it’s hard fighting with the people you love, but it happens. Siblings fight; it’s completely normal. My favorite pastime when I go home is annoying my oldest sister Katie until she wants to rip my head off. You and Becca will make up. And you can call me Frank.”
Mel hoped he was right; she hoped Becca would eventually forgive her. “You don’t understand, it’s only me and Becca. I’m her primary caretaker; I shouldn’t have acted like that.”
He hesitated for a few minutes. She watched him rotate his phone in his hand, pondering the sky. “What happened to your parents? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just trying to understand you, Mel.”
He said the last part a little softer, and for some reason, Mel wanted to believe him.
She told him about how their dad passed away when they were seventeen in a car accident. Then three years later, her mom had aggressive malignant pheochromocytoma, leaving her and Becca with only each other. She told him about all of the things she missed out on, how she had to take a year off school and figure out how to navigate their new life.
He listened to her the entire time without ever taking his eyes off of her. She felt a little unnerved under his intense gaze and how intently he paid attention to her; nobody had ever paid that much attention to her before.
When she was finally done ranting and listing all of the things that she'd missed out on, she huffed out a heavy breath. Her fingers gripped the edge of the bench; she turned to look at Frank.
He unclenched his jaw and said, “That’s so fucking bleak, Mel. And I am so fucking sorry. Do you have any extended family?"
“Most of them are in Ohio, and even then, we see them for holidays or the random graduation or baby shower. Family events are a lot for Becca, so I usually had to find somewhere quiet for us to sit, and now that she’s an adult, I go alone if at all. I know I should reach out more, but I don’t have the energy to do it.”
“And the phone works both ways,” Frank pointed out.
“That too.” Mel nodded.
The conversation fizzled out because the firework finale started. Boom after boom, the sky lit up in an endless glittering celebration. They could hear people in the distance cheering and clapping. Someone went as far as whistling, the sound making Mel jump. Frank let out a hoarse chuckle at her startled reaction.
Mel tried not to think about how this was about to end and she was going to end up alone in her apartment feeling sorry for herself while she brainstormed a thousand ways to apologize to Becca.
“You’re probably hungry, right? I don't think I ever saw you eat anything today,” Frank asked, shifting like he was about to stand up.
Without thinking about her next response too much, she blurted out in the most playful tone she’s used all day, "Were you watching me or something?”
She was sure if she asked him about the rising blush on his cheeks, he would blame it on the July heat.
“Friends look out for each other, Melissa King,” he said in a jokingly pointed way. He pressed his hands to his knees, standing but not moving. “So, do you want to go get the best burger you’ll ever have in this city with me, or do you want to go home and lie on your couch and cry and feel bad for yourself?”
She tilted her head in confusion. "Shouldn't you get home? Don’t you have plans with your wife?”
Frank hesitated before shaking his head. “Nah.” He pursed his lips like he wasn’t even sure he wanted to say anything at all. He finally asked, “Wanna know a secret?”
Mel stood up, silently letting him know that she would go with him. They started walking towards his car when she nodded for him to spill it.
“Abby and I are basically roommates until my first year of sobriety is up.”
Mel couldn’t help but selfishly wonder when that would be. “I feel like that’s got to be difficult.”
He shrugged, pushing his hair from his forehead. He then went on to tell her how they only got married because Abby thought she was pregnant and Frank asked her out of sheer panic. Then the benefits of being married outweighed the price of a divorce lawyer…for a while at least.
Mel wasn’t exactly sure what to say or how to be comforting to Frank; that all sounded complicated and stressful. He assured her that it was for the better when he saw her crestfallen frown.
Mel fell into step beside him as they crossed the hospital parking lot. The night air was still thick with heat; it was the kind that clung stubbornly to her skin even though the sun had been gone for a while. Somewhere behind them another round of fireworks cracked against the sky, the echoes bouncing off the buildings around the hospital.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
Mel shoved her hands into the pockets of her scrub pants as they walked, the gravel crunching softly beneath their shoes. She was suddenly aware of how strange this was.
Twenty minutes ago, she had been sitting alone on a bench, convinced the night couldn’t get any worse. And now, she was walking through a parking lot with Dr. Langdon-Frank on the way to get the best burger in town.
Life felt weird.
They reached a dark blue sedan parked near the edge of the employee lot. Frank unlocked it, and in one suave motion, he opened the passenger door for Mel and rounded the front of the car, climbing into the driver’s seat.
Mel paused for a second. Nobody has opened a door for her in… possibly ever.
“Are you getting in?” He asked, leaning on the center console to look up at her from his seat. “Or are you planning on standing there all night judging my park job?”
Mel slid into the seat with a small smile on her face. “I wasn’t judging,” she said, tugging the seat belt across her chest.
The car rolled out of the lot and onto the street that ran along the hospital. Most of the traffic had cleared out for the night, leaving the roads mostly empty except for the occasional car heading toward the rivers.
Another firework burst overhead as they stopped at a red light. Mel tilted her head back slightly, watching the colors scatter across the windshield. ”Where are we going? I want to look up the menu before we get there.”
“Applewood Smoke Burger.”
They drove in comfortable silence as the city opened up in front of them. The skyline of Pittsburgh stretched across the distance, glittering with lights and the occasional flash of fireworks exploding above the buildings.
Mel rested her elbow against the window.
They fell into a light conversation about work and how they weren’t excited to go back and do it all again tomorrow as Frank easily drove across the city with one hand on the wheel and the other with their elbow resting comfortably between them.
The car slowed as he turned onto a smaller street lined with brick storefronts and dim neon signs glowing in the windows.
He pulled into a narrow parking spot near the corner and shut off the engine. For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Frank gestured toward a low brick building with warm yellow light spilling out of the windows.
It didn’t look like the kind of place that served the best burger in Pittsburgh. In fact, it barely looked like a restaurant at all.
The front door opened into a neighborhood pub with dim lighting, a few people sitting at the bar, and the muted glow of a television playing over someone’s shoulder. The air smelled faintly of beer.
Mel stopped just inside the doorway. It smelled incredible.
Mel’s stomach growled loudly enough that Frank actually laughed.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding toward the menu. “That happens.”
“Do you have a recommendation?” She turned to Frank; he wasn’t even looking at the menu.
Frank didn’t even hesitate. “Applewood burger. Bacon, cheddar, and garlic aioli.”
Mel studied him suspiciously. “You sound very confident about that.”
“I’ve done the research.”
She crossed her arms. “How many times have you been here?”
Frank tilted his head, eyeing her with a smirk tugging at his lips. “Enough.”
Mel shook her head but stepped forward to order anyway.
A few minutes later they slid into a booth near the window, the vinyl seat sticking slightly to the back of Mel’s scrub top.
Outside, another firework burst somewhere nearby, briefly lighting the glass in a flash of red.
Mel rested her elbows on the table. “You realize,” she started, “if this burger isn’t the best one I’ve ever had, your credibility at work is going to suffer.”
Frank leaned back against the booth. “That seems like an extreme consequence.”
“You’re the one who made the claim.”
Before they could respond, the server dropped their plates on the table.
The burger was enormous. The bun was slightly toasted, the melted cheese dripping down the sides while a strip of bacon hung precariously over the edge. A pile of sweet potato fries sat beside it, still steaming.
Mel stared at it for a second. “Okay,” she admitted. “That looks promising.”
Frank gestured toward it. “Go ahead.”
She picked it up carefully, trying not to let the toppings slide everywhere. “This is a lot of pressure,” she muttered before taking a bite.
For a moment she didn’t say anything. Frank watched her, clearly waiting.
Mel slowly lowered the burger back to the plate.
“Well?” he asked almost impatiently.
She wiped her hands on a napkin, pretending to think about it. “It’s… fine.”
Frank’s eyebrows lifted. “Fine?”
"Yeah." Mel tried to hold back her smile. “Pretty average.”
He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes slightly before grinning. “You’re lying.”
Mel finally laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, it’s really good.”
“Really good,” he repeated skeptically, narrowing his eyes at her.
“Possibly the best burger I’ve ever had,” she corrected, rolling her eyes.
“That’s better.”
She took another bite, already halfway through the burger before she realized how hungry she actually was.
“How long have you lived here, Mel?”
“Two and a half years,” she answered, reaching for her water. “Why?”
He gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the city beyond it. “You have lived here for two and a half years; how much of the city have you seen?”
Mel shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
“Right,” he said simply. Then he picked up a fry, his eyes fixed on her as he bit down on it. “We should fix that.”
She frowned slightly. “What does that mean?”
Frank spoke like the idea had just occurred to him, though the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth suggested otherwise. “One place a week.”
Mel blinked. “What?”
“One place in Pittsburgh you’ve never been to,” he explained. “Every week. All summer.”
She stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“Very.”
Mel laughed softly. “You’re suggesting… what? Field trips?”
Frank shook his head. “Friends hang out, Mel.”
She shook her head, still smiling faintly. “I don’t have time for field trips.”
“You just spent twenty minutes explaining how you never do anything,” he pointed out calmly.
Mel opened her mouth, then closed it again. “That’s different.”
“How?”
She hesitated. Frank watched her for a moment before shrugging lightly. “No pressure,” he said. “Just a suggestion.”
Mel glanced down at her plate, tracing the edge of a fry with her finger.
Earlier that night, sitting alone on the bench, she had thought about what it might feel like to make one decision that was just for her.
Just once.
Her sister’s voice echoed in the back of her mind. You don’t have a life, Mel.
She sighed and then she looked back up at him. “One place a week?” she questioned.
Frank nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Mel considered it for another second before shaking her head slightly. “Becca wants space anyway, and I really don’t want to mope in my apartment all summer.”
Frank’s smile was wide now. “Great, we can start planning tomorrow at work.”
“Don’t get too excited,” she warned. “This is a trial run.”
“That’s fine,” he said easily.
Outside, another firework burst over the city, and for the first time that night, Mel realized she was actually looking forward to something.