Michael woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the TV on in the living room, and his first thought was that Parker had gotten out of bed and tried to turn on Mario Kart again.
He reached over, trying to feel for Melissa so Michael could tell her to get up and get Parker, but she wasn't there. He found Parker and Katie, both sleeping in the middle of the bed where Michael had left them a few hours before, but no Melissa.
Michael sighed and rolled out of bed, shaking his hair out as he walked out of the room and into the living room, where the TV was playing very loudly.
Sure enough, Melissa was sitting there on the couch, watching the TV and eating from the bag of chips that she'd asked Michael to buy for her the day before.
"Hey." Michael whispered as he came up behind her. He sat down next to Melissa and grabbed the remote from her hands, turning the volume of the TV down a significant amount.
"Hi." Melissa said quietly, looking at Michael for a second before turning her attention back to the TV.
"What are you watching?" He asked. This wasn't normal, Michael wasn't used to Melissa getting up in the middle of the night and hanging out in the living room like this. He was worried.
"Some sappy romantic movie on the Lifetime channel." Melissa said, holding out the bag of chips and offering some to Michael. He politely declined and Melissa shrugged, bringing the bag back to herself again.
"It's almost 2 in the morning, aren't you tired?" Michael questioned. He knew that if Melissa didn't get any sleep she was going to be really grumpy in the morning, and Michael was trying to prevent that from happening.
"No, not really. I was hungry so I got up to go find something to eat and then i decided to just watch some TV for a while." Melissa shrugged.
"Oh, alright." Michael said softly, shifting his position on the couch so he could wrap an arm around Melissa and pull her closer. "Can I watch with you?"
"Yeah." Melissa nodded. She rested her head against Michael's chest, placing the bag of chips between them.
They finished watching the movie together and by the time it was over Melissa was full on crying and Michael was blinking back tears as well, but he was trying to hide them. It was a sad movie, yeah, but he didn't think it was sad enough for Melissa to cry so much about it.
Melissa sat up and wiped under her eyes before turning and facing Michael again, setting the now empty bag of chips down on the coffee table.
"Are you okay?" Michael asked, even though he'd asked this question a lot lately.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Melissa nodded, but she was still crying.
"I'm kind of worried about you, you've been acting different lately." Michael said carefully, not wanting to upset Melissa any more.
"I'm fine, Michael, you don't need to worry about me." Melissa sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
"I don't like waking up in the middle of the night to hear you crying." Michael said, thinking about the last few weeks and how strange Melissa had been acting. Michael wrapped his arms around Melissa's waist and pulled her onto his lap, moving her hair to the side and leaving a few short kisses on her neck.
"I know, and I'm sorry. I should just pull myself together, I can't act like this all the time." Melissa sighed, grabbing one of Michae's hands and lacing their fingers together.
"Is there something wrong? You know you can tell me if anything's wrong, Mel." Michael said softly. He hated seeing Melissa sad like this but since she wouldn't tell him exactly what was going on he was finding it hard to help her. Michael was doing the best he could. "Please tell me."
