Melinda staggered when his elbow came down on her, although that ended up helping, because she couldn't move backward as fast. That gave her more time to react to his push and dart sideways, sweeping a leg under him to try to knock him to the ground again. She'd have a bruise on her shoulder there, but it didn't matter. Melinda didn't want much of anything except to make someone else feel as shitty as she did. Maybe this wasn't the way to go about it, but she brought her fist toward his kidney anyway.