“I know these sound like silly excuses.”

“Yes, they’re excuses,” I replied quietly. “There’s never a good time to have something shitty happen to you. But to lock everyone out? That’s how you make it worse for everyone else—and for yourself. Because by doing that, you made us more than helpless. And whether you’d want to admit it or not—You. Need. Our. Help.”

She sighed. “I thought it would be a quick surgery and some radiation. So I didn’t think it really necessary to bother anyone with it—”

I scowled. I couldn’t help it. Fucking cancer and she didn’t want to “bother” us with it.

“Let’s not worry about the past, okay? It’s done. Let’s talk about today. Now. Your mom needs to know. She deserves to know. And she deserves to hear it from you.” The same way I deserved to hear it…

She shook her head. “Don’t force this on me.”

“I won’t. But…think of it like this. What if she had never told you about her cancer? You were away at school. She could have kept it from you for months without a problem. How would you have felt after finding out that she’d gone through all that alone? She will find out, eventually. You can’t hide this from her forever. Please, Mia.”

She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes and began to sob, her entire body shaking. “I’m scared, Adam! Okay? I don’t know which I’m more scared to tell her about, the cancer or the pregnancy.”

I reached out and pulled one of her palms away from her face, took her hand in my own. My fingers closed around hers. “I’ll be there. I’ll help you.”

She was still and silent for a long moment. Took a deep breath and, with her head bowed, finally nodded. “Okay,” she whispered, and her hand tightened around mine.

After a long pause, I slowly removed my hand from hers and turned to start the car again. A few minutes later, I was pulling into Peter’s driveway. Kim had stayed over another day when I’d contacted her yesterday, asking her to. Heath would be here shortly, too. This was Emilia’s intervention.

Chapter Three

Mia

I slowly got out of the car, my muscles stiff with annoyance. Adam had been prepared to handle this in the same high-handed fashion he handled most things—until he’d heeded my pleas to pull over. But I hadn’t been prepared for his calm, cool reasoning. His gentle pleas. That was different…

I took a deep breath, my heartbeat racing. Adam hesitated, hovering nearby. I stared at the red-trimmed front door to Peter’s house, knowing my mom was in there, knowing I was about to drop a bomb right into the middle of her life when she had just found a new love and things were starting to look up for her in her life. “Give me a minute,” I muttered.

He didn’t move, looking away and putting his hands in his pockets. “Take the time you need.”

Adam did have a point—it was time to tell Mom. I’d been wondering when I could tell her and I’d kept putting it off. Might as well get it over with in one quick and painful blow.

A weight sank in my stomach and everything tightened in my chest as I nodded and he turned for the front door. I numbly followed him up the porch steps. He opened the door without knocking, like he always did and called inside. “Hey, we’re here.”

Mom was the first person I saw and Adam stepped aside so that she could greet me, throwing a hug around my neck. I could tell by her face that she didn’t know. Her features were clouded with uncertain worry. I’d like to think I’d know what her face would look like if she knew about the diagnosis. I’d seen that face a thousand times when I’d imagined telling her. In my own thoughts I never got past the first word or two before utterly breaking down at the thought of having to destroy her like this.

I knew how that had felt two years before when she’d gotten her diagnosis. It had gutted me, and Mom was only very recently cancer-free herself. What if the stress of my diagnosis made her sick again?

I pulled away from Mom, unable to meet her eyes. She put her hands on either side of my cheeks. “Mia,” she said quietly. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it, okay? I’m here for you.”

I looked into her brown eyes, so much like my own, and I couldn’t keep it inside anymore. I started sobbing. Again.

Her arms wrapped around me. We stood in the kitchen alone. Adam had already stepped away. I tilted my face into my mom’s shoulder and muffled my crying as best I could but I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even gather a thought, much less collect myself.