Beyond Repair (25 page)

“No. It’s so early that it’s not necessary. We are going to run many tests over the next several days to rule out other diseases, but I assume that our next step will be surgery. If the surgery is successful, then Mia will need to be on medication for the duration of her life. There will be no need for chemo as long as the cancer doesn’t return. And we will take precautions to ensure that those chances are as low as possible.”

I sat quietly, processing the information. Mia needed surgery, which sucked, but it sounded like the outlook was much better than I’d expected. The medication we could handle. Losing Mia was something I could not. “How dangerous is the surgery?”

“It’s very routine. There are risks with any surgery, but I have every confidence that Mia’s procedure will be successful.”

Chris put his other hand on top of mine and spoke next. “What happens in the surgery?”

He held up a diagram of a person’s neck with all of the parts labeled. “Since the cancer has not spread far, I will be performing what is called selective neck dissection. I will be removing only the lymph nodes, which is where the cancer is located. This will be removing all of the cancer from her body.”

I let out a breath. “That’s it? That’s all you have to do?” It just seemed too easy.

“Well, no. It is standard to remove the entire thyroid as well in this circumstance. This is what I was referring to earlier, to ensure the cancer does not return.”

I really wished I’d paid better attention in all of those science and health classes I had to take in high school and college. “Doesn’t she need her thyroid? Isn’t it important?”

Dr. Lynch nodded. “This is where the medication comes in. It will be replacing the hormones that the thyroid produces …”

I listened to his explanation of the hormones. He explained how Mia would have a ninety percent chance of a normal lifespan, provided the cancer didn’t return. He discussed what would happen the next few days: lots of doctors, lots of tests, and lots of blood work.

Then he began talking about the testing my family and I would have to go through to see if we were carriers. “I’d like to schedule them to come in as soon as possible for the testing. It takes about three weeks to get the results since we prioritize urgent cases. If your family is not carrying the cancer, Brooke, then her father’s side should be notified.”

Seriously, this was the last fucking thing we needed right now. I tried not to think of him, but the reality was that I had to. I was going to have to deal with all the shit I’d buried in the back of my mind.

My purse was on the floor next to me, and I looked down at it, longing for my hand sanitizer. Chris let go of my hand and reached down, handing my purse to me. I pulled out the bottle.

Chris looked at the doctor. “Do you guys automatically notify the father?”

He directed his answer to me. “No, that would be your responsibility.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
IA WAS SO TIRED FROM
spending most of the day at the doctor’s office that she fell asleep as I was reading to her before bed. The poor thing needed her sleep, but I wanted to shake her awake. I didn’t want to miss any time with her.

I stroked her hair as everything that happened looped through my mind. What a shitty, shitty day. A neck biopsy and cancer. Tomorrow was going to be blood work and more tests. It was going to be like that every day for the next week until the surgery.

And she didn’t even know what was going on. How was I going to explain this to her?

I didn’t know how long I stayed with Mia, wondering how I was going to tell her about everything that needed to be done. Chris came to the door, interrupting my thoughts.

“Brooke,” he whispered. “It’s been a long day. You should try to go to bed.”

Seeing him snapped me away from worry. The horror and guilt rushed back, reminding me of my deal to wait until Mia was asleep before I allowed myself to cry. Tears streamed down my face as I walked toward the door. He reached for me but I ignored him, heading to my room. I sat on my bed and cried so hard that my breaths came out in choked gasps.

I could feel his body sitting next to me, but he kept his distance. Good. I didn’t deserve comforting, especially from the guy I had paid more attention to than Mia. Chris didn’t play any games. He was always upfront about his feelings. I was the one who avoided the truth and telling him, which was what made me so distracted. He deserved better than me. Mia deserved better than me. And now my daughter had cancer. She might die. My whole family might be at risk. If they weren’t, then I’d have to decide what to do about Pierce. And I shouldn’t even be thinking of him now
.

And all I could do was just sit there crying about it, and I fucking hated crying.

A hand was in my hair, and I pushed it off. “Don’t. Just don’t.” I choked out.

The hand didn’t return, but Chris spoke. “I get that you need to cry, but please don’t go through this alone.”

He might as well have stabbed me in the stomach with the sadness in his voice.

I tried to see him through my blurred vision. “I should have seen she was sick earlier. I should have figured it out.”

“Figured out what, Brooke? That a few small bug bites looked like an extremely rare cancer? That her talking about a bubble in her throat wasn’t from swallowing funny, it was thyroid problems? How would you have known that?”

“I wasn’t focusing on her as much as I should have been.”

“You’re always focused on her.”

“I’ve been … distracted. I started thinking more lately about stuff that I used to ignore.”

“Yeah, you’re right. How
dare
you think about the time you were raped?”

“It’s not just that.” I looked at him, my vision getting a little clearer, and his face broke.

He spoke slowly. “It’s me. I’m the reason why you didn’t notice.”

“Yes. Well, no. My feelings for you distracted me. It’s not your fault. You were upfront from the start about what you needed, and you told me what happened to you right away. You’ve been nothing but perfect. I’m the one that spent all this time—”

“Your sister watched her twice for us. That’s it. Every other time we were together she was home with us or in school.”

“It’s not just spending time together. I’ve just been … okay, it’s like this. You’re in a boy band—”

“No. Are you even serious right now?”

“Yes. You’re in a boy band and I was like some fourteen-year-old lusting after you. Thinking of you all the time and drawing our names with hearts around them.”

“Did you really do that?”

“Just once. Twice. But listen. It’s not the guy in the band’s fault.
He
didn’t do anything except exist. It’s the girl’s fault because
she
is just being stupid and letting her little obsession take over her mind.”

He stared at me.

I tried to clarify. “I think about you all the time. I have dreams about you. I look out of my window in the morning because I hope to see you running. I just let myself get so into you that I missed what was happening with Mia.” I looked down. “And now she has cancer.” The stupid tears came back.

Chris moved closer to me but didn’t try to touch me again. “Kyle and I talked about you at Mia’s party. He didn’t tell me what happened, but he did say you’d been very emotionally detached from everything except Mia and your family for years.”

Normally, I would have been pissed Kyle talked about me behind my back, but I had too much on my mind to care. I nodded. “I was. I never would have missed this. Even if it’s rare. I would have internet searched the hell out of it—”

“You wouldn’t have tracked it down. Stop blaming yourself.”

“When I noticed her voice sounded strange the first time, I should have called the doctor, not just assumed it was laryngitis—”

“Brooke, stop. Please.” His low voice was sad and pleading.

I couldn’t look at him anymore; the tormented look on his face was making me feel worse. Staring at my hands, the truth spewed out of me. “I fucked up so bad. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve you. I’m a terrible mother and I’m selfish and … and you can do so much better. You shouldn’t be with me. You need someone who will be a good mother because I know you probably want babies—”

“Don’t say that.” Chris wrapped his arms around me, holding me to him when I tried to pull away. “Push all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”

I struggled for a minute, but he kept me caged in his arms. And I finally stilled, leaning against him. He relaxed his grip. “I didn’t finish explaining what Kyle told me. He said you’ve been happy since we started seeing each other.”

“I don’t deserve to be happy.”

“Yes, you do. And you’re wrong to blame yourself about Mia. This is happening, and it sucks, but it’s not to punish you for being happy. Or because you started feeling something for the first time in years and your mind got carried away. I get carried away when I think of you, too. You’re not the only one.”

I didn’t argue with him. There was no point. He wasn’t going to give up trying to make me feel better. I knew the truth, that I had missed all the signs.

Chris kissed the top of my head. “Mia is going to kick cancer in the nuts. Do you really think that bossy kid is going to let cancer tell her what to do?”

I closed my eyes. “No.”

“That’s right. Mia—who
you
raised—is tough. Even now, we know she has it and she’s not acting any differently. Did you see how quick she was to put me in my place when I didn’t know what color Cinderella’s dress was?”

“Everyone knows Cinderella has a blue dress. You really didn’t know that?”

“I knew Elsa did.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. “How am I going to tell her?”

“We’ll tell her tomorrow, both of us.”

“What if she’s not okay? What if …?” I didn’t want to say it.
What if she dies?

He let out a breath and his arms tightened around me. “It would be the worst thing ever. But we’d work through it together. But her chances are so, so good. Let’s not think like that.”

I didn’t answer him, because he was right. The doctor was confident today that she would be fine. He kept saying how early we caught it, and how good that was. Mia was going to be fine unless the tests revealed some huge complication, which the doctor said she had no symptoms to indicate. She needed hope and her mother to be there for her.

Exhaustion swept over me, and I didn’t have the energy to talk anymore. “Let’s go to bed, okay?”

* * *

As I blinked my eyes open, I found sleepy blue ones looking back at me. Chris brushed my hair out of my face. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I whispered back. I didn’t ask if he slept okay because I knew he didn’t. I was mentally drained, so I had passed out after we talked but kept waking up from having horrible dreams. Each time, he was awake to soothe me back to sleep with his gentle touch and soft words. “I’m sorry I kept waking you up all night.”

“I couldn’t sleep. You weren’t waking me.” He kissed my forehead. “I’ll go in a minute so I’m not here when Mia gets up.”

“You don’t have to go.” What seemed like such a big deal a couple of days ago was really nothing at all now. Mia liked Chris, and she knew that we had a relationship. “She’ll be happy to see you.”

“Me, too,” he said, trailing his fingers down my arm. We stared at each other, and by Chris’s pained expression, I knew we were both thinking the same thing, but neither one of us wanted to say it.

Finally, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I have to tell her. This morning. She needs to know there is a reason for everything that she’s going through.”

“I’ll be with you.”

I closed my eyes. “I don’t even know what to say to her.”

“We’ll tell her the truth. She’s smart.”

* * *

Mia sat on the couch between Chris and me, peering up at us. I could tell she knew this was serious. Her expression was somber, a huge contrast from the smiley girl she usually was.

I smoothed her hair, still trying to figure out the best way to break this to her. “We’ve had to see doctors a lot lately, haven’t we?”

“Yes. You said they have to look at my neck because there are bumps on it.”

“You’re right; that’s why we’ve been going a lot. And sweetie, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to go back a lot more times.”

Her bottom lip stuck out. “Why?”

“Because the bumps on your neck are making you sick.”

“I’m not sick.” She looked guilty. “I haven’t been going to school but you said I don’t have to.”

“This is a different kind of sick. You feel okay now, but there is something in those bumps called cancer, and cancer can make you get really sick later.”
Maybe even die, but I’m not telling you that. I can’t. I’m sorry. Please don’t die.

The confusion and sad look on Mia’s face was one of the worst things I’d ever seen in my entire life. I wanted to do nothing more than take her and run away from everything. Get far away from the tests, the doctors, and surgery. Anything that would hurt her.

But you couldn’t run away from cancer, so it didn’t really matter what I wanted to do. This wasn’t about what she wanted; it was what she needed to live. I pulled her onto my lap and hugged her, trying to figure out how I should tell her.

Our eyes met and Chris rubbed her back. “Mia, your mom and I are going to take you back to the doctors today. You’re going to have to do some really brave things.”

“What brave things?”

“Well, the doctor is going to have to look at your throat with a special mirror. You’ll have to sit really still.”

Mia turned her head so she was looking at Chris. “That’s silly.”

It really wasn’t silly. It was called a laryngoscopy, and it was going to suck. A tube with a mirror attached would have to go down her throat while she sat there. Apparently, they would give her a numbing anesthetic in her throat to stop the gag reflex.

Chris answered her. “It sounds silly, but it might feel strange. You’re going to have to be really brave and stay still.”

Mia nodded. “I can be brave for that.”

“Great.” He bit his lip, and I could tell he was unsure what to tell her next.