“I love you so much, Mammy.”
She squeezed me tightly. “I love you more, baby.”
Fear wrapped itself around me.
Please God, I thought. Don’t take her from me.
I had never known complete and utter helplessness until that moment.
Four hours ago, I found out my ma had breast cancer. After the initial shock, my parents explained to me that it was detected at an early stage. Treatment would start soon, and the success rate of remission was higher, too. None of that comforted me because, at the end of the day, my ma had cancer, and the only purpose of cancer was to kill its host.
That host was my mother.
I had stayed in my parents’ house talking and crying as I tried to come to terms with this life-altering news. When my ma began to show signs of fatigue, I made an excuse that I had to leave so I could go home and prepare for my business interview the following day. It pleased my ma because she wanted me to carry on as normal, but from the look in my da’s eyes, he knew better.
I found myself outside the front door of Bronagh and Nico’s house not long after I left my parents. It wasn’t very late, closing in on nine p.m. I had to park on the road because Kane’s car was in the driveway next to Nico’s, and Ryder’s car was behind both of them, leaving no room for anyone else. Even though I had a key, I knocked on the door and waited.
Keela opened the door, and she smiled wide when she saw me, but slowly, her smile fell from her face.
“What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t answer her; I walked by her and heard her shut the door behind me and quickly follow me into the sitting room where everyone was. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Jax was asleep in his da’s arms, and Locke was asleep in his ma’s. There was no sign of Georgie, so I assumed she was already up in her bedroom asleep in her cot. Nico had her baby monitor in his hand, so he could see her and hear her if she woke up.
“Well, well,” Alec announced when his playful eyes landed on mine. “Look who decided to show her face.”
I didn’t spare him a glance; instead, I focused on my best friend whose eyes were on me as she slowly got to her feet.
“Alannah,” Bronagh said slowly, drawing to everyone’s attention that I wasn’t okay. “What’s wrong?”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak, and then, somehow, I managed to say words that I knew would plague my dreams.
“Me ma,” I rasped as I prepared to say the words no child ever wanted to say. “She has cancer.”
Everyone sucked in shocked breaths, but that didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that the first person to reach me, to gather me in their arms and hold me wasn’t Bronagh. It was Damien, and at that moment, there was no other place I wanted to be.
I put my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest as sobs erupted from me. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed in Damien’s embrace, but eventually, he moved me to a now empty settee. He sat on my left with his arm still tightly around my waist while Bronagh sat on my right. Leaning her head against mine, she hugged me.
“What happened?”
“I went around to their house for dinner, like I do every Monday.” I wept. “I went early today because Dante and Damien had a fight in the garage, and I didn’t want to go home and be on me own after that ... I wanted to see me ma, so I went around and helped ’er with dinner.”
Damien gave me a squeeze, and I knew it was a silent apology for his fight with Dante.
“We had the best laugh we’d had together in a long time.” I smiled, my lower lip wobbling. “She was takin’ the piss out of me and was ’er usual happy self. That changed after dinner when ’er and me da sat me down in the sittin’ room.”
Another squeeze from Damien.
“I knew it was somethin’ bad,” I said, recalling the worried expressions on their faces. “At first, I thought somethin’ might have happened to me grandparents or Brogan. Nothin’ could have prepared me for what they were goin’ to tell me. I wasn’t expectin’ them to say she had breast cancer. I had no clue. None.”
Bronagh placed her hand in mine and held it tightly.
“When they told me, and me ma left the room to clean ’erself up, I just went off on a mad one at me da.”
Bronagh gasped. “Did you confront ’im about the affair?”
“I did; everythin’ I’ve kept inside just boiled over.” I swallowed. “I told ’im I’d savage ’im like an animal over it, too.”