DARE-TO-LOVE-TRUTH-AND-DARE-DUET-COLLECTION-by-Lylah-James-pdfarchive

“That was the happiest day of our lives, Maddox,” my
mother whimpered. “The happiest. Truly, the happiest. The
best day.”
I wanted to call her a liar. All my life, they made me feel
unwanted. I had been a mistake… yet, here they were,
telling me that I was loved, before I was even born.
Bullshit.
But I stayed silent and listened. Because it was all I
could do. I was stuck in this moment, their voices echoing
in my ears, their past flashing in front of my eyes. I was…
numb and then I was… feeling too much.
“For six years, we had everything we wanted. Sure, we
weren’t rich. We still struggled. But whatever we had, it
was enough. Then, life… it… knocked us down... again.”
“What?” My voice deepened, a ball of emotions settling
itself at the base of my throat. “What happened?”
“You were five when I was diagnosed with colon cancer,”
my father said.
I covered my mouth, then rubbed a palm over my face.
Fuck. No. This isn’t… this couldn’t be real.
“I’m out of here,” I growled, pushing to my feet.
“Please,” she whispered, so brokenly, I… just… couldn’t.
Walk. Away.
“Colon cancer is one of the easiest diseases to detect,
and since we discovered it, at the earliest stage, it was
curable,” my father offered. “But that was a reality check
for us, son.”
He coughed in his fist once and then rubbed his chest,
as if it pained him. The expression of his face was one of
sorrow. And shame. “It was then I realized that if
something were to ever happen to me… I would leave a
wife and son, without any savings. A mortgage, student
loans and nothing else. Your mother, she never finished
high school. She worked to put me in university. She
worked, so I could have a degree, and if I had died… your
mother and you would have been left with nothing.”