Page 39 of Balance

I nod and hold back from patting her shoulder or something. “Of course. Lillian has my number if you want to put my contact in your phone, anything you need, you just let me know, okay?”

She nods and steps out of the room, shuffling down the hall towards the bedrooms. Lillian clears her throat and sends me a look.

“Thank you… I still haven’t gotten the full story, but I knew as soon as I saw her,” she blows out a breath. “I know we have a lot to talk about, but I really need to see if she will open up to me… she’s terrified of her own shadow right now. I have no idea how she got on a plane today.” She shakes her hands out at her side, her dark hair is almost as messy as it was last night after our time in the backyard.

“I… I’m going to come clean really quick, okay?” She helps Nessa and Tilly clean up before telling them to play in the playroom for a few minutes.

My stomach clenches and now I’m terrified of what she’s going to say. Is she going to come clean about the hormone treatments? About the not being able to get pregnant thing?

She steps closer and leans against the island, staring up at the ceiling for a few moments. When she meets my eyes, her gray eyes are distant and sad. “When I was about sixteen, I was having issues with my cycles. I was bleeding frequently, literally every two weeks. I was in debilitating pain, not able to get out of bed for days. I was also on psych meds at the time, and the doctors blamed all of my problems on my trauma andmedications. Even though I was a virgin… when they read my files and read about my past, they assumed I was having issues from sexual abuse, even though it was never that severe.”

I close my eyes and am worried to hear the rest now.

“Years go by and it never gets better. In college, I had to use prescription meds to even get out of bed, to sleep, and to eat. I saw so many doctors that I was starting to give up. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty three. I have endometriosis. My endometrial lining was growing all over my reproductive organs, and when they went in to treat it, to scrape it off, I even had it reaching my other organs. Causing me so many problems. In come more hormones, different birth controls, more pain meds.

“I was able to get off of all of my psych meds to see if it did help, but of course it was bullshit. After some more heavy therapy I was fine off of them anyway. But when I was twenty-five I started bleeding so heavily and the doctors didn’t know what to do to stop it. I was losing too much blood, so pale and weak I kept passing out.

“The next week I went on hormones to be able to extract my eggs to freeze for the future, just in case my uterus couldn’t be saved after the next surgery that was coming up. The hormones made me worse in so many ways. But it worked. They were able to retrieve thirteen of them and they’re frozen in San Francisco.” She smiles and her eyes grow even more glassy.

“During my surgery my doctor knew there was nothing they could do at that point. The pain and tissue growth was just… too severe to keep continuing on this way. So she woke me up, had me sign the forms, and then I went right back under for a complete hysterectomy. I take hormones to replace what my ovaries used to provide me. I don’t bleed. I don’t suffer. But I’m twenty-seven years old and can’t have children.”

I place my hand over my face. Holy fucking shit. I’m a fucking asshole. I’m a complete and utter jackass.

I shake my head and pull her against me, breathing her in and hugging her so tight that she groans under her breath. “I am so sorry I overreacted… Fucking hell, Lillian, I’m such an idiot. I even went to fucking Andy and asked for your medical records… Nothing came back yet but I was fucking terrified that you were on fertility drugs or something. Just waiting for me to fuck you.”

She snorts and slaps my back. “You could have just asked, I don’t know how I feel about people digging into my records… but, um thank you for telling me?”

I pull out my phone and dial Andy’s number holding my thumb over the call button. “I’ll tell him to call off the PI. I… I’m so sorry. What are you going to do with the eggs?”

She winces. “I have no idea. Maybe if I’m not in love or married by like thirty five, I’ll donate them to people who want or need them.”

I smile and press my forehead to hers. “Go check on the girls. Let me call Andy.” She kisses my cheek and scurries out of the room.

Fuck, I hope Malek hasn’t been able to pull anything up yet. I feel like shit now.

Just goes to show to not overreact until you have all of the information. How hard that must have been for her to muster up the courage to tell me jack shit, we’re not even together. Are we? Do I want to be?

Fuck if I know, but hell yes.

Chapter 13

Lillian

_________

Ihuff out a breath and collapse onto the couch. Avery’s at school and I just put the two littlest ones down for a nap. Mackenzie is laying right beside me, her blank stare is shifted towards the TV.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I murmur and I watch as her head shakes back and forth. She’s been here for two days now, and nothing. She barely comes out of her room. Only to eat or grab something from the fridge. I don’t know what else to do, but at least she’s here, she’s safe.

Morgan’s friend Marie is going to come over on Sunday to talk to her and check her out in the comfort of her new room. I offered to watch her twins and then told her to go out and get lunch or something as a thank you after she’s done here. She happily accepted. I haven’t met or talked to her yet, but she seems nice from what Morgan says.

I sigh and stare out the window and chew on my lip. Morgan printed out the information that his PI sent over to his attorney about Betty and I haven’t mustered up the courage to read it justyet. Everything has been crazy, and everything Betty-related has been pushed to the back of my mind so that I can focus on the girls.

Mackenzie knows I went to San Francisco but I haven’t told her about Betty’s death just yet. I want her to focus on herself. Healing and getting better.

I know I won’t hear a word about the funeral, but at this point, I don’t think I would be able to go. Seeing her awful kids in person and knowing that they would do something to get me thrown out. It’s not worth it for my sanity. Plus I can’t leave any time soon, especially not with Mackenzie needing me here.

I also still can’t believe that Brittany is in rehab. Morgan sent me a text last night apologizing about forgetting to tell me, but I’m so dang happy for her and what this can mean for the girls, but Morgan doesn’t trust it, he thinks it’s a ploy to get in the good graces with the courts to fight back.

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