Page 82 of Fake Love

“I can stay here. I don’t mind.” I say to him, reaching out to place my hand over his.

When it comes to holding hands, we have done that plenty of time, but for some reason, touching him now feels more intimate than just our fingers intertwined.

Maddox looks down at where our hands connect and moves to slide his fingers through mine. He keeps his eyes on our hands until he finally lets out a sigh.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I want you there. I need you there.”

His eyes look like they are ready to release a few tears.

I’ve never seen this side of him. Right in this minute it's as if he's a boy and not the man that I know that he is.

He’s hurting and I want to do everything in my power to take that pain away.

“Then I will be there every step of the way.”

24

JULY 14, 2022

Maddox

“Well, Nora, it’s a good thing that we watched those tumors for another month,” The doctor started, causing every single ounce of blood flowing through my body to drop to my feet.

This is it.

This is where they tell her that the tumors have grown and there won't be any surgery to remove them.

It has to be, because no way in hell does a sentence that starts off with ‘well’ is good.

“The tumors haven’t grown, that’s the verification that I needed. I think we are good to go with that surgery.”

My blood was still flowing at my feet as the doctor spoke and my mind tried to comprehend his words.

“She’s in the clear?” I found myself asking out loud, the grip that I had on my mom’s hand growing by the second.

The doctor’s facial expression changed a bit as he looked at me, trying to figure out how to answer my question.

“For now. There is no cure for cancer, especially something as big as brain cancer. Things could be clear one month and come back bigger and uglier the next. There is a possibility that the tumors may come back, but for right now I will answer your question with this. It looks like the treatment that Nora went through last year helped. The tumors have stopped growing and we hope that with the surgery, they will never come back, but that isn’t a guarantee. We will still need to keep an eye out to see if they return later down the line, ” the doctor answered, but it wasn’t good enough.

So I asked my question again.

“Is she in the clear?”

The doctor looked at me and then to my mom. Whatever was in her expression must have told him that I would not stop until I heard him give me a definite answer.

The doctor let out a sigh before he spoke. “For now, yes. Nora is in the clear.”

…

I don’t know why I had it in my head that once I heard the doctor say the word yes, everything would be okay. That it will all go back to how things were before the diagnosis came and changed everything.

Maybe it was my mom’s wishfulness running through me. Maybe it was that hope and faith that I told her to have all those weeks ago.

Whatever it was, it came to bite me in the ass.

For now, yes.

Three words that should have been a cause of celebration, but the only thing that they are causing is my mind to overthink.

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