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My face is puffy, and I have a headache as I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling. I think I cried myself to sleep after Trey left but I can’t be sure. It’s all kind of a haze. Just thinking about him has tears welling up in my eyes again, and I try to blink them away as I look to my side. Emma is sitting in the chair next to my bed, looking down at her belly, and rubbing her hands over her shirt, lost in thought.

“What’s on your mind, little mama?” I ask, and she looks up, a soft smile on her face, and says the last thing I ever expected.

“Ryan.”

I jerk back in shock and just stare at her. After all the abuse and horrors she went through with him, why the hell would she be thinking about him while looking down at her belly?

“Why?” I whisper, the disgust clear in my voice. If that bastard wasn’t already dead, I would kill him again myself.

Shaking her head, she looks down at her belly again and smiles. “There are times that I’ll look down at my belly and picture Grady and Corbin. They are these completely perfect little people, and I’ll think that it wasn’t all that long ago that Ryan was the same as them. He was an innocent little baby and his potential was limitless, and then the choices he made, turned him into the monster he became. I think about how Nix and I want to raise these boys and how our choices are going to shape them. I don’t want to let them down, ya know?”

“Yeah, of course I do but, Emma, some people are just born monsters.”

“Maybe but most of the time monsters are created. Anyway, my point is that I think about Ryan because it reminds me of everything I want to teach these little boys so they become the men I know they can be someday.”

“That’s really beautiful, Em.”

She shrugs and looks up at me again, her gaze hardening. “You know what I think we should talk about?”

“What?”

“I think you should tell me what the hell is going on with you lately, and don’t tell me nothing because I’ll know that you’re lying.”

I open my mouth but close it again when I don’t really know what to say to her. I’ve been keeping this secret so long, and now I don’t even know where to begin. Finally, I sigh and whisper, “My mom is sick.”

“What do you mean your mom is sick?” she asks, concern filling her face as she sits up straight and scoots the chair closer to me. Tears sting my eyes, and I bite down on my bottom lip as I look over at her and try to say the words out loud. I open my mouth again, and everything just starts spilling out, I tell her every little detail about my mom and her illness, and by the time that I’m done, we’re both crying.

“Addy, why didn’t you tell me?” she wails, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

“She made me promise, and it was kind of the last thing she ever asked me for so I wanted to honor it but it’s been killing me,” I admit.

“Of course it’s been killing you. This isn’t something you should go through alone. You’re like my sister. You should have come to Daisy and me. We’ve always been there for each other. You guys stood by me through everything with Ryan. You didn’t waver once, and I would have been there for you, too.”

“I really wish you could hug me right now,” I say, and she laughs.

“God, me, too, but you’re so bruised you look like a grape.”

I start laughing, too, and I know we look ridiculous half laughing and half crying. She holds my hand until our hysterics start to die down, only pulling away to wipe her eyes.

“So… does anyone know why the hell Kyle is here?” I ask, curious as to why he even thought it was okay to show up here after I asked him to leave me alone.

Emma growls and startles a laugh out of me as I look over at her. “Oh, don’t even get me started.”

“Um, afraid I’m going to have to. What happened?”

She takes a deep breath, trying to tamp down her obvious anger at my ex-boyfriend, and I just shake my head in bewilderment. “Let me just start off by saying that this has been really hard on all of us, and I’ve got the hormones to deal with so I’ve been crying… a lot.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling at her dramatics.

“So, anyway, this dude calls me when I’m crying and worried about you to ask me what he should do to convince you to give him another chance. Nix, the wonderful man that he is, sees that I’m about to eviscerate the schmuck and takes the phone from me. He tells him that it’s not a good time – that you’ve been in a car accident and are in the hospital – before hanging up on him. Next thing I know, there’s fucking Kyle in the waiting room.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and wiggles in her chair to get more comfortable as she glares out the sliding glass door in what I assume is the general direction of the waiting room. I can’t help but laugh at her, and she turns her death glare on me.

“Whoa, I’m not the enemy,” I tell her, holding my hands up, and she sighs.

“Anyway, any time that I start to get near him to tell him to get the fuck out of here, Nix cuts me off and tries to feed me.”