Need Me - M. Malone Page 0,54

idiot. But that’s a story for another time.

My thumbs brush away the tears on her cheeks. My beautiful little troublemaker should never have a reason to cry.

“I’ll always show up. Even when I mess up. Even when it hurts. I’ll always be here when you need me.”

At the sound of her name being called, we both turn. I kiss her gently. “Go. I’ll be right out here.”

She squeezes my hand. “Can you come with me this time?”

“I can do that.”

My words may not be able to make this process any less invasive but hopefully I can make her laugh. That’s what she needs right now.

“We’ll get through it together. Do you need a breast exam? If so, I can help with that part.”

Her laughter tells me I got it right.

21

The tests take longer this time. I’m so grateful when we’re done and I can leave. My mom is quiet on the way home as if she senses my need to think. Vin is following in his car and I drive fast, more than ready to be home curled up with him on the couch.

He was a real trooper holding my hands in between tests and keeping me calm by telling funny stories about his brother and his assistant at work.

I can’t wait to know all the people in his life.

I can’t wait to be in his life everyday.

When we reach the apartment, it doesn’t take long for us to both find parking spaces and we meet at the front of the building. We climb the stairs to the third floor in silence, our shoes clattering on the stairs. By the time we get to the top, my mom is already there since she took the elevator.

I open the door so my mom can go in and sit down. Before Vin follows, I tug on his arm.

“Can you wait for me in the bedroom? I want to talk to my mom for a minute?”

Understanding shines in his eyes. “Just come get me when you’re done.”

Going through all the testing today gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted to say. My mom has disappointed me a lot over the years but I can’t ignore the times she’s helped me either.

When I was first diagnosed, she insisted I have my surgery in Beverly Hills. I thought it was so she could make sure I used her plastic surgeon. However, thinking back, I remember how she took care of me. It couldn’t have been easy to watch her only child go through that.

She’s not nurturing and that’s something I’ve come to accept. It’s actually less hurtful to realize this is just the way she is.

My mom looks up when I sit next to her on the couch. “I’m sorry if I ran your young man off.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I just wanted to thank you for coming. It really does help having family there.”

She grabs my hand and holds it on the couch cushion in between us. We sit in silence for a moment, both of us seeming unsure how to start.

“I had a lot of time to think in that waiting room today,” she finally says. “And I didn’t like what I realized.”

My first instinct is to deny that anything is wrong, to smooth things over since that’s what I always do. Then I stop and focus on just listening. It’s time we actually talked to each other instead of at each other. It’s the only way we’ll have a relationship that goes deeper than voicemails.

“I’m sorry, Ariana. I haven’t been there for you. All I could see were my own fears. I guess I thought if I pretended nothing was happening, I wouldn’t have to deal with it.”

Although her distance has hurt, I can see it from her perspective, too. My mom knows she’s not perfect and she can admit her faults. I need to do the same.

“I’m sorry, too. When this all happened, I really didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about how it would feel on your end. I was just focused on how scary it was for me.”

“That’s what you should have been focused on. And I should have been there more. I’m the mother. Even if I’ve never been very good at it. My own mother wasn’t all that warm either.”

She smiles. “Your young man really came through for you today though.”

Just the thought of Vin makes my cheeks flush.

“Yes, he did.”

“I’ve never had anyone I could trust like that. I got used