All along, my mother knew, she knew the danger that was inside of her and she didn't care. She didn't tell anyone, she kept something like this inside, hiding away from the world.
And I knew too. I didn't know that it had spread or that she even had cancer in the very beginning, but I knew she was hurting and that the pain she was going through wasn't normal, it wasn't getting better, nothing was happening.
My cheeks are wet and the tears make their way painfully out of my swollen pink eyes.
"Madison?" I hear a soft voice question and it's my favorite voice, it forever will be my favorite voice. I hear creaking under the wooden floor.
"What's wrong?" he asks even though it's obvious. He enters the room with a medium-sized box in his hands that is barely noticeable by how little he has started to care about it after seeing me like this.
"When I think back . . . it couldn't have been detected early, because she was in pain for so long. It was already eating her, she . . . she didn't tell me." I explain to him, half crying, half talking as he has finally sat down with me on the couch.
"And it's . . . I'm glad that I'm not getting married, not to you and not to Jace, because it would have hurt so much to know that my mother has been taken out of that equation anyway." I cry and grab Miles's shirt while he stares at the wall behind me, emotionless.
I sob into his shoulder as I gab tightly onto his shirt and hold it close to my tears. I feel him gulp down and I slowly raise myself to look at him.
"How is your, um . . . how is David?" I ask, wiping my tears away and realizing that I haven't thought about anything or anyone else but my mother.
He clenches his jaw, his eyes hard as they continue to stare at the wall.
"It's been the hardest thing to keep on my mind." He explains and his eyes look at me but then he continues, "He's fully healed." He gulps and his fists tighten.
I look down at them, not knowing to react. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't the complete opposite of my mother.
"I don't understand why he got life and—" He stops himself before he hurts me but I'm already hurt and there's no use in not saying the words.
"And she got death." I finish for him and he nods slowly, his eyes climbing up to look into mine, his eyebrows raised by them.
"Yeah." He breathes and I can tell he's still tense.
"Can I just lay with you?" I ask him and he nods, his eyes are now soft and all the tension is melting away into the kindness that I access in his heart. I lay my head slowly on his shoulder and keep myself there.
"I found this while unpacking the groceries . . . I forgot I even bought it." He explains, streching his arm somewhere I can't see and then giving me something at my eye level. I see the box again that was in his hands earlier. I slowly open the red box and look at all of the candy inside.
"Did you buy this?" I ask, looking at the pink pads tucked in the corner and Raffaello balls next to them tucket into perfect plastic wrappers and then chocolate bars at the very bottom of the box, a bag of gummy worms and gummy peaches, a small bag of chips, and everything I could ever want.
"I made it." He says and I can tell there's a smile on him.
"I mean, I didn't make it, but I put it all together—" He explains but stops as soon as I throw a big smile into the air. I et my finger dip into the box and grab one of the Raffaello balls, opening the plastic and tasting the perfectly created candy.
The softness inside comforts me and I turn up, looking at Miles who's looking down on me.
"Thank you for letting me forget everything . . . even if it's just for a second, thank you," I tell him and he offers me a smile, pulled by the ends of his lips.
"Can we please cook something? To take my mind off of everything?" I ask Miles who nods back at me. I grab another Raffaello ball before slowly taking my head off Miles.
"So what are we making?" Miles asks as we stand up.
"Chicken alfredo and chocolate cake." I manage to smile.
I hold the box in my arms as we both slowly make our way down the stairs but before we hit the first step, Miles turns to me.
"Oh, uh . . ." He breathes, looking behind me as I stand in front of him in the hallway.
"While I was unpacking the groceries, I found this." He says handing me a key as he looks into my eyes and then his eyes switch to the door behind me, the door I didn't know could be open.
"Oh." Is all I can say and it comes out more like a whisper than anything else.
"Do you want to open the door?" Miles's voice lingers behind me as I can't help but stare at the door ahead.
"Mhm," I murmur.