La Vie en Rose {Life in Pink} (29 page)

He didn’t stop running until he entered the loft. “Emma!”

“She’s sleeping,” Rarity hissed from the chair.

Emma lay curled up on the couch where he’d left her. Carefully, he slid his arms under her body and lifted her to his chest.

She roused, eyes heavy and brow wrinkled. “Riley?”

“Shh... I’m taking you to bed.”

Her arms tightened around his neck as he carried her to her room. “Where were you?”

Gently placing her on the bed, he drew the covers over her. “I went for a walk. I needed to clear my head. Emma...” He quickly gathered his thoughts. “I need you to understand how much I love you. It’s... the biggest feeling I’ve ever had.” Bigger than any fear or any complication. Bigger than... He was done thinking that word. “
Nothing
can make me stop loving you.”

She smiled and cupped a hand to his jaw. “It’s the biggest feeling I’ve ever had too.”

He kissed her. “It’s bigger than
this
,” he said, delicately cupping her breast. “I want you to know, the girl I love, she’s here.” He tapped her forehead. “I don’t care if she gets old or gains weight or...anything else. As long as she lets me hold her from time to time and accepts that I’ll love her no matter what shape she’s in, I’m a happy man.”

Her eyes closed as she drew in a slow breath, her mouth curling into her first smile that day. Her lashes spiked with moisture. “I love you, Riley. These past few weeks have just...” She exhaled. “...shattered parts of me to the point that I hardly recognize my own thinking. Every day I think I can’t feel anymore, but I do. Sometimes I can’t handle it. There are just so many feelings.”

“I know. That’s what I mean. This is scary and fear changes people. Don’t change without me. You have to let me come with you, Emma. Let me be your rock, because you’re my rock too. We’re a team and we’re gonna kick this thing in the balls.”

She laughed, her eyes tired. “I’m in the ring.”

“Damn right.” He rolled to his side and pulled her with him. Together they could beat this.

Lost in thought, they were silent for several minutes as if experiencing the same epiphanies at the same time—or at least he hoped. Life was too short to postpone living. They’d get through this however they had to and then they’d get through the next big hurdle and the next, because life was a journey and he’d be by her side so she didn’t have to go through it alone.

“If it’s nothing, which I hope it is, let’s not go backwards, Em. I don’t want to waste any more time on things that don’t matter. I wanna live. I want you to start your business and I want...
you
. I don’t care if it’s fast or people think it’s too soon. Life’s fast and I wanna milk it for everything while I’m still...milking.”

She let out a huge sigh, relief sparking in her eyes as she faced him. “I totally agree. I’ve been so consumed by this, worrying what my life will be a week from now.”

“We can’t waste any more time on the crap. It’s all unnecessary stress. Life’s too short.”

“Yes! I hate this emotional paralysis. But I get it now, all the stress we were wasting on meaningless worries. I don’t want to forget how horrible it feels to think it’ll all be over soon, but I also don’t want to live like there’s no end. I’m not making any sense.”

She was making total sense. “But I get it too. All these rules we live by—other people’s rules, when it’s our life.”

“Exactly. This has been the scare of a lifetime and I can barely remember the girl I was three weeks ago, but in a way I like this girl more. It’s like everything became complicated and simplified at the same time.”

He understood completely. This scare had prioritized life. “I want to live with abandon, but only if you’re with me.”

She stared into his eyes and whispered, “For better or for worse, tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of my life. I might not always be able to choose where this life takes me.”

“Me neither, but wherever it takes you, I intend to follow.” He caught her tear on his thumb and gently wiped it away. “Our life. We got this, cakes. We got this.”

––––––––

A
t the base of every person is an animal. And deep down, inside that animal, exists a beast. Emma finally understood how mothers found the strength of twenty men in life or death situations, how bears went grizzly to defend their cubs. Because the moment she saw the
three
gray masses in her ultrasound, it was game on, survival of the fittest, and she was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her body from the threat inside.

“Notice how this spot is black,” the tech pointed to her results. “That’s liquid. The gray shows the mass is solid like a tumor.”

Three
. There were three. Were they growing overnight? “I don’t understand how I missed the other ones. Did they just appear?”

“Sometimes a mass can live inside of you for ten years undetected. It’s good that you practice home exams,” the tech said, and Emma felt a surge of gratitude because she’d caught this when she had. “Early detection really does save lives, so now that we know what we’re dealing with we can treat it aggressively.”

Aggressively.
She clung to the word, its meaning defining salvation itself.

Totally focused on every word the doctor said, Emma paid absolute attention, trusting these people to save her precious life. She didn’t look at Riley, because she feared the emotion on his face would trigger her feelings, which were oddly absent.

She was a soldier on the frontlines of an endless battle. There would be time for feelings when she was...

Maybe she was in shock. Or maybe she’d known all along something wasn’t right and she’d subconsciously prepared for this moment. It didn’t matter. This was now and this was everything they were up against. There was no time to look back.

The enduring suspense of waiting for a diagnosis was hell and it was far from over. Only a biopsy would tell what sort of tumor they were up against. It was a coin toss, but they were now one step closer, and it was time to take action.

The doctor came in and studied the results. She immediately jumped into explanations, preparing her for the next step. “We’re going to send you for a biopsy. That’s where we collect a sample of tissue and get more information. Eighty percent of the time, biopsies come back benign, so try not to get ahead of yourself. It’s a minimally invasive procedure done with a needle.”

Emma fought the urge to squirm. She’d never been good with medical things, but chances were, in the next few weeks she’d be getting over any hang-ups. Nothing was definite. They seemed optimistic these little intruders could be benign.

No fear.
Focus on necessity. “Do I need a referral?”

“Our nurses will handle that for you.”

She nodded, knowing her best bet was to trust these people—they were her only hope, the only weapon she really had in this battle. She couldn’t look at it any other way. Her life was literally in their hands.

At the front desk, a nurse handed her a pamphlet explaining what happened during a biopsy. Once the procedure was scheduled for Friday, they walked out of the facility in a trance. One steady breath after another, left foot then right, she got through. She’d jumped the first hurdle and landed on her feet—for the most part.

As they approached the car she finally looked at Riley, who had been uncharacteristically quiet through everything. She touched his arm. “You okay? Oh—”

She grunted as he nearly tackled her, wrapping his arms tight around her body and hugging her hard. She laughed nervously as his face pressed into her neck and he breathed.

Voice muffled, he hissed, “Love you.”

There was so much weight in those two words, her body sank a bit closer to the earth, closer to him, bearing such crushing implications she accepted that this wasn’t just happening to her.

Her hand trembled as it settled on his back. “I love you too.”

His arms remained snug around her waist, holding her immobile as people walked by. Shutting her eyes, she let his affection wash over her.

****

F
riday morning she was back in a hospital gown. Riley was in the waiting room and she was waiting for the doctors to come in. It had been a crazy week.

Her boss was beginning to suspect something was up with all the time she’d requested off. As a personal assistant, there were certain responsibilities a temp couldn’t handle. Luckily, the firm had a woman pretty familiar with each partners’ idiosyncrasies. But Mr. Phibbs’ patience was wearing thin.

She had planned to apply for government healthcare when she left her job and started her own business, something she still planned to do. But at the moment, that sort of career change didn’t seem wise, so she put her dreams aside and did the logical thing.

She needed her benefits and the company had a program that allowed her to collect a supplemental income, should she take a leave of absence. There was a fifty-fifty chance she’d be filing that paperwork soon, but nothing was certain yet.

The door opened and the technician returned. “Okay, Emma, are you ready?”

She nodded and took a shaky breath. Who was ever ready for this sort of thing?

The tech helped her onto the exam table. “Guide your left breast into the opening and find a relaxed position. You’ll have to remain still when we take the sample, so we want you to be comfortable.”

She settled on the table and curled up much like she did in bed, only here her breast was hanging through a hole. Imagining a cow preparing to milk on a commercialized dairy farm, she shoved away the degrading impression of being so exposed.

They do this every day. You’re only shocking yourself.

The table elevated putting her breast at the technician’s eye level. She wished she knew a joke about people staring at women’s breasts.

“We’re going to take a few x-rays to pinpoint the location of the tissue.”

Doing her best not to move, she shut her eyes, and imagined a field of wild flowers. She was the wind passing through the reeds, the bees lazing in the pollen. She pretended to be anything but herself in that moment so she didn’t have to acknowledge where she was.

When she was a young girl she had a fanciful imagination. Her father had a hammock in the backyard and she’d pretend it was a cobweb. With her mother’s quilt gripped in her hands she was the beautiful butterfly set to escape the trap. As she got older, her fantasies turned to those of women. High heels and fancy pearls, there was nothing better than dancing around in her grandmother’s pretty things, watching them dazzle and catch in the sunlight.

Why her mind was recalling her favorite childhood pastimes she didn’t know. Perhaps it was the recollection of her love for all things girlie, her brain paying homage to what once was and accepting that the most feminine part of her might be lost.

“Okay, you can relax, but try to keep your position.”

Releasing a breath, she opened her eyes—back to reality. The images displayed on a computer screen at the desk made her wonder if she’d ever look at her boobs the same again. These slides of webbed anatomy were not at all what she used to imagine when she pictured breasts, but they were all she thought of now, whenever she imagined her own.

The door opened and a male doctor entered. It took great restraint not to hide her body from his view, but he seemed impervious to any breach of propriety she suffered.

“Emma,” he greeted with a welcoming grin. “I’m Dr. Lindsay. How are you feeling today?”

She gave a shaky smile. “I’m okay.”
Just hanging with my boob dangling through a table.

“Good. Let’s see what we found.” He went to the computer and keyed in some information. “We’re marking the precise location on these stereo images to guide the biopsy device to its target. Try and remain still so we can hit our target on the first try. If you shift too much the reading won’t be accurate.”

She was barely breathing.

The nurse uncapped something at the counter, but stood outside of her peripheral. As she stepped close, she said, “Just my hands.” And applied something cool to her breast. “I’m cleaning the incision zone so we can numb the area.”

Everything was so unexpected she became a silent passenger on a journey that belonged to someone else. She’d gone from horrible, endless waiting to racing full speed ahead. There was no time to panic, because weird things kept forcing her to move forward, which was good. If she couldn’t think about what was happening she couldn’t freak out.

She sucked in a breath as a needle pressed into her skin then the sensation was gone and the nurse stepped back to the counter, tossing something in the biohazard bin on the wall.

“Stay very still,” the doctor reminded, his eyes on the screen. “I’m going to trigger the instrument. You’ll hear a click and feel pressure.”

No time to worry.
Click
.

A strange sensation traveled through her breast and her brow tightened. It wasn’t excruciating, but it was unrelenting. The computer showed exactly where the needle was embedded, bringing about a sudden wooziness. She shut her eyes.
Too much reality.

“Okay, we’re all lined up. We’re going to take four samples and it’ll be over in a minute. Hold perfectly still.”

Squeezing her eyes tight, she waited. Discomfort was as much mental as it was physical. Trying to lose herself without crying, she focused only on things that made her happy.

My parents. Marla. Rarity laughing at some sarcastic comment she made. Rarity smiling at Lexi.

Riley...

The discomfort subsided as he overshadowed all else in her world. She kept with that train of thought, losing herself in all things Riley.

Riley grinning at me. The day he first kissed me. Making love as the sun came up the morning he said I love you. Riley biting my hobbit toes. Trying to watch television as he shoved his finger up my nose because he needs constant attention. Making love. Riley staring into my eyes... I wish I knew what he saw there.

“All done.”

Blinking, she realized the table had lowered and the procedure was over. The doctor helped her sit up and taped a small piece of gauze to the incision.