Read Always: Broken Series Book Four for Free Online Page A

daughter, who was sitting next to me crying. I took Addy’s hand and squeezed it.
    “I see. Are you sure that it’s not something else? Something benign?”
    At that, he handed me the scans. I examined them carefully and handed them to Nick. “As you can see, the mass on her knee is irregular. The borders are ill-defined. If it was a benign mass, there would be smooth, round and well-defined borders of the mass. There is also some indication that there has been some destruction of the bones in Addison’s knee.”
    I nodded my head. I saw what he was talking about – the mass on her knee did have undefined borders. Nick wasn’t looking at the scans anymore. Rather, he was staring off into space. I crinkled my eyebrows at him. It was so unusual, the way that he was reacting to all of this. I had never in my life seen him look so lost, so alone, so helpless.
    “What’s next?”
    “Well, I would like to order a biopsy, of course. That’s the first step. The biopsy will tell us what we’re dealing with. Although I’m reasonably sure that there’s a malignancy, the biopsy will give a definitive diagnosis. The biopsy will also give me information about the subtype of the cancer. Once we have that, we can proceed with treatment options.”
    “Am I going to lose my leg?” Addison blurted out.
    “That is one option,” the doctor said. “Although hopefully it won’t come to that.”
    “Mom,” Addison said to me, her blue eyes looking desperate. “I can’t lose my leg.”
    I just nodded my head. The last thing that I wanted to do was to make her promises that I couldn’t keep, and if I promised her that she wouldn’t lose her leg, I would be doing just that. Maybe.
    “Mom,” she said. “Promise me that you won’t let them take my leg.”
    “Addy…”
    “Promise me.”
    I looked at the doctor. He understood that he was going to have to step in to try to explain everything to Addy. “I'm very sorry, Addison, but I don’t think that your mother can promise you that. I can't promise you that either. I will say that I’ll know better how to treat your particular type of carcinoma when I get the results of the biopsy back. I will tell you that 90% of young patients do not have to face amputation. There’s also the possibility that the cancer will need to be treated with chemotherapy, radiation or a combination of the two. Hopefully the cancer will be amenable to surgery, which would obviously be the least invasive option.”
    Addison was sitting to my right, getting paler and paler by the second. Nick was sitting to my left, and he, too, was looking pale.
    Finally, Nick spoke. “Thank you Dr. Michaels. I appreciate your being open and honest about what we’re going to possibly face. Obviously, as parents, we’re going to go with your opinion on what treatment option is best. Of course, we’re also going to get a second opinion. With something this serious, that will go without saying.”
    Dr. Michaels nodded solemnly. “I’m going to order the biopsy immediately. I should get the results back this week, and then we’ll meet back here next Monday. What would be a good time for you?”
    “Uh, three o’clock would be fine.” I looked over at Nick. “I can take off work early, of course. That’s not a problem, as I’m a partner.”
    “Three o’clock it is. In the meantime, here is the address where you can take Addison in for the biopsy.”
    I took the card that he gave me without a word.
    We exchanged pleasantries and left.

Seven
Addison
    I ’m too young to die. That was all that I could think about on the ride home with mom and dad. They both were so quiet. That was so weird. I wasn’t used to them not saying much. I wanted them to talk to me. To tell me that everything was going to be fine. I knew that it wasn’t, no matter what. But I wanted them to tell me what I wanted to hear.
    I knew that dad was bad about bullshitting me. He never was good at that. Even when I was a little girl, he