Read Online Always: Broken Series Book Four by Annie Jocoby - Free Book Online Page B

and Addison was in the backseat, not saying a word. I kept looking back at her, glancing in my rear-view mirror. I was looking for any kind of indication that she was about to fall apart. I didn’t get that from her, though. I got that she was thinking about what was going on.
    “Addy,” I said to her. “What’s on your mind? What are you thinking about?”
    “Nothing. I was just thinking about my soccer game. It’s tomorrow. I haven’t told the team yet. I haven’t even told my coach. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I hope that they let me play.”
    “Of course they’ll let you play. Why wouldn’t they?”
    Addison shrugged. “Dad, I don’t know. There might be some kind of liability. What if I broke my leg right there on the field? That might happen, you know. Then the coach will be in trouble. Or I’ll be in trouble for not saying anything.”
    “Well, let them know that you have cancer, so that way there’s not a question if something should happen to you on the field. I'll have a talk with your coach. Hopefully there won’t be an issue with you being allowed on the field.”
    Addison shrugged her shoulders and continued to look out the window. “I hate this. I hate this drip, drip, drip, drip of information. Just tell me what is going to happen, so I can deal with it.”
    “Hey,” I said to her. “I know that you’re scared. But we’re going to do all that we can. We have to go through the process and do everything that the doctor says. We’ll have all the answers we need soon enough.”
    What I didn’t want to tell her was that I was as scared as she was. I didn’t want to tell her that I was having nightmares about losing her. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and Scotty would have to talk me down. The last thing I wanted was for her to see my fear, so I made sure that she never would.
    We got home, and Addison immediately went to her room. Scotty went into the living room after pouring a glass of wine. She was drinking more than I liked, but I understood why. That was how she dealt with severe issues. I wouldn’t be worried about her drinking so much, except that alcoholism ran in her family. Her mother was still on the wagon, miraculously, but I think that Loretta white-knuckled it the whole way. Over the years, there were periods when Scotty drank a bit much, but I never said anything, because these periods were brief.
    I made the decision not to say anything to her this time, either. I was also concerned with the fact that she wanted to take a leave of absence from work. We had been talking about this, at length, and Scotty seemed determined to do it. She reasoned that she couldn’t handle the stress at home and the stress at work. I tried to understand this, too, although it was difficult. For me, work was my lifeline. While I was immersed in my various projects, my mind wasn’t obsessively on Addison. If I didn’t have work, I would be going absolutely crazy. Plus, I felt like I was in control when I was at work. With Addison, I had no control at all.
    I went into the living room to join Scotty. “Let’s order in for dinner, huh? The Chinese place around the corner?”
    Scotty shook her head. “I’m so sorry, there’s no way I can eat right now.”
    I bit my tongue. It was starting to worry me that Scotty wasn’t eating, yet she was drinking a lot. That couldn’t be good. It was bad enough that I wasn’t sleeping much, and Scotty wasn’t either. But I tried very hard to take care of myself, health-wise, because I knew that I needed to. If there was one thing that I hard learned over the years is that, when you’re under stress, you need to make sure that you take care of yourself.
    “Honey, you need to eat.” I took her glass of wine away. “You can have this back when you share some Moo Goo Gai Pan with me. And not before.”
    Scotty just shook her head. “I can’t eat. I’ll vomit. My stomach is in knots. Eating is the last thing that I can think about.”
    I