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I buried my face in her lap and stayed there on the floor. Mom said nothing; she sat there with me and let me cry. Eventually the tears stopped, and I finally pulled myself up off the floor and went to the bathroom to wash my face. My eyes were red and puffy, my skin blotchy, and my mascara had smeared down both my cheeks. I splashed cold water on my face and pressed a towel against my eyes and made my way into my bedroom, collapsing on the bed.

I woke up to the sound of my mother’s wheelchair in the hallway. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. There was an old water stain in the shape of Italy on the ceiling that I’d stared at every night for the past eighteen years. It was still there, yet everything else was different.

I shoved the covers to the side and got up. Pulling my laptop off the nightstand, I opened my manuscript. The cursor blinked at the end of the last chapter I’d written…the one where Rosie leaves. I had been trying to write that ending for days and still nothing came. Everything I typed felt hollow and wrong. The endings I had come up with were too devastating or too perfect.

I typed. Rosie stood at the window of her old apartment and watched the rain fall, wondering if…

I read it again, then deleted it.

I began typing again. The morning after she’d left, Rosie woke to find…

Deleted.

Some love stories don’t end with….

I stared at the words and groaned, hitting the delete key again. I had been inside the entire story, living as fictional Rosie, each scene, each feeling she felt had been exactly what I’d felt. That part of me could have finished this book in a couple of hours.

The part of me who was now sitting in my old childhood bed, wearing a pair of old sweatpants and a t-shirt I’d taken from Everett’s laundry, couldn’t finish it because I didn’t know what the ending was supposed to be. I was so close to this story I couldn’t even make it up.

I slammed my laptop shut and pressed the heels of my hand against my eyes.

I took a deep breath and looked over at my phone. It sat on my nightstand, no blinking light letting me know I had a message, which meant Everett hadn’t sent one. When I told him I needed space, he gave it to me. That was who he was, even if that would destroy him.

I got up and opened my bedroom door and made my way to the kitchen. Mom was at the small table, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and a crossword puzzle book in front of her. She’d already made tea, two cups, and one sat in my place.

“Morning,” she said, not looking up.

“Morning.”

I sat down and wrapped my hands around the warm mug.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Some. Not too much, I started worrying about how I was going to cover your co-pay now that I don’t have a job.”

“Well, Ember, that is one thing you don’t need to worry about. Apparently, it’s been covered for the rest of the year and all next year as well.”

“What? That’s impossible.”

“I am just telling you what I was told when I went to order and give them permission to take the money from our account. Maybe they found some sort of compassionate program to help me.”

I sat there, my stomach sinking as anger flooded me. I already knew there was no compassionate program for her drugs; I’d been down that road many times. I knew exactly who’d paid it and he’d done so after I’d told him not to. My mother would not understand why Everett would have paid it, because I didn’t. I’d have to deal with Everett about that later.

“Now, I don’t want you to worry about anything of that nature. I would like to know, did you write and finish your story?”

“No, I tried, but there was no use,” I sighed, taking a sip of my tea.

She looked up from her crossword and studied me. My mother was not the type of person to pry. She raised me by example, not by instruction. She worked doubles, managed her illness after she was diagnosed, doing her best to keep our lives together until she couldn’t do it any longer. Since then, I had spent my time trying to match her.

“You know,” she said, going back to her puzzle. “I’ve read all of your books.”

“I know.”

“Even the early ones. Lord, some of them were terrible.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, they really were.”

“But every time a new one came out, they got better. You know why?”