Page 352 of The Tempted

“You’re not going to tell me I made a mistake?” I asked.

“No, sweetheart, I’m not. Maybe you did, and maybe you didn’t but that is for you to figure out, no one else,” she stated, as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to my forehead.

“I’m out of school, forfeited the scholarship. I have been working in a bar until recently, but now I have no job and Mia and I have to move,” I confessed, dropping the rest of the bomb and waited for her to explode with fury.

“Wow,” she said, exasperated. “How long has this all been going on?”

“Four months,” I admitted. “I’ve been lying to everyone. I tell myself it’s because I didn’t want to disappoint you but I think it’s more that—I’m ashamed more than anything else.

“Lauren, I’m not disappointed in you,” she objected.

“But you were so disappointed in Anthony—”

“Because I blamed myself for Anthony’s choices,” she interrupted “I thought your brother chose Victor’s lifestyle because I was failing as a single mom and he figured he needed to step up to the plate. It killed me that your brother gave up on himself at such a young age. He could’ve been anything, he could’ve been a goddamn garbage man and I would’ve been proud of him,” she paused, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I am proud of the man your brother became,” she amended.

“I wish he would have valued his life more. Wish he hadn’t lost three years rotting in a cell. Nobody wants that life for their child, Lauren. One day you’ll have children and you’ll understand. You will want them to have the best, you will want them to reach for the stars and be everything you never could. You’ll watch them grow and you’ll wish they were little, still clinging to your leg. You’ll want to protect them from the world but you won’t be able to. You’ll learn to make peace with that too. You won’t ever stop worrying about your children and you’ll always want to take their pain away. You’ll forever want to make their dreams come true and you’ll hold their hand when their dream changes,” she whispered, glancing down at my hand held tightly by hers.

“So you’re not going to be a nurse,” she stated, shrugging her shoulders. “Find a new dream to chase, Lauren. And if it seems out of reach, like it might never come your way, dream it anyway.”

I let go of my mother’s hand and threw my arms around her, holding her tight as I cried tears of relief.

“I love you mom,” I whispered against her hair.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” she said, squeezing me. “Promise me something,” she requested, pulling back to look into my eyes. She smiled at me, brushing away the fallen strands of hair that stuck to my wet face. “Never be afraid to come to me with something. I’ll always be here for you—whatever it is, no matter how bad, or how frightening we’ll get through it,” she said.

Then my mother said the words that would get me through the detour I didn’t even know I was on.

“And when you feel like giving up, give more. Always hang on when your heart has had enough, and I promise you, it’ll all turn out the way it was supposed to in the end,” she vowed.

I didn’t know it right then and there but I would learn that my mother’s words would be what I held onto during the most trying times.

They’d get me through the detour.

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