Page 23 of Rise Above

Davis nodded. “Look, Melody was a raging

bitch…”

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“Sure, let’s go with that word.” Zeke interrupted. “Point is,” Davis said, shooting a glare at our red-

headed friend. “That lady completely wrecked you. There was a solid couple of months that you were impossible to be around. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to punch you. Even now, there are times I want to. Talon, you still aren’t stable enough to love and respect someone right now.”

I frowned, opening my mouth to respond. It irked

me he’s used my first name, a sign of how serious this was to him. Davis proceeded right over me.

“Dude, I know you respect everyone, but you would

take too much. Aife needs to have someone that is willing to pour into her, not constantly take from her cup that’s already empty. Be honest with yourself. Can you do that? Pour and not take?”

“Damn, Davis. A little harsh, don’t you think?”

Zeke quirked an eyebrow at us.

“Yeah, we can psycho-analyze you next.” Davis

sighed. “Just leave her be, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” I flipped the TV on so we could

focus on literally anything else. In my opinion, Davis was being a little too overprotective. Aife was an adult. If she wanted to get to know me, I would be open to it. As it stood now, we’d only met twice. We were still strangers, but a piece of me hoped we could be more.

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CHAPTER 5: FRIENDS

AIFE

The past few days had passed by in a quick blur.

Anxiety had run amok in my brain since I’d completed my MRI. If Dr. Su’s office would just call me, I’m sure I’d feel eons better. There was so much trauma I had around anything medical and for good reason. My therapist in Houston had officially diagnosed me with medical PTSD. Unfortunately, I still got triggered often because I had to regularly see medical professionals. To some extent, I’d processed my trauma, but trauma wasn’t linear. I never knew how I’d be from one day to the next. Anxiety ate at my chest.

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Every time my phone made a sound, my heart

dropped into my stomach. Anticipation and waiting were the most difficult parts of the medical process. Anxiety would continue to war in me until I got some sort of notification, even if it just said my scan was read. I craved it in a weird way. So much of my adult life had been spent figuring out my diagnoses that unfortunately waiting for the phone to ring was my new normal.

The first time I had to deal with the medical world

was at sixteen. Abdominal pain had hit me hard on a weekend. Like most girls, I assumed it was a warning of my impending period. As the sharp pain turned into a hot, searing knife, I finally informed my mom. We agreed to hold off for a few more days before I was completely unable to move. Somehow, I’d managed to walk into the ER hunched over, in so much pain, tears streamed down my face. We spent the next few hours waiting to be called back into a room as my stomach pain only grew worse. Finally, my mom and I were called back only for the doctor to look at me and ask if my period had started or if there was a possibility that I was pregnant. I was sixteen! I barely knew what sex was at that point. The rage I felt almost rivaled the pain. Turned out, a cyst had ruptured and leaked into my cervix. I was nearly septic. That had been surgery number one.

Surgery number two was two years later at

eighteen. I had just started my first semester of college and felt like the world was my oyster. There was also a naïve part of me that believed my body wouldn’t attack me. Bodies were meant to take care of you, just as you took care of them. Not mine though, never mine. Just as Thanksgiving break was set to start, lightning pain entered 59