Damaged: The Dillon Sisters Layla Frost (ebook reader with highlighter .txt) 📖

It was what it was.

“I’m sure. I put dirty cat litter in her urn and everything.”

Alexander’s eyes went wide.

And then he threw his head back and laughed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nothing

Briar

For naps

THERE WAS NOTHING worse than a doctor’s office.

The color schemes. The outdated signage meant to be informative or inspirational. The cliché art, as if patients would look at them and magically forget where they were.

‘Wait, what? This is a doctor’s office? I thought it was The Louvre!’

All the small, frivolous decor in the world couldn’t camouflage the medical supplies, the stinging scent of antiseptic, or the heavy air of fear and desperation that clung to the building.

Following the nurse down the hall, we stopped at the cubicle for my vitals. She gestured for me to enter first. “Shoes off and step on the scale, please.” I did as she said, and she peered over my shoulder at the blinking number. She entered it into a laptop before making a small noise. “You’re down weight from your appointment last week.”

Because I’ve spent a week undergoing tests and then freaking out about said tests.

“I’ve been doing a lot of yoga,” I lied.

If I tried to downward dog, I’d downward face plant into a downward nap.

I wasn’t eating—despite Alexander’s attempts to ply me with his delicious cooking.

Or sleeping—despite Alexander’s attempts to wear me out with his cock.

Or doing much else other than freaking out—despite my own attempts at animal distractions, repeated mantras, TV binges, and memes.

She had me sit before wrapping the cuff around my arm to check my blood pressure. “Do you have a history of high blood pressure?”

Only when I’m potentially facing my mortality while surrounded by bad art and easy listening musac.

Or as I call it, hell.

“No, just nervous.”

“Understandable. Put your shoes back on and we’ll get you settled into a room.”

She waited until I was seated on the exam table, the paper crinkling loudly under my butt, before launching into the usual questions regarding medications, pain levels, and changes in my medical history, as if anything had changed in the week since I’d been there. I answered each question while silently willing her to hurry the hell up and put me out of my misery.

She didn’t.

Once she was done, the nurse let me know Dr. Elio would be right in and closed the door on her way out, trapping me in the ugly room. Leaving me with my racing thoughts and what-ifs and fears. Leaving me with the specter of Death lurking in the corner, his evil and scheming eyes locked on me.

I knew I was being dramatic, but I was allowed. I’d earned it. I’d lived with the toxicity flowing through my body. I’d welcomed a different kind of toxic sludge into my veins, allowing the two to battle inside me until it saved me or killed me. I’d spent nights on the bathroom floor, caked in vomit and too weak to care, begging the deadly rot to win. To kill me.

If that was what I was facing again, I earned the right to be dramatic. To be terrified. I deserved to fall apart and let someone else pick up the pieces.

Which was why I reached over and took Alexander’s hand, soaking in the strength he offered. Because I wasn’t alone. I had him. And, had I told Aria, I knew she’d be there, too. Stressed and worried and grilling every nurse and doctor about every detail because she cared.

That knowledge was enough for me.

“You okay, flower?”

I wanted to say something snarky or joke with him, but I couldn’t push the words past the lump of nerves knotted in my throat. All I could muster was a jerky nod as I pulled him closer so I could bury my face in his shirt.

Minutes stretched to hours that stretched to days. In my head, at least. In actuality, it was less than ten minutes before a soft knock sounded and the door opened. Dr. Elio stepped in and smiled. “Briar, it’s nice to see you again.”

“You, too,” I lied, shaking his hand before introducing Alexander. Nothing personal against the doc, but I’d rather be anywhere else in the world right then.

Belatedly noticing the two women who followed him in, a fresh surge of alarm shot through me until he said, “This is Emily and Quinta, med students shadowing me. Are you okay if they sit in for the appointment?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” That wasn’t a lie. The room could’ve been filled with hula hooping sharks and the Queen of England on a Razor scooter, and I wouldn’t have noticed so long as the doc finally gave me my results.

I was worried he’d waste time catching them up with a long spiel about my history, but he was a better doctor than that. He looked at me and cut to the chase. “All your labs and tests look perfect. You’re slightly anemic, but nothing that a good multivitamin can’t fix.”

My heart stuttered in my chest and blood roared so loudly in my ears, I worried I misheard him. “Everything’s fine?”

“Better than fine. There are no signs of cancer.”

Tears sprung to my eyes as the specter of Death dissipated, moving on to haunt someone else.

Only after giving me that amazing news did Dr. Elio backtrack to fill the students in on my medical history. On my previous battle with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. On the chemo, the pills, the results, and the eventual prognosis that I’d beat the disease.

And, based on the results of the tests he’d ordered, that I’d continued to kick the disease’s ass.

“Now that brings us to your current symptoms,” he said, returning his attention to me.

I braced, waiting for him to tell me it was in my head. That I was being overly sensitive. A hypochondriac.

“Are you under any stress?”

“A bit,” I admitted.

As in, for the entirety of my life.

And probably my life in the alternate timelines.

“That’d do it. Based on your results, I believe the symptoms you’re experiencing are your body’s way of letting you know you