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Aife.”

Her head dropped. She began fiddling with her

sleeves again. Clearly, this was a sore subject for her. Her eyes glazed over as she zoned out looking at my mother’s lawn. I didn’t want to bother her. Carefully, I pulled her into my side, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head. She was worth the world; she had to know that.

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CHAPTER 15: JUST FRIENDS

AIFE

Chicago’s cloudy grey skies greeted me as I got off

the plane. Thanksgiving had been strange. Meeting Talon’s family hadn’t gone exactly to plan. What was worse, though, was my own awkward family dinner. Tensions had been high, and I had been reminded that I was still in recovery. For every step forward I took, I seemingly got pushed back three. Not to mention Talon left my head a mess.

My heart hadn’t been able to take my family this

year. Irritation wore me like a bad coat. I snapped at the smallest of things. My family had a tendency to do that: frustrate me beyond reason. They picked at all the right 212

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buttons. This year, it just pushed me over the edge. My anger got the better of me, and Mom and I ended our dinner in a screaming match. She used the word I hated the most: burden.

That word followed me around like a curse.

‘Burden’ was my defining character trait until about three years ago. My life was classified by pain and agony and burdening those around me. I hated the word—loathed it in fact. I hated the feelings associated with that word, and I hated thinking about the word.

Somehow, I wound up back at my apartment.

Papers were scattered around, notes for my dissertation everywhere. Anger ate at me as I continued to think of Thanksgiving. Mom still thought of me as a burden, and no one else tried to deny that accusation.

Whipping my top off, I decided to torture myself

some more. I looked at my torso. It was covered in tattoos and scars. The tats were an attempt to mask the scars. They littered my upper body in a similar way freckles would. My belly button was slightly elongated from the three laparoscopies I’d had. A thin white scar that was barely noticeable marked my appendectomy. A harsh, horizontal pink scar peeked out of my underwear. It marked my ovarian surgery. A jagged scar fell between my breasts from the time I fell down the stairs. There was the scar over my right nipple that made it look like a cyclops when they removed a cyst from my breast. Then there were my arms. Each wrist had a long, vertical, red scar from me, trying, and nearly succeeding in killing myself.

The tattoos attempted to cover all these. Both arms

held full sleeves. I’d also gotten tattoos on my sternum and

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hips. While I wasn’t ashamed of my scars, I hated questions. Thankfully, my hair covered the worst scar. The scar that always led back to me being a burden. The scar that made me want to die before it was even there. That scar was the cause of my five attempts and being called a burden made me hate myself all over again.

Gently, I prodded the back of my head. I could feel

the indentation from where they sawed into my head to remove a piece of my skull. I could feel the scar just left of center; it covered nearly my entire head. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself that this scar had saved my life.

When I felt calmer, I looked at my left arm. The

outline of a brain with the word survivor looked back at me. I wasn’t a burden; I was a survivor. I was a warrior. Illness did not define me.

Davis plopped into the desk next to me, surprisingly

late. I shot him a look but didn’t say anything. Today was our last lecture and class. We would complete our final and then all we had to focus on were our dissertations. It was a little anti-climatic. However, I was extremely thankful to be done with in-person classes. It wore me out.