Vulnerable

Chapter 1

The second my alarm went off on my nightstand, heavy paws were tumbling around my bed before crashing on top of me.

"Jax, dude!" I groaned, trying to wrap my arms around the energized ball of fluff that was doing everything in his power to get me out of bed faster. "Give me a minute pleeease." I huffed, tossing my forearm over my eyes.

He settled on top of me, his chin resting on my chest. Thirty seconds was about all of the peace and quiet he could handle before his tongue was all over my face again, his whole body wiggling with his tail.

"Alright alright I'm up! I'm up!" I couldn't help but laugh at him, tussling the fur around his ears and sitting up before planting a big kiss on his nose.

"Let's get you some breakfast, stinky."

After feeding Jax, I carelessly threw together my own breakfast- a protein shake and whatever fruit happened to be left on my counter.

I ate my breakfast at the island in my kitchen and scrolled through social media, eventually checking my calendar app.

Fuck. I thought when I saw what today was, and I quickly switched to my favorites and pressed 'call' on the top contact.

The line rang for several seconds before I heard her pick up.

"Hey, Mags." I spoke gently, hearing her grumbling on the other end making it clear that I had woken her up.

"Aria? What the fuck it's like...five in the morning!?." She sighed loudly.

"Yeah sorry..just wanted to call you before your day got started."

"Most people's days don't start until at least 8am Ari. Not all of us prefer to live at the gym at ungodly hours of the morning."

Maggie was still yawning but her voice was slowly returning to her usual awake and pestering tone, which made me smile into the phone.

"Well most people don't have a heart biopsy today." I countered back at her, taking another swig of my shake.

"Oh. Yeah, that." She said casually.

When Maggie was born, our parents were immediately rushed to a pediatric hospital with her. The doctor's knew something wasn't right almost immediately when her hands, feet, and lips stayed a dark shade of blue after being born.

Eventually, after tons of testing and a long stay in the NICU, she was diagnosed with a heart defect. One that came with an unknown life expectancy and a promise of many open-heart surgeries in her future. I was only four when she was born, her illness always being a part of who she is and a huge part of my family and I's life.

She is twenty now, seemingly outliving anyone else that has her condition and outweighing all of the odds against her. She is a fighter, always has been. Six open-heart surgeries and one heart transplant later, she has countless physical and emotional scars to show for it.

Today is her one year biopsy post-transplant, and it was a big one. It's the one where we find out if there's any sort of permanent organ rejection going on in her body despite the buckets full of medication she is on every day trying to prevent that from happening.

"Yeah...that. " I chuckled, knowing that how casual our family is about things like this is far beyond normal. It has always just been our normal though, we are great in crisis because we've been through it...and a lot of it at that.

"You know I'll call you when I have the results." Mags half-whispered, her tone more serious than before. No matter how light we like to make of things like this, she is one of the most important people in my life. Her and my older brother.