Too Human - Forbidden book 1

Chapter Twenty seven - Violet

Violet

It was two years ago that I left Dawn. A lot has happened since then. The day I drove home from Dawn, I’d been so happy to have Dustin back that it wasn’t until I arrived home and I sat in the drive way that realized I just driven away from the love of my life. I tried to block him out for a long time, his memory, what he made me feel, how protected and safe, how loved. It worked while I was taking the pain killers during the first year, because they made me numb physically and emotionally but when they stopped working because the pain was too much every stabbing pain I had reminded me of him. My uncle never laid a hand on us when we got home, I figured it was something Jager had said to him and the day I turned eighteen we moved out. I worked at the local vet clinic and the pay keeps us alive but not much more than that.

I was cooking dinner on a Friday night, I’d been having headaches and chest pains and a new symptom of the Phantrip showed up a few weeks ago.

“Your nose is bleeding again,” Dustin said. He got up and went and found me a tissue, I put the wooden spoon down and wiped the back of my hand under my nose. Bright scarlet drops were smeared across it. I took the tissue from him, pressing it under my nose.

“It’s getting worse isn’t it?” Dustin asked. “You’re getting these more often too.”

“Yes.”

“The headaches? Chest pains?”

“There migraines now and I can’t breathe when I’ve chest pains. I feel like my lungs are about to collapse or deflate.  Maybe swell up like a balloon and pop all together,” I smiled.

“It’s not funny, Vee. Add everything else plus your nose bleeding, you’re eating more than twice what I do and your skin and bones and always exhausted. What else?” he demanded, serious-worried-brother tone.

It was useless trying to protect him from how bad it was, he needed to know because soon he’d be on his own, I wouldn’t be there to look after him. He’s made me promise to tell him. “Cold sweats and fevers, sometimes my tongue is numb, pins and needles in my fingers and legs. And then, you know, what happened a month ago.”

It was too hard to talk about, the hospital incident was the only thing about my being sick we didn’t talk about.

I collapsed in the shopping centre, convulsing, the jar I’d been holding smashed across the ground, glass and pasta sauce scattering across the floor. I hit the ground hard, my hip and shoulder taking most of the fall, my head whacked against the floor but didn’t split the skin. I clamped my jaw together holding in a scream as my muscles cramped and burnt from the inside, pins and needles spread through my body. Dustin tried to get me up, he managed to get me to my feet and started leading me out of the shopping centre. People were staring now, some backing away, others looked like they want to help and some were just curious to see what was going on. Dustin urged me forward, we just made it out the door when I started coughing. Horrible wet, gut wrenching coughs and that’s when we noticed the blood, I went into a panic which did not help and someone else, a good Samaritan type  did too because they rushed over calling a security guard and phoning an ambulance. Dustin tried to explain to them that I was okay, that I just needed to go home but the security guard wouldn’t let us leave until the ambulance arrived. Paramedics rushed in not long later, guiding me into the back of their car, coughing blood all over their uniforms. We  started driving I tried to explain to them between coughs and the shaking that I just needed to go home, that they couldn’t do anything for me, but they didn’t listen. When they’d gotten me into the hospital they rushed me off to a white sterile looking room and tried to run a series of tests but I screamed and kicked and refused medical treatment and blood tests because they wouldn’t understand or be able to help anyway.