Mysterious

Chapter 57

"Mrs. Hernandez, how are you feeling today?" Dr. Reeves asked her.

"I'm doing well. I just want to get this over with." Arissa smiled at her doctor who probably knew her better than anyone else at this point. It was one of her last visits before finishing physical therapy.

"Arissa...are you still losing weight?" Dr. Reeves asked her after she stepped on the scale. "Eating normally you wouldn't lose 5 pounds in a week."

"I lost five pounds?" she asked.

"Yeah. You're 118 now..." Dr. Reeves explained.

"I just stopped counting after I hit my goal weight in September..." Arissa replied.

"Wait. You were consciously losing weight?" the doctor asked.

"Of course, you have it there...it says I have PCOS..."

"Arissa...if you're healthy you're healthy. I'm not preaching right now, I mean, I'm going to the gym after this...and we're in Los Angeles...but..." she flipped through Arissa's paperwork. "You weighed 130 in March...and that was normal...you said you wanted to be healthy...not a model." she tried to understand Arissa's thought process.

"Yeah...I know..but...now it's just easy. Easy to forget to eat, easy not to grab the cookies, easy to eat all the good stuff. I like it...and I'm actually surprised I lost weight when I haven't been running. I miss running..."

"I'm prescribing you cookies. Lots of cookies..." Dr. Reeves scribbled on her notepad.

"Oreos and ice cream twice a day."

"But..." Arissa was confused.

"I'm serious. You are going to start to hurt yourself." the doctor told her.

"If I gain weight I can't have kids..." Arissa told her.

"You were...." the doctor read the same piece of her chart over again "June 2010. It's June 2012. You've lost over 50 pounds. If you were still the same size we would be worried. You aren't skipping any periods are you?"

"Well...I don't know...maybe like once or twice." she mentally counted back to September and October of the year before. It was the stress. She thought to herself.

"I won't tell you to not worry, Mrs. Hernandez. It will be hard...but you're overanalyzing the issue. It will happen. You know stress interferes with all of this stuff. I'm also prescribing you vacation." Dr. Reeves handed her another piece of paper.

"Vacation and lots of sex." Arissa laughed at the last part.

"Doctor's orders." Dr. Reeves told her.

**

Arissa laid the faux prescriptions on the table next to her water bottle.

"This is so dumb. I'm going for a run." Arissa said out loud. "Two miles..I can do it..."

Two hours later Arissa found herself laying on the couch in so much pain she couldn't move. "Shit...that was a bad idea..." she said walking slowly in pain to the refrigerator grabbing ice stretching her leg on the table.

"Risss!" Bruno yelled from the backdoor.

"I'm in the kitcheeeennnn." she whined.

"What's wrong, baby doll?" he yelled walking into the kitchen catching her with both legs on the table ice laying on top of them. He started to laugh uncontrollably. "Oh, my god. Arissa..." he paused. She was laughing with him.

"I had to..." she told him as he sat down next to her kissing her on the cheek. He stared at her green eyes and red face. "You make my world go 'round, Arissa Hernandez."

"Oh goodness. Shut up." she told him. She loved his romanticism and his cheesiness...but sometimes it was just ridiculous. "Can you get me the Tylenol, please?" she asked after he got up from the table.

"Of course...oh...what's this? She gave you more drugs?" he asked grabbing the prescriptions on the table.

"She was being funny..." Arissa turned around facing him.

"Let's do it." he told her.

"Do what?" she asked.

"Go on vacation. Just get away." he answered.

"To where?" she asked.

"Wherever you want to go...like France, or London, or India, or Japan...anywhere. Just you and me."

"Really?" Arissa's face lit up.They had been together since the earthquake, but aside from a handful of times when they went out with friends they really hadn't had time to be alone. It was, in all reality, a very good idea.

"Yes. Get your suitcase. We're leaving tomorrow."