Living with the Archers ******

Chapter 3

"Rise and shine my little one, we have a big day ahead of us!" A familiar yet annoying voice wakes me up. I open my eyes to see Jake dumping a box on my bed. I sit up and look inside it. It's full with gadgets and puffers that I may need. I must remember to thank Emily later.

"Come on, you and I are going for a run, to see how far you can push yourself without training. Put some gear on and grab a puffer and we'll go." I notice him standing in workout gear. I run over to my closet and find that someone through the night has carefully unpacked my bags and put everything in my wardrobe.

I pull out an old pair of workout bike pants and a crop top to put over my sports bra. I'm about to go out when I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look pretty, with blue eyes and blonde hair cascading down my back in a ponytail. I'm wearing black sports shorts over black bike shorts with green Nike runners and a sport singlet that is tight and ends just under my boobs. I'm wearing full workout gear. I should look great, but my eyes are drawn to the vibrant red line on my stomach.

Even after two years, the scar never faded. When the cab crashed all those years ago, the door broke and part of it embedded itself in my stomach. They removed it but the scar still stays. Well at least that's what I tell everyone. In fact I do have a small scar caused my the cab door but it's not the large one that stretches across my stomach. That happened before the accident. The large scar was caused by something much worse.

"Uh Jake?" I call. He pokes his head in.

"Yeh?"

"What can I do about this?" I whisper, indicating my stomach. He stares for a moment before coming closer.

"You can cover it up....or you can be strong and run with it, no one will judge you, you can be strong." I nod and head downstairs. Being 3:30 in the morning there's no one around to see me. We walk outside for a bit. I can't help but think about my scar, and the time when I'll have to talk about it with someone outside of Jake. But for the now, I have to focus on running.

"Now I want you to run from here to that tree up there, that's about 400m, I want you to run as fast as you can, and if you need to, take a hit from the puffer at the end, but run like your in a race. I'll time you, your previous record for the 400m is 47.55 seconds, let's see how much you've slipped behind."

I crouch down in position.

"3!" I tense.

"2!" I push up a little.

"1!" I raise my but up.

"Go!" I launch off, running faster and faster, my chest feels fine at the moment, but a blaze is starting. I keep running until I reach the tree. I stop and take a hit of my puffer to stop the fire in my chest. Panting, I look at Jake. His mouth is open, either I did really good or really bad. I'm guessing the latter.

"60.79" He says. I stand there sort of gob smacked. For two years out, 13 seconds off is brilliant. I think I may rename myself superwoman.

"Your kidding."

"Nope, we just need to rebuild your muscle mass and train you harder, and put you on medication so you won't flare every time you run." He laughs. I jump around and squeal. I run over to Jake and hug him. He gives me a brotherly hug and punches my arm.

"You'll be making your comeback before the world's 2015!" He says. I think my face may break from smiling. "Wait here." He tells me.

He runs over to the massive sports bag he brought with him and brings out some weights and an extra puffer. He also brings out a small gadget like device.

"Now," he brings over the small gadget, "this is a monitor, it will monitor your breathing and beep once when your losing breath and twice when your close to passing out." I nod. He attaches it to the waistband of my shorts. It's very small, hardly noticeable.