Page 11 of The Operators

“No, I’ve never had a history of diabetes,” I repeated to him.

“Thea, it’s okay if you are working towards a goal, but we just want it done in a way that’s healthy for your body.”

It took a few more confusing questions for me to realize he thought I had been taking medication to try to lose weight. They found the medication in my blood work. It had caused my blood sugar levels to go out of whack, which is why I passed out at work.

The more I denied taking anything, the more the doctor didn’t seem to want to believe me. He eventually asked if I wanted to file a police report because I kept insisting someone must have drugged me, which in hindsight I guess sounds ridiculous. Who would drug someone with weight loss medication?

I eventually mumbled something about maybe mixing up my birth control pills with my boyfriend’s medication to try to get out there as fast as I could. Cindy drove me home from urgent care. She waited in the waiting room for me the whole time. I kept it vague, and told her my blood sugar spiked and that I just needed to go home and rest.

I was numb the whole car ride home. The thought was sitting there in the back of my mind, trying to scratch its way through even though I was trying to block it.

It was Ryan.

I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t put any energy into the thought in order to stay in denial longer. The closer we got back to his place, the more my chest began to cave in. I barely said a word to Cindy, and I could tell she was worried about me. I tried to play it off as being tired and rushed into the house as soon as I could.

Ryan was going to be home from work soon, so I chucked my bag on the floor and began scouring the place to find theanswers I was looking for. The answer I was dreading and praying wasn’t there. The answer that shattered my heart to the point I had no sense of self left as I stared lifelessly at the pill bottle in my hand. The pill bottle I found in Ryan’s top dresser drawer.

I should have packed up my stuff and left right then, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave because if I left, then that would mean I had nothing. I had no home. No love. No reason to be happy, no reason to wake up, no reason for being.

So I stayed. I stayed and let Ryan try to explain his behavior away like he always did. He couldn’t apologize. It was all excuses. Excuses about how he thought he was helping me by adding it to my morning protein shake. He said he was trying to make things easier for me since I had been working so hard. And if he had just said sorry, then I probably would have believed him. I probably would have stayed. But as I sat there on the bed with tears running down my face, and I began to disassociate so that I didn’t have to feel the pain, it was Mack’s words that gave me the tiny bit of strength I needed to tell Ryan I was leaving.

“You’re so strong, Thea. And your friends, the people you work with, strangers on the street, they are never going to see that. The world is never going to see that. They are never going to know how much you’ve had to carry or how hard you’ve had to fight, but that doesn’t mean that strength isn’t in you. And life sucks. I would love to tell you that it’ll get better one day, and that you’ll find your happily ever after, but that’s not how it works. All I can promise is that I know you’re strong enough. I know you’re strong enough to get through anything because it’s in you. And if it ever feels like you don’t have enough, then I’ll be here, and you can lean on me.”

I closed my eyes and had a moment of peace. A moment of comfort remembering what he said to me the week my mom walked out. A moment of strength to tell Ryan to fuck off.

That’s when things started spiraling out of control. I called Trevor when Ryan started slamming the cupboards in the kitchen, throwing out all of my “health” items in a rage, trying to make me believe I was the one being unreasonable.

The guys showed up faster than I thought was physically possible. I implied Ryan was mixing in more of a “natural supplement” in my shakes, and that I was more upset about the thought behind it. If any of them had found out about me ending up at urgent care, then the police would have been involved. Even Declan, honestly, even though I don’t know him as well as Mack. All three of them came ready to fight.

But it wasn’t until Mack had his arms around me, walking me over to the car that I was finally able to breathe. It was there in his arms that I finally found my strength again.

But I wasn’t strong. I was weak. I ended up back at Ryan’s place a month later after he apologized over and over again, begging for me to come back. I’ve never had anyone fight for me before. Choose me before. How could I say no to that?

So I took him back, but I wasn’t the same. I left too much of myself behind. I lost the respect I had for myself until I was nothing but what he made me.

It’s taken me a while to find myself, and seeing Ryan again took me back to that place. The place where I don’t know me, but Mack saved me from going there. He reminded me of who I am. Of who I want to be.

Mack gives me an uncomfortable smile. There’s this tension in the air that we usually don’t have, and I’m sure I’m making it worse. It probably didn’t help that I snuck out of his place without saying goodbye in the morning. I couldn’t just stay in bed with him though no matter how much I wanted to. It would have been weird. I had to leave.

“Look, about Friday,” he starts, trying to clear the air.

“What happened Friday?” Trevor asks, walking into the kitchen at the worst time.

I clear my throat, putting on a fake smile. “I had to witness Mack attempting to get laid and failing miserably,” I say, trying to deflect. Trevor can always tell when I’m lying, so I had to include some truth.

“I did not fail!” Mack chimes in, annoyed at me like usual. He leans against his hands on the counter, making every stupid fucking muscle on his naked chest more pronounced.

I laugh through a closed mouth, mocking him. “That’s not how it looked to me.”

“It was a priority shift,” he says. “Maybe if you weren’t always getting yourself into trouble, then I could have had more focus.”

“What do I have to do with anything?” I ask, matching his stare.

He doesn’t back down. “Someone’s gotta look out for you.”

“Oh, yeah, Thea,” Trevor joins in. “You definitely owe the man after costing him a night with a lady after,” he pauses, smirking at Mack. “How long has it been again?”

“Dude,” Mack says to him, holding his hands up in defense.

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