Page 55 of Memphis

“Scoot back,” she ordered, and like the obedient pet I’d become for her, I did.

She slipped into my lap, wrapping her arms around me, the scent of her favorite parfum—Aqua Universalis—permeating my nose. Her lips met mine in a long, lingering, dick-hardening kiss, and when she pulled back, a look of horror covered her face. My eyes widened as I reached up to wipe the blood first from her face and then mine. Her nose was bleeding.

“Baby, what the fuc?—”

She hopped up and raced out of the dining room before I could finish my statement. I followed her and was met with her slamming and locking the bathroom door.

“Memphis, let me in!” I shouted. “What the fuck is going on with you?!”

“Go away!” she growled.

“Hell no! You’re my fucking wife. Something is wrong, and it’s scaring the shit out of me! Don’t make me kick this door in!”

The lock on the door clicked, and I yanked it open to find her sitting on the toilet holding a towel to her nose, her eyes shimmering with tears. She looked so vulnerable, a word I’d only associated with her one other time in all the years I’d loved her, the morning we woke up with guns to our heads. Truthfully, seeing her like that was really what made me let her go, even though it tore my heart out the fucking frame.

Kneeling before her, I reached up and moved the towel. “Looks like it stopped.”

She nodded, a single tear escaping her eye. “Bo, I’m scared. I’m really scared. I keep feeling dizzy, and now this…”

“Dizzy? Memphis…” Holding her soft face in my hands, I admitted, “I’m scared, too, but we’ll get you to a doctor and see what’s going on.”

She shook her head. “I don’t trust doctors. You know that.”

“I get that, but we don’t have a choice.”

“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’ll just go away.”

“Let the doctor tell you that.”

“I’m not?—”

“Memphis, I’m not trying to be insensitive, but I ain’t tryna hear that shit. I just got you back, and I don’t want nothing cutting my time with you short. I don’t give a fuck if I have to sedate your ass, tie you to the bed, and force a doctor to come here, you getting checked the-fuck out!”

She lifted her head, fixing her wet eyes on mine. “A female doctor, then.”

“Done.”

This shit hurt—watchingthe baddest woman I’d ever known look so afraid, so...defeated as she listened to the doctor go over her lab results. I was in fucking shambles. If whatever was going on was going to take her away from me, I was going to fucking kill everyone I knew and a few people I didn’t know. I was going to become a prolific mass assassin. Wait, I was already that.

“The values I’m most concerned about are your red blood cell count, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. They’re all out of range, elevated,” the doctor was saying. “You say you’re not a smoker, right?”

“Correct. Why?” Memphis replied, her eyebrows in a tangle.

“Well, smoking can effect these values, but that’s obviously not the case in this instance.”

“Okay…what’s going on, then? What’s wrong with me?”

“You will need to undergo further testing for confirmation, but these test results coupled with the symptoms you’ve been experiencing—dizziness, light-headedness, nose bleeds, headaches, blurred vision…”

I didn’t even know half this shit was happening! My got damn heart was breaking knowing she was dealing with this alone. She hadn’t even told her family.

“…I believe we’re dealing with Polycythemia Vera,” the doctor finished.

“W-what is that?” Memphis stammered.

“It’s a blood disease.”

Memphis blinked a few times before saying, “Okay. How do we treat it? Is it curable?”

---