Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)

by Talia Hibbert

The human body was an inconvenient and unreasonable thing.

Eve clearly didn’t realize that “social nonsense” was Chloe’s succinct way of phrasing “the constant disappointment that is human nature.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she said dryly, “my mental health was a mess at that point. And having actual medical professionals dismiss me really didn’t help, so . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Of course it didn’t,” he said, his voice rough, almost rusty, with the anger he didn’t want to show. “Whether something bad is coming from your body or your brain, it makes no difference. Still feels like shit, right? Still hurts. Still needs fixing. They shouldn’t have dismissed you, even if it was in your head. When it comes down to it, everything we feel is in our heads.”

Chronic pain literally rewired brain pathways until you were more conscious of your own body than you should be, until you hurt more intensely than was healthy.

He was probably the worst kind of monster because Chloe was sick, but he still thought she was unbelievably sexy. Then he remembered that she was always sick, so maybe poor health wasn’t something that should de-sex a person.

“You were hurt, and you reacted. You were in an unhealthy situation in more ways than one, and you panicked and cleansed everything with fire. Don’t dismiss your emotions and your self-protection as just a fucked-up decision. Don’t reduce something so complex and real and important to nothing.”