I walk into the two story house, Cass leading me through the front door as she pushes it open.

"Max?!" She calls.

"Yeah?" A familiar voice calls.

"Get down here, please! It's urgent!" She calls.

A few seconds later, the ginger with glasses comes down, looking at me for a second before his attention turns to Cass.

"You know Andréa.. Right?"

Max crinkles his nose for a couple of seconds before nodding.

"Yeah. Who could forget? She almost cost you your life." He scoffs.

"Well.." Cass breathes. "We have a problem. Adam told be she was bailed out of jail. But he doesn't know exactly who bailed her. But I have a bad idea of who it could be.."

"Oh shit.. Do you think she-?"

"I don't know. Maybe. She's still a fucking psychopath for all I know."

"Okay.. But aside from that, who's this?" Max asks.

"This is TJ. She was just adopted by Adam," Cass says, smiling.

"Well, nice to meet you. I'm Max-"

"Max," Cass says and raises her eyebrows at him. "She knows who you are." She laughs.

"What, because you shouted my name?"

"No." Cass laughs. "She's actually a fan," she says, smiling.

"Oh, cool! Well, nice to meet you, TJ." He says, smiling.

"You too," I laugh softly.

"You wanna explain to the guys what you explained to me?" Cass asks, looking over at me.

"Uh.. Yeah. Do you guys have like, a couch or something? It gets pretty exhausting to stand this long because-"

"Oh.. Yeah. Max, can you take her to the living room while I grab Ross and Tim?"

"Yeah. Come on," Max says and waves for me to follow him.

I sit on the couch and look around at the cozy, hard wood floored living room.

"Could you give me a brief explanation of why it's hard for you to stand that long?" Max asks.

I nod a bit and sigh. "I live with leukemia, which sometimes gives me a shortness of breath if I'm standing up for too long." I say and shrug.

"Oh. I'm sorry," Max says and frowns.

I nod and look down until Cass returns with Ross and Tim.

"Hey," I say, smiling and looking up at them.

"Hey, so Cass told us you have a story for us?" Ross asks.

I sigh and nod a bit. "Uh.. Yeah. So I was born in what I thought was a normal household,"

I tell them the story I had told Cass back at Adam and Alesa's house.

Nearly everybody was speechless.

"Damn.. 99 pounds at 18?" Tim eventually asks, his eyebrows raised.

I shrug and sigh then nod. "Yeah. Completely unintentional as well." I say softly.

"And Adam practically saved your life?"

I nod again. "Correct."

"Damn. Have you met the others?" Max asks, raising his eyebrows.

I nod a bit and smile softly. "Yeah. They were pretty nice, but then again, I couldn't really talk, so Adam had to do the talking."

Max nods a bit and smiles. "But hey. You can speak now. That's a plus."

I nod and smile a bit as well. "It feels good to actually be able to freely use my voice again." I laugh softly.

"I can't imagine," Ross pitches in.

I nod a bit and look around. "I'm kinda hungry, and I hate to ask but.. Could I snack on something?"

"Actually," Max says and looks around at everyone. "We were about to go out for lunch. Would you like to come with us?"

I shrug and smile then nod a bit. "Yeah. Why not?" I say and laugh a bit.

"Cool, let's go." Max says and gets up.

Everyone else gets up, and Max and Ross grab their car keys.

"I'll go with Max," Cass says.

"I'll go with Max and Cass." I say and smile a bit.

"Alright, Tim and I will take my car." Ross says and leaves the house, Tim following.

"So where are we gonna go?" I ask and follow Max and Cass out.

"Well, I was thinking the Cheescake Factory?" Cass says.

"Sure," Max says, smiling.

"Ross!" Cass calls.

Ross peeks over from the top of his car.

"We're going to the Cheesecake Favtory!" She says as Max unlocks his car.

"Alright! We'll follow you," Ross calls back as we all get into the car and pull out of the driveway.

-

I scoop out a part of our shared ice cream dessert and open my mouth to eat it.

"So TJ," Tim says as he eats his first bite of ice cream.

I close my mouth and look up then raise my eyebrows.

"How many years have you been mute?" He asks.

I furrow my eyebrows. "I dunno. I honestly lost count," I say and shrug then put the ice cream in my mouth and eat it.

"Are you allergic to anything?" Max asks.

"Yeah.. I have an allergy to nuts and grass. Only cut grass though." I say and shrug.

Suddenly, things begin to feel hot and I feel like I'm gonna throw up.

"Are you alright?" Cass asks, raising her eyebrows.

I shake my head quickly.

"Oh shit- this ice cream has nuts in it." Ross says quickly.

"Oh - shit," Max hisses.

"Hello? 911?" I hear Cass say.

I begin to find it a struggle to breathe.

"Cass- move move move," Max says as he gets out of his seat quickly.

Cass quickly gets up, pressing a hand against her exposed ear as she's talking to the hospital.

Max immediately takes her place and talks calmly to me, telling me to focus on breathing, multiple people looking over.

"Okay, please hurry," Cass says quickly. "They say they want us to get her to the front. Can we do that without hurting her?"

"Yeah, I got her." Max says and carefully picks me up.

I find it such a difficulty to breathe, I don't react to Max picking me up.

"Funny, I've saved your life multiple times Cass, and now I'm here saving TJ's life."

"Yeah- I'm gonna get Adam on the phone real fast.

I cough a couple of times, in struggle to open my airway.

"Hey, Adam? We have an emergency. It's TJ."

---

Double post! It's been a while since I've done one of those :3 but I'm off to sleep now. Night people!!