Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I can’t think. I can’t breathe. Fuck, I haven’t had an attack like this in a very long time, but once it’s triggered, I can’t do anything to stop it. I feel small and helpless again, a lost and broken teenager trying to process a hurt that won’t ever heal, as I stagger and bump into someone. I try to apologize, but words won’t come out. Everything is muted, all the voices are mumbles, and more people are getting in my face as I try to wave them away.
This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. Ethan is gone. Except I never should have come here. I should’ve known better. This is what happens when I’m in public—sooner or later, I lose my shit, and it’s happening all over again, miles and miles from home, from my safe place.
Then hands grab me. I turn, ready to scream, and Marco’s face swims into view. He’s got me, one hand on my arm, the other one on my waist, and he’s steering me away from the crowd, away from the mutters and murmurs, down a side hallway and toward a bench set across from the toilets. He gives me water and he’s talking, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying, as I struggle through my breathing exercise. Four in, four hold, six out, over and over, four-four-six, until my racing heart slows to something manageable and the ringing in my ears fades, and Marco’s face resolves into something solid.
He’s rubbing my back. It feels good. “You’re okay,” he says softly. “You’re okay. You’re all right. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
“I’m so sorry,” I manage to say, leaning forward with my face in my hands. I won’t cry, I won’t cry, but I think I might.
“You have nothing to apologize for. What did that bastard say to you? I’ll kill him, Laura.”
“No,” I say, grabbing his knee in panic. “Please.”
“Okay, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” He keeps rubbing my back. The worst of the panic attack is over, and now it’s only a matter of time before I get myself together. I drink some of the water and sit back against the wall, my eyes shut as I lean into his shoulder.
“That hasn’t happened in a while,” I admit once I’m feeling like myself again.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you. This is my fault.”
“No, it’s not, it was just bad luck.” I let out an ugly laugh and scrub at my face with both hands. “It was the artist. He wanted to talk shop, I think, but when I saw him—” I shake my head, fighting a groan.
How am I supposed to explain to him why I’m broken? I haven’t had to do this in such a long, long time, and I’m stupidly out of practice. But it’s only a story—a sequence of events that happened to a fifteen-year-old girl named Laura Bianco, a girl I used to be, but a girl I’m most definitely not anymore.
“If he hurt you—”
“No, believe me, it’s not his fault. He just, he looked like someone I knew, and that triggered a bunch of old feelings, and I guess the crowd finally got to me, and here we are.” My laugh sounds hysterical, even to me. “I’m not doing great on this date, am I?”
He wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me tighter against him. “Baby, you’re doing perfect. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll take you home.”
I nod and don’t have the energy to argue. We leave the back way and he spares me the indignity of going back through the main room. Once we’re in the car, he starts driving back to Chicago, and all I can do is stare out the window and stew in my self-loathing.
I thought I’d moved on. It seemed like I was doing better. Marco and Jackal both make me feel safe in ways I haven’t experienced in a while, but looking back on it, this was our first time out in a big crowd without any masks. Jackal was with me at the hotel bar; I had my face covered during my gallery openings.
This was different. No games, no defenses, just two normal people doing a normal thing, and I couldn’t fucking handle it.
“I want to tell you what happened to me,” I say, suddenly convinced that this is the only way I can excise the shame, by telling him about it.
“You don’t have to,” he says softly. “You don’t owe me that. But I’ll listen. I’m here for you.”
I suck in a deep breath, and that’s actually refreshing to hear, instead of something like, Laura you need a therapist, Laura you have to talk about it, Laura you can’t keep it all bottled up.
“He was my teacher,” I say quietly. “I can still picture him: scruffy, skinny, always smiling. Just like Nicolas, except thinner. Everyone loved him. He ran the art club and I joined up, mostly because I thought he was funny and cute, and he was always complimenting my class work. There weren’t many of us, and some days it was only him and me. I felt special, you know? He gave me so much attention, and I really looked up to him. I kept thinking, if this brilliant, funny man actually thinks I’m talented, then maybe I can be someone and not just another Bianco.