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“M-my chest hurts,” I tell him. “I can’t, I can’t—” I’m wheezing now, each breath whistling.
“You’re having a panic attack,” he whispers.
“Wh-what?”
“I get them sometimes. Can’t breathe. Feels like I’m dying.”
I rub the heel of my hand into my chest, hunching against the door. “I-I?—”
“Hold your breath. Just do it. Close your eyes and hold your breath.”
Sniffing, I nod, and do as he says.
“I’m gonna count to five. Don’t let go until I tell you to.”
I’m nodding, even though he can’t see.
“And when you do, you have to let all these feelings go with it too. Give yourself these five seconds to feel it all, and then exhale. Okay?”
More nodding. Either he has superpowers, or he just knows, because he immediately starts counting, slow and steady.
“Okay. Um, one…”
My chest is on fire. Everything hurts. I even have to pinch my nose, so I don’t breathe before I’m supposed to—because I just know if I do, it’ll be more hitched sobs, and painfully short, sharp breaths, and I’ll be back to square one, feeling like it’ll never go away.
I’ll die. I’ll die if I stay like this.
So with all my might, I listen and do as Jeremy says, my body shaking with the effort.
“…four…”
My eyes are sealed so tight, I see stars.
“Five.”
I gasp, fingers flying from my nose. Saliva rushes into my mouth, and I cough a couple times, a broken, wet sort of cough, like the kind you get when you’re getting over a cold. But gone is that sharp, wheezing kind, that feels like I’m sucking air through a straw.
“Good,” he whispers.
I sniff, and try to speak, but I can’t. Not yet.
For what feels like forever, I sit there in the dark, on the hard bathroom tile, phone pressed to my ear, just breathing with Jeremy on the phone.
Finally, I ask, “Where’s everybody?”
“They had to run errands.”
“You didn’t wanna go?”
“No,” he says simply. But I know it’s not that simple. Leaving the house scares him.
“Where’s your mom?” he asks.
I clear my throat. “Outside. She was on the phone with Linda. I was…listening in, and then I don’t know what happened.”
He says nothing to that.
“How’d you know to do that?” I say.
