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“Maddox,” I spoke softly. “Maddox, I’m right here. It’s okay.”
A tortured sound came from his throat, and my eyes burned with unshed tears. This was… hard. So fucking hard.
This wasn’t Maddox.
This was a boy, frightened and lost.
I gripped his hand and pulled it away from his face, holding it with both of mine “I’m right here, Maddox.”
His eyes were squeezed shut; his eyebrows pinched and his face… it was a mask of raw pain. He was tormented by something, his past… maybe, I didn’t know, but whatever it was, Maddox was still hurting. I could almost taste his suffering in the heavy air surrounding us.
Squeezing his left hand, I spoke firmly. “Look at me, Maddox. I’m right here. Look at me, okay? Please.”
When he kept his eyes closed, I changed tactics. “Breathe with me, baby. Can you do that? Can you breathe with me? I’ll count. Maddox, you can do it. I know you can.”
He sucked in a ragged breath, his chest rattling with the effort. “There you go. Slowly. Breathe with me. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you. It’s going to be okay.”
I squeezed his hand again, counting to three out loud. “Inhale,” I instructed.
He did. He slowly sucked in a breath.
I counted from four to six now. “Exhale.”
Maddox let out a harsh breath.
Squeeze. Inhale. Squeeze. Exhale.
One. Two. Three. Inhale. Four. Five. Six. Exhale.
When his breathing slowly became less ragged, I whispered, “I’m proud of you. That’s good. Do it again, Maddox. Breathe with me. Stay with me.”
His eyes opened, and I realized whatever I said had gotten through to him, so I repeated it again. “I’m proud of you. Stay with me.”
I inhaled, showing him how to do it, and Maddox breathed in a shaky breath. Somewhere in his tortured blue eyes, I saw him trying to hold onto his own sanity. I stared into his dark and bottomless eyes, seeing something I had never seen before. Fear and misery consumed every part of him.
I saw myself in him, and we bled together, our pain seeping through us, similar to how tears would leak from our eyes. Maddox looked at me as if he was staring at something he was about to lose.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I soothed gently, rubbing my fingers over the back of his knuckles.
He was still shaking, but he wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore.
I remembered my mother singing to me when I was a child, a sweet lullaby as she’d put me to sleep. When I’d suffer from my own panic attacks, my therapist told me to play the lullaby on YouTube. It had helped calm me down. I knew everyone rides out their panic attacks differently, but maybe… maybe I could…
Right now, Maddox looked like a child who needed someone to hold him.
So, I did.
I knelt between his thighs, so I was close to him, and held his hands in my own. I continued to rub my fingertips over his bruised knuckles, letting him feel my touch.
My lips parted, my heart ached and I sung him my favorite lullaby.
“Lullaby and good night, In the sky stars are bright, May the moons silvery beams, Bring you sweet dreams, Close your eyes now and rest, May these hours be blessed, Til the sky's bright with dawn, When you wake with a yawn.”
I saw brief recognition in his gaze. His eyes turned glassy, and he had a faraway look, like he wasn’t seeing me, because Maddox was somewhere else.
“Lullaby and good night, You are mother’s delight, I’ll protect you from harm, And you’ll wake in my arms, Sleepyhead, close your eyes, For I’m right beside you, Guardian angels are near, So sleep without fear,” I sung gently.
His lips quivered, and panic welled up inside me. I fucked up; I shouldn’t have sung to him. He was just starting to calm down and now…
Maddox curled his arm around my waist, and he pulled me against him, his head dropping to my shoulders. The world stilled except for our pounding hearts, beating together like a broken violin, shrieking with violent, pained sounds. A silent sob racked through his body, and I felt wetness on my neck where Maddox had his face hidden.
He was crying.
In silence.
He suffered, in silence.
His tears carried the weight of his pain.
My emotions became jagged as my chest ripped open, a knife digging itself into my little, fragile heart. It was so hard to swallow past the heavy lump in my throat. Emotional pain bore invisible scars; yet, these scars could be traced by the gentlest touch, I knew that.
Breaking apart was hard. It stung with every breath taken.
Recovering from it was the hardest.
Sometimes, the pieces can’t be put back together because they’re mismatched, missing or completely shattered, making it an impossible feat.
Tears slid down my cheeks, and I choked back a cry. My own voice cracked as I continued to sing the rest of the lullaby.
