She snaps her fingers again. “Look, it’s Scruff. That’s one, you next.” I look around and notice my bag on the floor.
“Bag,” I manage to croak out.
She nods. “That’s good, now another. I want five, Lacey.”
“Bus, flowers, clouds.”
“Great. Now what five things can you smell?”
I look at her like she’s completely lost it, but I oblige. “Flowers again, your perfume, trees, sea breeze, the bakery across the road.”
“Okay, now what five things can you touch from where you’re sitting?”
This girl must have been drinking her shitty box wine this morning.
I chuckle to myself but carry on. “Scruff.” I give him a loving stroke as I say it. “The floor, my bump, the trees behind me and my bag.”
“Now take a deep breath.”
I shake my head. “Emmy, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, because for the past” – she looks at her watch – “minute and a half, you’ve been breathing fine.” She smiles at me as the realisation hits. The feelings of numbness and the burning in my chest are gone. Now I feel more tired than ever.
“What? How? Are you a witch?”
Cas starts laughing and helps me to my feet.
“I suffered pretty badly with panic attacks after everything that happened. Cas helped me through them.” She smiles softly at her husband, and I throw my arms around her.
“Thank you.” I have no other words; none of them come close to how grateful I feel.
“Come on, let’s get back to ours, and we can talk about what caused that.” There’s no room for argument in Cas’s voice.
When we get back to their house, Emmy guides me to the sofa, and Cas goes into the kitchen to make a drink. He comes back a few minutes later with a sweet tea. I’m so thankful for it because now I have the shakes, as well as feeling even more tired than before the attack.
Handing it to me, he says, “I’ve put a bit of sugar in there, should help with the shakiness.” I nod my thanks, and he sits on the coffee table in front of me. Emmy plops to the side of me, herarm threaded through mine, like she’s worried I’m going to bolt. Cas gives me a pointed look. “So, what happened?”
I blow out a breath, because what did happen? I shake my head. “To be honest, I have no idea what happened or why. It’s so…odd. I was walking to your house and in my own world, and the next thing I know, this guy grabs my arms, asking if I’m Lacey, then he spins me around and genuinely looks shocked and…stricken when he sees I’m pregnant. Then he’s telling me how sorry he is, and he runs off. That was it.”
The two of them share a look before Emmy says, “We aren’t strangers to weird things, especially after everything that happened to us. Is that everything? He didn’t say anything else?”
I think back and remember. “Wait…there was something! When he saw I was pregnant, he muttered ‘the fucker’ or ‘that fucker’, one of the two, but yeah, that was it. I’m okay now, probably just a weird coincidence he knew my name.” I try to shake it off, but I can’t deny I’m a little scared.
“Lacey, sweetie, there are no weird coincidences. How many of those did I have? I’m not saying this is the same situation, but we have to be careful and on top of this.”
I look in Emmy’s eyes and see strength swimming in them. For all she has been through, she hasn’t let it change her. She’s grown. So I take her advice and nod.
“I’m gonna give Vik a call. Be back shortly. You two drink up, and I’ll take you to the yoga studio.” Cas gets up, phone already to his ear, dialling Vik.
I turn to Emmy. “What about Hayleigh?”
She blushes and laughs. “Erm…that’s not my story to tell, but she’s going to meet us there.”
My phone starts to ring. I reach into my bag to fish it out and see Cole’s name. I look at Emmy, and she shrugs. Rolling my eyes, I answer, “Hi.”
“Don’t. Under no circumstances do you brush this off. Are you okay? Is Peanut okay?” Hearing the concern in his voice tears a hole through me, and I start to cry again. Emmy gets up and walks out of the room as Scruff jumps up and takes her spot, cuddling into me and resting his head on my bump.
“I’m okay.” My voice is a horse whisper. “Peanut is fine, she’s moving about like she’s doing an Irish jig in there.”
