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Oh, God, they can’t see.
Fearing that someone would hear her, she tugged at the corner of the bedspread and pulled part of it down so she could bury her face in it. And then she let herself scream—scream in a way she hadn’t been able to do when that cable had sliced open her throat under thirty feet of water.
If she’d been as deep then as Jud was earlier, she wouldn’t be alive today.
And now she realized that in a part of her brain she hadn’t let herself recognize in the moment, she’d feared finding Jud dead at the bot
tom of the Atlantic. Part of her had been terrified that she wouldn’t get to Jud as fast as her team had gotten to her—and then it would be her fault that he’d died, the same way that it had been due to her team’s speed, skill, and care that she’d been saved.
The tears came harder. So hard that her stomach hurt and her face ached and her throat felt raw. So hard that it was difficult to breathe.
Come on, Tara. Five things you can see.
“T-the blanket,” she whispered. “M-my hands. The c-carpet.” She pressed a hand to her mouth as more tears came. “T-the light,” she rasped. “My knees.”
She attempted a deep breath, but shuddered too hard to manage it.
Four things you can hear.
“M-me,” she said. “T-the heater.” But there was nothing else. She couldn’t get to four. The room was too quiet. Her pain was too loud.
Skip it! Three things you can feel.
Through her tears, she managed to say, “C-carpet is rough. Everything…” She swallowed hard. “Everything hurts. Everything hurts so much.” The admission brought more tears.
Come on, what’s your third?
The problem was, she couldn’t feel anything else right now. But then, unexpectedly, her memory offered up something she’d felt in the past. Something that’d felt good: her face resting against Jesse’s chest. When she’d thought he’d been hurting and she’d wanted to make it better. Even if just a little.
“Jesse,” she whispered.
Why was she thinking about him right now? When he wasn’t even here, in her environment? That wasn’t how this exercise worked.
“I’m in 302. Understand?”
He knew. Despite her best efforts to lock her reactions down, he knew.
Besides that, he is here and you know it. And not just in room 302. She snuffled into the blanket as the thought caught her off guard. What did that even mean?
Thinking of him was the first time since she’d given in to the panic attack that she’d felt something different—something comforting….
Affection.
She liked Jesse. Not just as a teammate. Not just as a friend. Beyond that, who the heck even knew? But she saw those concerned eyes in her mind and she heard his voice in her ear and she felt his chest under her face.
He was here. Inside her.
Tara closed her eyes and tried to hold on to that feeling. And wondered if she should take him up on his offer.
But the fact was, they were teammates. He couldn’t see her like this any more than any of the rest of them could. And besides, she needed to get herself out of this emotional hole. She had to convince herself that she could pull it together, even when she lost it so bad.
Tara needed to do this on her own.
So she forced herself to think of two things she could smell.
Except the carpet cleaner was the only thing strong enough to penetrate the congestion her crying had caused. But she was counting that as a victory.
Which left one thing she could taste.
