AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yup, and sweet,” Junie agreed. “Let’s get out of here and get to the car.”
We walked slowly as I sipped at my drink and Junie held my hand tightly. A store door opened as we passed, and I stumbled back with a startled cry. Junie steadied me.
“Deep breaths, babe. We’re almost there.”
A dog barked sharply from the open window of a passing car, and I jumped back. I moaned, “Oh, God.”
I was beginning to lose control, the panic overwhelming me. The earth spun too fast and my body both floated and sunk. I could not feel my limbs in space, my mind flipped through its rolodex of dead babies, and I fought the urge to scream.
“Almost there, Willa, twenty-five more steps,” Junie encouraged.
Twenty-five steps could feel like twenty-five miles, and twenty-five miles could fly by in but a moment leaving a flurry of regrets. A tear slid down my cheek. Why was it that when I didn’t want to go somewhere, I got there all too soon, and when I needed to leave, I couldn’t escape?
Junie let go of my hand and wrapped her arm around my waist. “Ten steps, Willa.”
We made it to the car and Junie opened my door and put me in, closing it behind her. Silence. Peace. Solitude. She opened the driver’s side door and I screamed.
“God!” I cried, “Come on! I knew she was there!”
“Okay, Willa, you’re okay. Focus on the radio and your coffee. Let’s get your belt on and I’ll get us out of here.”
She took me home.
Chapter 36
Until the Next Time
Barrett
He was surprised to find Junie at Willa’s when he got there after work. “Oh, hey, Junie. I didn’t know you were going to be…what’s wrong? Where’s Willa?”
Junie looked positively grim. “She’s in the bathroom. Barrett, she had an episode today. We were downtown and got blindsided by a pro-life demonstration. Those women and their fucking signs!”
“Fuck,” he snarled, heading to the bathroom.
“Willa? I’m outside the door, angel.”
She opened the door. She looked tired and drawn, every single freckle stood out as if they had been painted onto the pale canvas of her face. She narrowed her thunder and lightning eyes at him, and it occurred to him that he was about to learn a side to her that he hadn’t yet seen.
“When did you get here? I don’t want you seeing me like this,” she snapped.
He wisely failed to rise to the bait. “Junie told me what happened today.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she tipped her head back to prevent them from falling. They spilled out the corners anyway and landed in the soft curls at her temples.
“Ahh, I hate this,” she groaned in frustration and swiped her hands across the sides of her face. “I don’t want you to see me like this again.”
He stepped back and tucked his long fingers into the front pockets of his jeans, unmoving, his eyes on her face. She squirmed under the attention.
He held himself perfectly still, his gaze on her steady and steadying, he murmured, “It was bad, baby?”
She shifted her weight side-to-side, her eyes flickering to his and then skittering away before she finally made up her mind and tipped forward against his chest. His arms came around her immediately. She grasped his head and pushed her forehead hard against his, trying to push out the images that wouldn’t let her go.
“It’s the pictures, Barrett, they’re stuck in my head,” she whispered.
He held her close with one arm behind her back and brought his other hand up to tangle in her hair. He firmly massaged her scalp as if to erase the pictures from her psyche. Tears welled in his eyes.
“What can I do to help you?”
