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EMERSON
Daphne’s words come from miles away. Universes away. Thousands of light-years through paintings and canvas and frames. Through drywall and galleries. Closed-off alcoves in my mind. All of this built around the endless, screaming urge to throw myself into the water and breathe it in until I can’t feel this white-hot panic anymore.
I felt it coming out in the ocean. Concentrating on an essential task can sometimes stave it off for a few minutes. This time, I bought myself over an hour. Long enough to warm her up. But I knew, of course I knew, that pushing it in that way would make the fallout worse.
I am in the world now.
My usual methods for keeping it at a distance fail. It’s like a headache, that stutter-start and stall. I can feel myself making the attempt, over and over, to turn the trap into something manageable.
“Emerson, please.” A small hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”
It takes forever to get my brain to process a response. Knives press in through my ribs. Better to die, an reasonable voice murmurs. You’re dying anyway.
I cannot get enough air. The first time someone described this to me as panic, I almost laughed. Panic is too small a word for this cutting, flashing terror. All my muscles ache with the need to run from it. I have given into those urges before. I can’t flatten them now. Can’t line them up or dismiss them.
All I have left is honesty.
“No,” I tell her.
Daphne’s dark eyes are filled with firelight and concern. I never wanted her to see this. I knew when I went running for the shore that there was a chance this could happen. If she’d been a worse swimmer, if she’d been less determined, maybe I could have gotten home.
But she was so far out. So far over her head. She was starting to drown. I saw her head tip back and her arms go up and I knew how close I was to losing her. It tripped the wire of the panic response and losing the paddleboard started an electrical fire in my nerves.
The board was the way home.
I don’t have a way home.
I can’t get home.
Daphne edges closer, looking into my eyes as if she’s not watching the destruction of everything I’ve built. Every careful illusion. It’s over now. I’ll be nothing to her.
“Are you cold?” A soft, warm question.
Language has locked itself down behind a shrieking warning that this is dangerous, that a threat is closing in, that death is imminent. My lungs refuse the air, even to scream. I don’t want to scream. I want to go under, and I know what that means. It means a hasty death of hypothermia. I am not wearing my wetsuit.
I want it anyway. I want it so much.
This beating panic is excruciating.
“I’m not cold,” I manage. “I’m outside.”
Daphne should laugh at the absurdity of this description. What’s happening in my mind is like a crowd of people screeching with raw throats. Like hot, blinding light. Like being choked by two large, strong hands. Like the door thrown open wide to let a vicious world inside. One of my legs twitches.
There’s nowhere to run but into the water. I can’t survive that. I can’t let Daphne chase me into the waves.
But fuck.
I wish I could.
“What do you mean?” She’s gentle, for a Morelli. This isn’t their reputation. This kindness. She’s not mocking in the least. “We’re not really—I mean, we’re in a cave. We’re not exposed to the elements or anything.”
“Daphne.” Her name is becoming a bit of a talisman. Saying it anchors me to this rock and pulls me back from a simple, tempting death. “I don’t leave my house.”
A beat passes. “Yes, you do. I met you outside your house. I met you on the beach and in the gallery.”
“I don’t leave my house unless I’m sure.”
“Of what?”
