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I closed my eyes and swayed, off-balance.
“Alicia?” I could hear Andrew’s quiet footsteps come closer, tentatively. “Are you gonna throw up or something?”
“Stop talking, Andrew,” I bit out. “Right now.”
Andrew put his hands on my shoulders. Slowly, he increased the pressure until I was sitting on something hard. “On the contrary, Ace, I think talking is exactly what you need. Open your eyes and look at me.”
I continued to keep my eyes closed, my breaths getting faster. Don’t let me pass out, I thought. Please don’t let me embarrass myself.
Andrew’s hands engulfed mine. “Alicia, open your eyes.”
After a few more breaths, finally, my eyes met his.
He took a deep breath in then let it out slowly. “Follow the sound of my breaths.” He took another deep breath in and out. “Then you do it.”
I watched his chest rise and fall. As I watched, I noticed a few curly hairs peeking out from the collar of his shirt. When did he grow chest hair? Has he always had that?
“Admiring my body, I see.” When I looked at Andrew, he smiled. “Keep focusing on my breathing, Jones. Or focus on my chest hairs. Your choice.”
I kept my eyes on his, following his breathing pattern. Slowly, gradually, my breathing matched his. Five minutes went by and my heart stopped pounding. My vision widened, and my peripheral came back into focus.
“Better?”
I took one last big breath and let it out in a whoosh. “Better.” It was then that I realized that I was squeezing his hands. I let go with a flush. “Sorry.”
“No harm done.” He wiggled his fingers at me. As he stood up, his knees cracked. “You ready to eat?”
I frowned as he pulled a blanket from his backpack. “Eat?”
“Yes, Echo, eat.” He pulled out a lunchbox. “Breakfast. It’s 7:30 in the morning, remember?”
“How could I forget?” I muttered. I moved from the stump to the grass where Andrew was sitting. My stomach rumbled in agreement. “What’ve you got?”
Andrew pulled a tinfoil-wrapped package from his lunchbox. “We have fried chicken, biscuits, fruit, and potatoes.” As he spoke, he pulled the items out one by one from the lunchbox. He grinned sheepishly. “I eat dinner for breakfast.”
“I see that,” I said, eyeing the spread. “No judgment from me, though. I’m starving.”
“As am I, so let’s eat.” Andrew rubbed his hands together and opened the fried chicken.
We ate in silence for a while before Andrew coughed. He swallowed and said, in a too casual voice, “So.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So?”
“When did the panic attacks come back?”
I heaved a sigh and put down my biscuit. “Do we have to talk about this right now?” I asked. “I’m enjoying the ambiance of the forest you dragged me to.”
“Yes, we do need to talk about it right now. Otherwise, you’ll try to get out of talking about it for the rest of the tour.”
I leaned my head back and looked to the sky for guidance. Finally, I grumbled, “Fine. If I must.” I sighed again. “They started coming back around the time I broke up with Nicholas.”
“Before or after?”
“After.”
“So after we stopped being friends?”
“Yeah.”
