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“It’s pretty simple, Chloe.” His tone is gentle. “Don’t believe the lies. Trust me. Trust the way I make you feel. Trust me when I tell you that I love you.”
Oh, God.
I feel like the rest of my life is teetering on this moment. And it’s too much. I need a freaking second, but Boyd is standing here looking for answers.
His cell phone rings—the ringtone one I recognize. It’s the one assigned to work—the one he always has to take. He groans and answers it, muttering a terse, “One second,” into the phone before holding it at his side and pulling me onto one of the stools at his kitchen island. A glass of water is set in front of me and he tells me to breathe and give him one second before turning his back and barking into the phone.
Obviously that’s when I get the hell out.
I’m shaking. My heart is racing so fast and my breathing is heavy. I’m having a panic attack. I swallow hard and my eyes burn. My throat is tight as I fight back the threatening tears because for me, a bad panic attack makes me sob too. As if the rest of it wasn’t bad enough, the threat of tears is always the final insulting straw. I hate the feeling before crying. Actual tears aren’t as bad as that moment before, when the throbbing starts behind my eyes and I feel ashamed for crying on top of everything else.
I know it’s likely Boyd will follow me, and I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. Not ever. It’s been years since I had a panic attack. Since I moved into the dorms freshman year. I got there a few hours before Everly and after my mom left I lost it. Everly wasn’t there yet, I was alone in a new place about to start a new chapter and I don’t know, I just lost it. And it’s stupid, right? I was about to start college with my best friend by my side. A great college that I wanted to go to, was thrilled to be at and was qualified to excel in academically. I had nothing to be unhappy about. Yet I sat in that dorm room feeling like all the air got sucked out of the room and the walls were closing in on me.
I felt alone even though the halls were bustling with people just outside my door. But what good does that do? When you’re surrounded by people who wouldn’t understand? Who don’t really know you? Maybe they’d want to help or maybe they’d think you were a drama llama. A hot mess they’d want to steer away from for the rest of the year.
So I focused on the empty bulletin board over my desk and breathed. In and out, in and out until it subsided. And then I calmly unpacked all my things and put my bed together. Fixed my makeup and quietly left the dorm to take a walk, my chest still tight, my shoulders heavy. I ended up in the campus library, where I walked up and down the aisles of books and fought off all the fears that were threatening to strangle me and focused on how lucky I was to be there.
So I do now what I did then. I hide.
I know what route he’d expect me to take and I take the opposite. I exit the building through a side door that bypasses the lobby that you can’t enter from the outside. I make it the two blocks to the Starbucks I saw him in all those weeks ago and lock myself in the bathroom.
I lean against the door and wrap my arms around myself, focusing on the hand dryer on the opposite wall. You’re not gonna die, Chloe. Just breathe. It’ll pass in a few minutes.
I hope.
Twenty-Six
Chloe
“I feel like an idiot.”
I’m at Everly’s condo, tucked on her sofa under a blanket while she talks me off the proverbial ledge. I came straight here after I managed to calm down enough to leave the Starbucks bathroom.
“You’re the least idiotic person I know,” Everly says, her face earnest.
I’m in love with Boyd.
It’s sort of terrifying.
It’s sort of exhilarating.
“Was it as scary for you as it is for me? Falling for Sawyer?”
“Not really, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m sure I had some of the same worries, everyone does. But I’m a leaper. You’re a thinker. We process things differently.”
“You didn’t have a panic attack and run away?” I ask sarcastically.
“No,” she muses. “Not even that time he refused to have sex with me.”
“That was your first date, Everly. And you did have sex,” I remind her. I know, because I heard about it for a week.
“Whew.” She blows out a breath. “It was a tough few hours though. How is Boyd’s POD by the way? Can we talk about that?” She leans forward on the couch, looking at me expectantly.
“Um, no. I don’t think so.”
She shrugs good-naturedly then changes the subject back to me. “Chloe, why didn’t you tell me you were struggling with your anxiety? You know I’m never too busy for you, no matter how many husbands or children I have.”
“You have one husband, babe,” Sawyer says, walking into the room at that moment.
“You’re still the one, baby.”
“We’ve been married for three months, Everly. I sure as hell better still be the one.”
“Sawyer,” she sighs. “I was trying to have a moment, okay? Work with me.”
“Next time, try waiting more than a day after downloading Shania Twain’s greatest hits to your iPod. You do realize the receipts come to my email, don’t you?”
“Um.” Everly looks away and scrunches her nose. “No?”
“You’ve been on quite the 90’s love ballads kick this week. Which is weird, because you’re not old enough to have owned the CD’s those songs were originally released on.” He looks at her with amused interest.
“What’s a CD?” She blinks at Sawyer dramatically.
“Cute. Keep it up.”
“Nineties music is all the rage with the millennials,” she tells him with a shrug. “I saw a blog post about it.”
“Don’t worry, sweets. We’ll beat the odds together.” He winks and she scowls. “You’re still the only one I dream of,” he calls as he walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of water.
“See! I don’t even care that you lifted that from a song. It still gave me all the feels!”
