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My body shook as the tears continued to stream down my face, and I turned into a blubbering mess. I started to cough loud and desperately. My chest ached, my fingers and toes felt numb, and my head felt fuzzy. I hiccuped over the tears, fighting my body’s response to the horrible news.
I was hyperventilating.
I was having a panic attack.
I needed to calm down.
“Fuck,” I gasped out through the tears. “Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.”
No matter how many times I told myself to stop what I was doing, it didn’t matter. Panic attacks weren’t rational. There was nothing that anyone could do to be logical about the situation. Calm was not a word that you even understood when it hit you. There was only that moment when your brain stopped functioning, you stopped breathing, and the tears refused to stop falling.
It had been so long since I had an attack. Years, in fact. The last one had been the day when my dad was sent to prison. I hadn’t cried in front of him. I hadn’t said a damn word. He’d pleaded with me. Begged for one more minute with me. A chance. I’d coldly stared into his pale eyes that were so like mine and then turned and walked away. When I’d gotten back to my car, I hadn’t been able to leave the courtroom for nearly an hour.
I couldn’t do that today.
I couldn’t be here another minute.
Despite the dangers, I revved the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. My breathing was erratic, and my tears refused to stop. My face was hot, and my eyes burned. Still, I didn’t stop. I didn’t pull over.
I made it home without remembering a single thing I’d done to get there. As soon as I was inside, I went straight to the shower, turned the water on as hot as it would go, stripped out of my work clothes, and stepped under the spray.
The tears eventually subsided to a low keening and chest-rattling breaths. I moved into the living room and turned on some mindless TV, staring at it, unseeing.
That was how Emery found me when she got home after school. “Hey! You’re home early!”
I slowly turned to look at her and then back at the TV. “Yeah.”
“What’s going on?” she asked after seeing my splotchy red face and the clothes she had dubbed my Tinder breakup pajamas. Emery hurried to the couch and sat down. “Did you and Landon break up? What did he do to you? I’ll kill him.”
“I…I…” I coughed over the words, trying to get them out. “I got fired.”
Emery whipped back, shocked. “You got fired?”
“Yep.”
She gaped at me. “You’re the best employee they have. On what grounds could they possibly fire you?”
“Probably fucking my boss.”
“It’s just rumor and speculation,” Emery insisted. “I mean, what do they know? They’re grasping at straws. You can deny it. Landon will stick up for you. We’ll tell Jensen and Morgan. We’ll get this straightened out. They can’t do that. It’s unlawful.”
“They have proof.”
“What proof?” Emery squeaked.
The tears came again when I thought about it. “Landon and I went to a golf tournament together this weekend, and someone took videos of us together. I watched one of us kissing.”
“Oh.” Emery tucked her legs up underneath herself and chewed on her finger. “Well…fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I bent forward, putting my head in my hands. Emery rubbed my back and held me as I cried.
“Who sent in the videos?” she asked after a couple of minutes.
I sniffled. “I don’t know. I had to get out of Julia’s office…”
“Julia?” Emery gasped. “She fired you?”
