“Can I help you?” Kai asked. His shock of shiny black hair bounced as he stood, starting to clear out a box for my things.
“I’ve got it,” I mumbled.
“I actually have to help you,” Kai stumbled over his words, “leave.”
“Security threat. Got it.”
I didn’t keep much at my desk. I had to have all my medicines in travel form anyway, so those stayed in my purse. Kai had the nerve to burst into tears when I picked up the picture of Aspen and Hazel from when Hazel was born. I gave him a glare before putting it in the box.
“Sorry. It’s just . . . I can’t even say it or I’ll get in trouble.”
I liked Kai. Kai was nice. Kai really did have a tender heart. But I wasn’t in the mood to be responsible for his emotions when he was the one who just fired me. His guilt was not my problem. I’m sure firing people isn’t fun, but I couldn’t worry about that. I had to worry about the kids in the picture that just made him cry.
I signed a paper at his request and on wooden legs, I took one last look around my office.
“Take any samples you want,” he said.
I just shook my head and together, we took the stairs to leave the store. He tried to give me a hug at my car, but I refused him by holding up my hands.
“You’ll land on your feet, Mara,” he said, then squinted at me. “Hey, your skin is really splotchy. Are you okay?”
I sucked in a ragged breath. “Of course I’m not okay, Kai! I just got fired from my job where I am the only person supporting my two children!”
I got in my car and barely waited for him to move before backing out and leaving for good.
Fuck. This was not in the plans. My arms started to itch, and when I scratched, it left raised red marks. Dermatographia: something that sometimes happened when my body was reacting.
I was already at risk of a reaction before I got fired, and adding that stress wasn’t helping. I rushed to unwrap an antihistamine at a red light, the meltaway kind I could put under my tongue.
Please work. Please work. I can’t go to the hospital today. Maybe it’s just a panic attack.
I swallowed repeatedly, trying to get the lumpy feeling out of my throat. My pulse was so fast yet so faint.
My throat felt even tighter, so I popped another antihistamine.
Maybe I just needed to meditate and take some calming breaths. I pulled into a random parking lot about five minutes from home, set a timer for two minutes, closed my eyes, and breathed as deeply as I could.
That didn’t feel very deep anymore.
I tried singing in the car to test my voice as I got back on the road and I sounded like a duck.
This was really not good.
I just needed to get home to my blood pressure cuff to see if this was a bonafide reaction, or just a bad day with the chemical stew plus some stress. I know now they’re pretty much one and the same, but on this day, I was still rolling the dice.
With good reason. Using my EpiPen meant a trip to the hospital, and I didn’t want to stir up all the drama over nothing.The day had been dramatic enough, after all. It still didn’t feel real.
Some people can take one dose of epinephrine and stay home if they feel better. My doctor had already warned me that I was not that person. Could I crush up and snort a Benadryl? Would that work?
My vision started going cloudy when I pulled up to my apartment building. Aspen was still at school, Hazel at daycare. That was probably enough time to take a Benadryl and wait it out. That had worked before. I didn’t get as affected by the drowsiness if I just didn’t let myself go to sleep in the first place. I’d be able to drive to pick them up, right?
By the time I crawled up the steps to our apartment, my heart raced and I panted, sucking in breaths that were increasingly hard to come by. I couldn’t remember whether it was fall or spring, much less what year it was. I knew something bad had happened to me a little bit before but I couldn’t remember what it was.
I was starting to not be able to breathe at all.
I didn’t know whether it was worse that I was alone, or better that I didn’t have to deal with the kids. They were in the care of adults. They were safe.
I was not.
