Grabbing my partially eaten lunch, I strode my way back to work. James nodded in my direction, acknowledging my return for us to switch out.
“Hey, I just need to run to the restroom real quick. Thatcool?” I pulled my apron loose, hoping he’d say yes. Needing him to say yes.
James shrugged.
And I all but ran.
The employee bathroom was empty, thankfully. I slammed the door shut behind me, only giving myself enough time to lock it before I paced into the middle of the room. I tore my earbuds out of my ears, placing them in their charging case, and waited.
Waited to see if they were still there, even without the music. Waited to see if I could escape or if I was trapped there forever, in a hell I didn’t create but was condemned to regardless.
“Fucking liar!”
“Dead, dead, dead. You should be dead.”
“Liar, liar, liar, liar.”
My fists clenched around clumps of the hair on either side of my head, tugging until it was painful. Electric shocks of pain rushed down from my scalp to my fingertips. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” I mumbled the words over and over, begging for them to hear me.
They wouldn’t fucking stop. A shadow loomed in one of the open stalls, standing and staring at me, mocking me for my existence until another one showed itself, standing in the stall next to it. They taunted me, their growling voices blending with the other two. It was too much. Too fucking much.
I dropped to my knees, still clutching my hair, and leaned forward. I tried to curl into a ball, desperate to make myself as small as possible. The smaller I was, the less visible I would be. Maybe they’d lose sight of me and finally fuckingstop.
Black, sticky tendrils grasped my ankles. I felt them inchacross my skin, slow and dangerous. They rose up my calf, wrapping around the back of my thighs.
“Liar, liar, liar.”
Up, up, up—the tendrils found their way to my throat, up into my sinus cavity until they began to ooze from my tear ducts. I closed my eyes, letting the drops of black ink slip down my face and onto the floor. If I let myself continue, I’d drown in it.
My chest ached with the effort of simply breathing through it all. The shadows surrounded me now. I couldn’t see them with my eyes closed, but I could feel them. And that’s all I needed.
I reached into my pocket, pulling my earbuds out and putting them back in. Music immediately started to filter through, louder than it had been before.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.That’s what my therapist used to say. Breathing exercises to counteract what was happening to my nervous system. Did they work? I wasn’t sure anymore. All I knew for sure was that Elio needed me. I couldn’t lose my fucking mind right now.
Elio, the man I’d loved for over half of our lives. Elio, the ray of sunshine I’d lost for far too long.
My knees buckled as I struggled to stand, making my legs wobble. I held onto a beam attached to one of the stalls, letting out a slow breath to try to regulate myself.
At the sink, I wet a paper towel and used it to wipe away any stray tears. “I’m sure he’s just sleeping. He’s still recovering. He’s fine.” I tried to convince the man in the mirror, though I wasn’t sure how much he believed me.
But neither of us had a choice.
Fingers snappedin front of my face, startling me out of my thoughts. I looked to the side, following the hand they were attached to. “Uh, what’s up, man?”
“Yo.” James nodded at me, a little half-nod he did a lot instead of saying any words. “You can’t hear over the music. What’s up with those?”
I reached into my pocket, finding the volume buttons on my phone, and lowered it just a tad. Only enough to hear James clearer, but not enough to invite the voices. “Helps keep me in the groove, you know?”
His left eyebrow twitched, like he wasn’t fully convinced. I’d learned what each small microexpression meant in James-speak.
Small webs formed in my gut, slowly building and tightening. Across the top, shame began to walk. The web bounced and shifted with each step, struggling to keep its integrity. With a nervous laugh, I brushed him off. “Gives me motivation. I have a whole playlist ready to go. Really pumps my blood.” I waited for a moment, watching James’s face.
“Cool. Just different.”
“Yeah. Uh, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow?”
A half-nod.
