“Koda, honey,” Jasper reached his hands across the table, letting them rest there as if he wanted to hold my own. “Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. There we go. Everything will be fine. Either he’ll come over here, say hi and apologize for not reaching out, or he’ll stay behind the bar, and ignore us. He won’t make a scene.”
The scene wasn’t what I was worried about.
Putting my elbows on the table, head in my hands, I closed my eyes and tried with everything in me to push the emotions back under the surface.
Chapter 35
My heart was in my throat as I fought to keep my breathing even. The techniques that I’d been working on for years only helped me for so long. I could feel the panic, the anxiety, boiling under the surface.
I didn’t want attention. I didn’t want to make someone else feel bad because I wanted to just say a simple hi to someone that I had been forced to share a room with.
If I didn’t look, maybe I could pretend none of the past ten minutes happened. Maybe if I wished it all away, everything would disappear.
I shouldn’t have come along with Jasper. I should have just stayed at home, curled up in bed or on the couch and waited for the snow to fall while trying to find something to keep my mind busy.
“Don’t touch him,” Jasper’s warning was just as low as it had been when he gave orders to not read a note.
I didn’t catch whatever was spoken, or expressed as I don’t think anyone had said anything. Jasper spoke again. “You're funeral then.”
He made it sound like I would kill someone for just touching me.
“Take a drink, honey.” Jasper, again, pushing a glass of water my way, along with putting a white pill on the table right in view. I had to spread my fingers to see them, but they were right there.
I didn’t think as I took the little white pill without water. I felt it slide down my throat. When Jasper ordered me to take a drink again, I did so but not happily.
“Koda?”
My chest heaved as a voice reached my ears, even as my hands moved to cover them.
Ignoring me was better.
“I’m so sorry,” came the voice again, soft and quiet. “Can I sit?”
Like I could stop him.
I felt the leather of the bench move as someone scooted in beside me, leaving more than enough space between us. Or so I assumed since I couldn’t feel any body heat against my side.
“Remember those colors I explained about?” Jasper waited until I gave out a nod, or at least tried to, through a quiet sob. “You can use them.”
“That’s right,” the voice spoke, almost a whisper. “I like colors. The world is scary, and those three colors help so much. It took me a long time to remember to use them, and I wish I had known about them years before I had.”
I held my breath, hoping it’d put a stop to everything.
“I’ll just sit here and talk to Jas then, for a few. If you want to…talk you can. I’ll listen.”
“You didn’t have to come over.” Jasper spoke, moving. His foot reached my leg, and he held it there for a long moment.
“No, I did. Noah’s been after me about reaching out. I was being a dick. Afraid of my own response rather than thinking about someone else’s healing. I had someone to lean on while I healed. More than one, actually.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” It seemed like Jasper wanted to know exactly what that was.
I sure didn’t have the guts to tell him. Not when I couldn’t catch my breath as it was.
Every few seconds, as I fought with my lungs to work with me, Jasper’s foot would touch mine, hitting me just lightly enough to remind me that he was there and wasn’t going anywhere.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Asher muttered. “Still, I was a dick. And that’s not who I am. Well, not on purpose.”
“I don’t think anyone has said such a thing. And Noah doesn’t count.”
