“Well, I may or may not have a slight crush on Westchester’s Assistant Coach so that’s certainly played a role…”
Even in the dim office lighting I see a faint hint of red on his cheeks. “What about you, any news on this fellowship?”
“Bethany hinted that the review committee would be meeting soon, probably in the next few weeks.”
“Well, there’s no way you’re not going to get it. And once you do think of all the free time you’ll have to watch me coach.” Mason winks.
“Hopefully. I really need to get to work on writing this paper I’ve owed Bethany for months.” Which meant I had to analyze the data first…and before I could even do that I needed to clean and organize said data. The list of things I had to accomplish felt endless.
“Don’t forget our project either,” Maya interjects, “I finished processing most of the data this week, so hopefully we can start drafting the paper soon. Ideally, I’d like to get it submitted in the next few months before I go on job interviews.”
Fuck. Okay. I had completely forgotten to account for this project we’d been working on together. This completely threw off all my plans, but I guess I could make that work. I pull out my phone to look at my calendar and grimace. Each week looked worse than the one before it.
“I’m sorry, I know how stretched thin you are right now,” Mason whispers, rubbing a soothing hand up and down my back as I lean into his embrace.
“I just feel like I’m constantly falling behind. My cohort mates who don’t have to teach are so much further along in their projects and publishing papers already. I know I shouldn’t compare myself to anyone, but it’s so hard not to. Especially when there’s so few academic jobs and everything is so competitive.”And maybe I wouldn’t be in this position if I hadn’t lost an entire year trying to prove my worth to someone who never saw it and instead tore away at every piece of me.
Thinking about all the impending deadlines I have, and how incredibly far behind I am, is enough to make my heart race so fast it feels like it’s about to rip out of my chest. I feel sweat start to roll down my back, and suddenly getting air into my lungs feels like work. I didn’t even realize my hands had started to shake until Mason takes them into his.
“Hey, hey it’s going to be okay Vi.” He presses a small kiss over the pulse point on my wrist.
It takes me a few minutes of deep breathing, five seconds in seven seconds out, to come back down. My head still feels a bit dizzy, but I’ve been through many panic attacks in my lifetime I know it will fade. “Sorry. I guess I’m a bit more stressed about all the things I’m juggling right now than I realized.”
“Panic attack?” He guesses.
I nod. He always could read me better than anyone else.
“Do you still get them often?”
“Uhm, not really. The last one happened a few months ago. I think I’ve been more stressed about my thesis and waiting to hear back about the fellowship than I’ve been letting on. You know me, I always push down my emotions until they erupt like a volcano.” I let out a self-deprecating laugh in a failed attempt to make light of the situation.
“If there’s anything I can do to help?—”
“You do. You did. Just by being here for me. That’s all I need.”
“Always. You don’t even have to ask.”
And while I have a tendency of second guessing nearly every good thing in my life, I know with all of my heart that he means it.
thirty-seven
. . .
Violet
“Alright Vi,I think it’s time that you call it.” Mason gives my knee a small squeeze before moving his hand to rest higher up on my thigh.
“Probably for the best, I was getting a little motion sick trying to grade assignments in a car.” I slam my laptop shut and place it back into my bag. “I did manage to get through most of them though. How much time do we have left?”
“I’d say another two-ish hours depending on traffic.”
I scrunch my nose, “Gross. Has New York always been this far?”
“Yup. Is Eliana feeling better by the way?”
It had been about week since our makeshift date at the MRI center. “Mhmm. She was back in the lab on Wednesday and apologized to me like ten times even though I told her shedidn’t need to.”
“That sounds familiar.”
