Without thinking, he stepped backward, crashed into a table, and landed on the floor.
“Zac? Are you all right?” Willow leaped off the sofa and rushed toward him.
With a pounding heart, he looked into her worried face and sighed. She must think he was a complete idiot. If leaving the concert early wasn’t bad enough, he’d nearly had a heart attack when she’d turned over in her sleep.
The thumping of footsteps on the stairs didn’t bode well for a relaxing night for Pastor John, either. “What happened?” he asked as he tore into the room.
“It’s okay,” Zac reassured them. “I tripped over the table, that’s all.”
Willow helped him to his feet. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. I was on my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water.”
“How’s the headache?” John asked.
“Almost gone.”
“That’s great. Apart from a drink, do you need anything else?”
Zac shook his head. It was four o’clock in the morning. John and Willow had busy days ahead of them and he’d taken up enough of their time. “I’ll take some more drugs when I go upstairs.”
John yawned. “In that case, I’m going back to bed. See you in the morning.”
Willow waited until they were alone before studying Zac like a bug under a microscope. “Are you sure you’re okay? You still look as though you’ve been run over by a ten-ton truck.”
Zac almost smiled. “Is that your way of making me feel better?”
“It’s my way of finding out if you really are all right.”
He wanted to tell her he felt like a man standing on a cliff, waiting for one wrong move to send him over the edge. But Willow wanted reassurance. She wanted to know he was okay. So he would tell her what she wanted to hear and hope it gave one of them comfort.
“My head is a little fuzzy from the drugs I took and I’m exhausted. But, other than that, I’m fine.”
Willow rubbed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have asked you to go to the concert.”
“You didn’t know what would happen.” Guilt added another layer to Zac’s self-destructive mood. “I thought…” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. Half his problem was that he hadn’t thought. Loud noises and bright lights were a surefire way to trigger a panic attack, but he’d naively assumed that this time it would be different. For the last few weeks, the symptoms of his PTSD had almost disappeared. But last night, they’d come back with a vengeance.
He cleared his throat and continued. “I thought I’d be okay.”
Willow picked up the blankets that had landed on the floor. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Reluctantly, he sat beside her. Talking about what had happened wouldn’t make the PTSD go away. If it did, he would have been cured years ago.
“When did you come to Pastor John’s house?” he asked.
“Straight after the concert. You were already asleep when I arrived.” Willow tilted her head to the side. “Nora and her friends were amazing. They were still buzzing with excitement when I left.”
His shoulders tensed. “I wish I’d seen them.”
“You can. William recorded their performance and posted it on Facebook.” Willow held his hand. “You’re not okay, are you?”
And just like that, a wave of utter despair rose inside him, washing away every shred of normality he hid behind.
He couldn’t look at Willow, wouldn’t let her see how much PTSD affected him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Zac shook his head as hot tears filled his eyes. Biting his bottom lip, he desperately tried to hold onto the person Willow saw each day. If he let her see this part of himself, his world would crumble and he didn’t know what would be left.
