But I get sent home early on meeting days, which is every Friday. That’s when all the leaders go into the boardroom — this unnecessarily large room with a massive oval table — and discuss strategy or whatever.
I hate Fridays. I hate coming home alone to an empty apartment.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself standing at the wide, wall to wall windows overlooking Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village and watching the people pass along the snow-lined streets. It’s mid-March, but the white flakes continue to sprinkle from overhead in a swirl of glitter. From our eighth-floor vantage point, it’s probably the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
New York has proven to be exactly what I’ve been looking for. Yes, it’s where my boys live, and being with them has given me a life and purpose I have ached for my entire life, but the city itself... there is just something about it.
The people.
The history.
The buildings.
The smells.
Of all the places I have lived, and there have been many, New York has my heart.
But even the view isn’t enough to calm the gnawing creature clawing at my chest. It twists and burrows, knotting up my stomach as I watch the orange tabby in the window across the way knock the potted plant off the sill for the sixth time since the owner brought the defenseless geranium home a week ago.
I suck in a breath, filling my lungs with the familiar scent of home. Of Dom’s subtle musk and sandalwood and Nick’s leather and spices. I cling to both as I try to find my footing.
It’s getting worse.
Whatever this feeling is, it’s starting to wake me up in the night. It pops open my eyes, and I find myself staring at the ceiling, unable to move without waking the two wedged tight on either side of me. It’s forcing me into bathrooms to wheeze and hyperventilate until my ears ring and the urge to throw up has me scrambling for a toilet. I keep wanting to tell them, but I don’t know how to explain these overwhelming surges of emotion that suddenly take me over.
I pace away from the window.
Barefoot across the plush carpet to the couch. Then back to the window. From the window to the kitchen. From the kitchen back to the couch.
The noose around my chest tightens with every step until I’m coated in sweat. My fingers bunch up into my palms, and I squeeze until I cut half moons into my heels.
“It’s because you want to run,” Mom’s voice hisses somewhere at the back of my head. “Things are going too well, you know eventually you’re going to fuck it up. You should just go.”
No.
No. I won’t listen. I’m happy. I’m finally happy. It’s okay to be happy. I’m allowed. I deserve it.
“Deep breath, Isla,” says my therapist’s calm murmur, overriding the shrill, bitter one. “Remember our steps.”
I stop in the middle of the living room and press both palms over the clapping rampage of my heart. I will myself to take several calming breaths. Pushing down the rising nausea threatening to send me running for the bathroom.
“Name five things you can see.”
I open my eyes and scan the wide, open concept with the kitchen directly ahead, the windows warm at my back. The dining room is on my left. The bedrooms on my right.
I see the chrome fridge that is impossible to keep fingerprint-free. The small pile of mail Nick brings up from the mailbox every morning and leaves on the island for later. The four black seats tucked beneath the long marble. Dom’s ridiculously expensive espresso machine in cherry red that Nick despises but won’t refuse a cup from. The thick, square cut diamond fused to a platinum band they’d given me for Valentine’s Day.
“Four things you can feel.”
The thick, plush carpet beneath my feet. The soft wool of my sweater brushing my skin. The uncoiling tension along my shoulders. My pulse, slowing.
“Three things you can hear.”
The low buzz of the fridge. The whistle and honks of passing traffic a few streets down. My heart clapping in calm patters between my ears.
I should call her.
She always says I should whenever these feelings overwhelm me, but she’s also incredibly busy and doesn’t have time to put me together every time I fall apart. I know that’s my insecurities talking, and she’s assured me on multiple occasions that I should anyway, and I will... just not today.
