The coin in her pocket burned, and the smell of old coins rubbing together filled her nostrils. She wasn't here in the graveyard; she was somewhere else, somewhere warmer and muggy and hands were around her throat.
When a hand reached out to grab her upper arm she cried out and missed a step, her body about to crumple to the ground when arms held her suspended in the air and then into a hard, warm body.
She was crying. Softly, but not silently and she was not above begging for mercy.
She hadn't that night in her memory, a tangled combination of fear and anger and his hands silencing her need to breathe, to live.
But then she smelled the sweetness of oranges and smoked hickory. She opened her eyes to stare into Detective Taylor White's face, his eyes razor-sharp and homed in on her.
"Eloise, breathe," he commanded, the sound of his voice firm, and yet gentle. "Breathe," he said again. "I need you to take one deep breath, hold it and then let it out. Then do it again," he instructed her. She followed his instructions, closing her eyes as she focused on her breathing as he talked her through it. She felt his strong heartbeat against her arms that were pinned between their bodies. It was steady and commanding.
His scent flooded her, filling her with his calm and she let herself siphon that from him, greedily sucking it in, a vampire feeding on peace, steadiness. Her chest unclenched and she felt her body slowly come back to itself. She told her shoulders to relax and they did. She told her breath to stay slow and steady and that too listened.
She knew in that moment that he was good at his job, the kind of cop that cared about taking care of people and there was an immense comfort in finding that out about him.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes and nodded her head. When he wiped away an errant tear from her cheek she laughed with embarrassment as she stepped back from his warm touch.
"I'm sorry. I just, I'm not myself right now."
He watched her, his head tipped, his face open.
"And I shouldn't have said that about Deli Kathy," she shook her head, regret lining her words. "It was an unkind and useless comment. She has nice hair and she didn't deserve that."
He gave her an assessing, funny sort of look. "Well, she does use too much hairspray. I can smell it when ordering honey-smoked ham."
"You a ham guy?"
"I prefer it to turkey."
She nodded. She felt exhausted, like her bones needed to lay down.
"That wasn't the reaction of someone just having a bad day, Eloise. That was a panic attack."
She bristled. "Not really. Just, you scared me," she said, the denial tasted like that first bite of sour candy at the back of the mouth.
His look called her bluff. "What's going on?"
She shrugged. "Nothing. Just areallybad day," she smirked. She could gloss over this. Like usual. She had mastered the art of making a heavy load on her shoulders look light. Hadn't most women?
But he didn't take the bait and his intense look doubled down. A sigh, a shuffle of feet, and then she was sitting, her back against cold gravestone. He sat across from her and waited, the sounds of night whispering and a jar of moonlight sittingbetween them. Casper found a spot with a particularly fluffy patch of grass to lay on only a few feet away.
She'd been holding onto this for over a year now. Maybe she shouldn't hold it alone anymore.
"I didn't even know that I was having panic attacks until," she swallowed thickly. "I had one at my cafe in Florida. I was closing up and a man came in. We'd forgotten to lock the door and he scared me. He looked like someone, and," she shook her head remembering the absolute shock of fear that had taken hold of her when she thought it had been him. "The man was a doctor, came in after a shift to get coffee, and he helped me through it. Asked me how often I had that happen and told me what they were."
"How long have you been having them?"
"Thirteen months." She knew to the time of day, the long shadows from the sun setting, exactly how long she had been having panic attacks. She remembered the doctor telling her she had something inside of her that she needed to get out in order to deal with them. "Can you keep a secret?"
"I do have to tell you that if you tell me you've killed someone, I am obligated by law to arrest you."
The soft humor in his voice made her heart rest.
"First of all," she held up a finger, "I'm flattered you think I'm capable of killing someone." His face took on a look of being taken aback. "Second of all, good to know where your loyalty is," she gave him a pointed look and he smiled. "But no, I did not kill anyone." She plucked a delicate stem of red clover and twirled it between her fingers. "I had sort of a stalker in Florida." She kept her eyes on the purplish-white flower. "I went on a few dates with him. Over a few months. He wasn't," she poked the inside of her cheek with the tip of her tongue, words hiding there as she was speaking out loud for the first time about what happened. "Well, he wasn't who he said he was. And when I broke it off hedidn't take it well. At first, it was small things like showing up at the cafe, leaving notes on my car, getting increasingly more threatening. Then the notes showed up at my apartment. And then one of my windows was left open with a note inside my kitchen." She looked up into the trees, still unable to face him. Especially another police officer. He felt different. But still...the memories of all of it, of that night and talking to stone-faced cops who looked bored with her horror.
"I woke up one night because I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I actually couldn't. Because he was on top of me, choking me." She raised her hands to her throat, lightly touching there, where she had bruises for days. Still had a memory of them. The light touch of her own hands made something roll through her. She couldn't wear turtlenecks still. "They never found him. And I couldn't prove it was him." She ran her fingers over the mason jar of milky light. "It was over a year ago. I can't sleep inside because walls feel like a cage. That's usually when the panic attacks happen. I'm completely messed up and have been since."
She finally lifted her head and the way he was looking at her in no way resembled how the cops a year ago had looked at her. They'd been cold, indifferent, the way they asked questions it was like she was less of a victim and more of a tease, which they had more or less said. But Taylor, sitting across from her on the cold ground of the graveyard was looking at her like he was trying to see the wounds the man had left behind, his eyes sharply tracking the ghost bruises on her neck, so that he could soothe them. It was almost too much, like the most gentle and intimate touch she hadn't felt in far too long.
