“I already said you weren’t, but sweetheart, there’s nothing wrong with taking a little bit of help when you need it.”
I should be grateful. I should fall to my knees and kiss the ground he walks on, but I’m so embarrassed I can’t let myself be appreciative. “I don’t know how you got my stuff here, but I’m going to need you to take it back.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Yes, you are. You can’t do this to me. You can’t force me to be somewhere I don’t want to be, and I don’t want to be here.”
“You’d rather be back in Annapolis, in that tiny apartment with just your cat and a psycho who’s obsessed with you across the hall? You want to live your life scared every fucking day? Follow your routine, be lonely, and be alive, but not fucking living?”
No. I wouldn’t.
“You’d rather that than be here, with people who give a shit about you? People who are happy to look out for you, who want to see you happy. I want to see you happy, Annie. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me.”
I’d do anything for him. I want to tell him that. I’m going to, but I can’t. I can’t tell him anything because I can’t speak. It hurts to swallow, my chest is swelling, and my head is tingling. I feel it happening, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
An empty, overwhelming, gruesome ambiguity takes over me, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair, deep into the depths of my soul. It’s not a panic attack. It’s something far more intense, far worse than anything I’ve experienced before. Why? Why is this happening now? Why does Ben have to see me like this?
The walls around me begin to close in, and the air grows thick, hot, and dry. The setting rays of the sun glitter on my skin, but a cloud of darkness thunders overhead, wrapping around my skin, tightening like a vise, ravaging my veins, until it smothers me to my very core. I dig my nails into it and try to rip it off me, but it’s not letting go.
It never lets fucking go.
It never leaves.
It hurts.
God, everything hurts. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to beg whoever will listen to make this fucking misery go away.But I don’t do any of that. I don’t make a peep. I let it consume me.
I feel sick.
Heartsick.
Hollow.
Hopeless.
The floor is crumbling beneath me, and I’m getting pulled under. Like always, there’s nobody here to save me. I’m all I have. The only one I can rely on. I can’t breathe. I need to get out of here. I have to go somewhere else…anywhereelse.
Go, move. Run.
Move, Annie.I will myself. I fight against the restraints holding me back, but the truth slaps me across the face, sending me headfirst into an unyielding wall of reality. Its dull bricks are a relic of the gravestone that will eventually mark my solitary existence and desolate death, a taunting reminder that my fear is inevitable. I’m going to die alone.
My vision is blurry, hot numbness tears through my vertebrae, and I feel myself sinking, dissolving. The stars floating around me invite me to join them, and I reach out, accepting their invitation to join them in the abyss…finally.
“… happening. Christ, Annie. Open your eyes.”
Ben.
His voice is far away, but I feel him close. Why is he close? “Hey, hey, Annie, look at me.”
He repeats his command, jostling me slightly. I feel a little sting on my cheek, then another. “Look at me, Blue.”Blue.The blinding orbs flit and float away as Ben’s irises slowly take their place. His face glistens with a sheen of sweat, eyes wide with worry. He presses his forehead on mine, and my lungs wheeze as a breath forces its way out.
“There ya go. Breathe. Yes. Good, baby. Good. You’re okay,” Ben encourages as he pulls me into his arms like I’m a baby.
And then he holds me, he cradles me, and he wraps me up in everything he has to offer. I claw my way out of smothering doubt and burrow deep into the refuge of his conviction. Suppressed emotions force their way out of my subconscious and spill onto his shirt.
I sob in his arms until there’s nothing left to let go of, and shove my face in his neck, realizing I just unleased an entire lifetime of insecurity on him.
“Annie.”
