“It’s okay. I believe you.”
Diego crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot impatiently. “Hear me out, Theo: you look normal. Can’t even tell. You look just like you did pre-accident during the pandemic when you stopped getting haircuts while we were all in quarantine, I promise. You can go outside and no one will look at you twice.”
Theo hummed nervously, but limped over and swept aside one of the towels all the same. And when he saw himself, he looked…
Fine.
He was fine.
He closed his eyes and sighed in relief. His surgeon had given him the okay to not wear the gauze during the day anymore, and most of his stitches from this round were removed, though not all—not the parts where he’d torn them. The swelling in his right eye had gone down enough for him to see a bit out of it now that some repairs had been made—though he didn’t love how his eyelid couldn’t open as wide as it used to. Some of the tiny muscles and nerves were severed in the accident, and his doctors weren’t sure how much he’d heal and how much movement or feeling he’d ultimately regain. But with his hair arranged like this to cover it, the cap and the hoodie concealing the scar on his neck and eyebrow, and the mask, he almost looked like he did before.
He saw himself again, or someone who looked a little like him.
He buried his face in his hand in relief.
“There you go, bud.” Diego grasped his shoulder. “See? You can go outside like this and no one will notice. It’ll be okay.”
The optimism wasshort-lived.
Diego had to work, and when Theo arrived alone at the coffeehouse he’d chosen, it was packed—turned out it was a popular spot for remote workers. The music was slightly too loud and it seemed like everyone in there was trying to talk over it. Every table was full and either covered with laptops, being used to hold meetings, or both, and the line to order was practically out the door.
Theo eyed the people around him nervously. The fact that it was this crowded probably meant they had good coffee, and he was already this far. He’d walked all the way over here, so he might as well try to order. He didn’t want to turn back now.
But it was taking a long time. Even though there were fourbaristas manning the espresso machines and two at the registers, the constant whir of the grinders and the gurgle of milk frothing and the hissing of steam wands all began to grate on him while he waited. The more sound there was, the louder it seemed to get.
BANG.
He jumped. Right when one of the baristas pounded some espresso, someone behind him pushed too close and touched him, grazing their arm against his freshly healed right-side ribs, and he nearly leapt out of his skin. His heart was beating so hard he could hear it in his own ears, and the longer he was there, the faster it pounded and the more frantic it got. All of a sudden, he was lightheaded. He swayed on his feet.
BANG.
BANG BANG.
His palms were sweating, and even his left hand was beginning to shake. Someone turned up the music—unless he imagined it—and the person at the register yelled their order over the din.
The world blurred.
The floor shifted under his feet, the floorboards suddenly twisting and buckling like a ship at sea.
Theo started to lose his footing. He clutched his cane for dear life and leaned heavily onto it.
He was nauseous.
Something was wrong. He felt weird. Something was sitting on—orin—his lungs and had curved around his ribs, wrapping its hands around his neck andsqueezing. Why was his chest suddenly so heavy? Oh god, he was having a heart attack, wasn’t he?
Was his left arm going numb? It sure was shaking a lot, and he could hardly feel it, his fingers felt and looked so very far away. It had been years since he’d eaten spray cheese, but it was his dad’s favorite snack, bright orange spray cheese on saltines, a whole can at a time, he could still hear it and smell it when he thought about it,maybe he somehow inherited it in his arteries and he had high cholesterol by proxy, why was it so loud, had everyone always talked that loud? Someone left a steam wand hissing, and it rang in his ears, drilling the sound down to one vibrating, high-pitched note overtaking everything else, screeching inside his own head like tires squealing on asphalt and—
Theo turned and bolted, barreling through the crowd behind him with his cane in his haste to limp back outside and back home to hide where it was safe.
Where it was quiet.
Where maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t die.
“It was onecafé, Theo.” Amelia’s voice sounded tinny and far away through the phone’s tiny speakers. “It was one café and one panic attack.”
“I thought I was dying.” Even now, his chest was still heavy. Even now, just thinking about it made breathing difficult.
“But you didn’t die, which proves my point: that youcando it. You managed to stay there for a few minutes before it got too overwhelming, and I’m very, very proud of you for that. That took guts. Pick a quieter place and try again. It’ll be all right.” He took a shaky breath, and she must have heard him. “Yes, breathing is good. Don’t forget to do it next time. Now go get back up on the horse again.”
