I’m running to him before my thoughts even have time to register, before I even realize what I’m doing.
My feet nearly slip in the mud as I stop short in front of him.
Scared of what to say or how to approach, but more afraid not to try.
“Wilder,” I whisper softly, and he flinches as if the word physically struck him.
For a long, agonizing beat, he doesn’t move. He remains folded over, sucking in gulps of air like he can’t breathe, and I realize that he might be having a panic attack.
My knees hit the wet, thick mud as I drop down in front of him and slide my palms along the edges of his jaw, cradling his face in my hands. “Breathe, Wilder.”
His skin is cool, and I can feel him trembling beneath my touch, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the rain.
My heart splinters, fracturing deeper with each breath I pull into my own lungs, from seeing him this way.
He doesn’t look at me.
He doesn’t do anything but drag in ragged breath after ragged breath, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, like he still can’t get enough air, no matter how many times he tries.
“Wilder, look at me,” I try again, stroking his jaw, and when he doesn’t move, I grasp tighter, trying to bring him back, trying to tear him away from whatever is threatening to pull him under. “Look. At. Me.”
A beat passes, seconds moving agonizingly slowly that are filled with the panic that I might not be able to reach him at all, that I may not be able to bring him back.
But then he opens his eyes and slowly lifts them to mine.
I thought my heart was already fractured for the man in my hands, aching in a way I’ve never known. But I was wrong.
Because when he looks at me, it robs me of breath. It destroys what’s left of my heart until there’s nothing but shattered pieces remaining.
Wilder looks… broken.
Haunted.
It’s the only way to describe the faraway look in his eyes, the raw agony shining back at me from the depths, an unguarded glimpse into the darkness inside of him.
The same deep brown, burnt-amber-ringed irises that I’ve come to know, but look different now.
Heavy with agony.
I push down the tears that I feel burning behind my own eyes and the ache of emotion at the base of my throat, and I drop my forehead against his, holding him as tightly as I can. “I’m here. Focus on me and breathe, okay? Slowly.”
His labored breathing is unsteady on my lips, but I feel him trying, trying to slow his breathing down, trying to fight.
I don’t know how long we stay like this, our foreheads pressed together as rain falls around us, breathing together like my inhales are the only way he can exhale.
I no longer even feel the rain.
Hear the wind.
All I feel is Wilder.
The man I love is shattering, and if all I can do to show him that love is to hold him together with my bare hands, then I’ll stand right here, forever.
“I… I-I couldn’t do it,” he whispers, voice tight and rough from the panic attack, emotion clinging desperately to each syllable. “I thought I could… I couldn’t.” He peels his eyes open and stares at me, and those tears return in my eyes. I’m unsure if they ever left. “Couldn’t fucking breathe, Mais.”
“I know. I understand.”
He must suddenly realize that I’m kneeling in the mud because he shakes his head and pulls me off the ground until I’m standing in front of him. There’s an ache in my knees from how long I must’ve been down there, but I didn’t feel it until now.
