Vincent used to wear that same knowing look when he realized he had something to hold over me.
Luke knew. He had to. He’d sniffed out my crush, and had set this trap for me to crawl into. The whole day, this trip, the closeness, the guileless compliments, the s’mores, all of it had been orchestrated for this exact moment. He meant to dangle the illusion of affection until I began to hope and believe this could be something, then twist it until I bled. Until I burned with shame for ever believing it could be real. Until I despised myself for wanting it.
Here I sat, stranded. With him. Miles from anywhere. Nowhere to escape. Nowhere to hide. And tonight, we would share a tent.
Oh god. What had I gotten myself into? Was this my curse? To repeat the same mistake, believing in sweetness, in safety, only to discover the rot beneath the sugar?
I never should’ve come. I should’ve known better. I did know better. I’d always known Luke was too good to be true. He had to be pretending, like Vince had. Only this time, the cruelty cut deeper because Luke had played the long game. He’d lulled me into believing I could trust him, for months, and I’d let him. I’d handed over every defense, piece by piece, thinking he’d neverweaponize them. How stupid of me to forget that monsters don’t always bare their teeth right away.
Everything turned hot. Suddenly and brutally hot. My clothes were tight like they’d shrunk two sizes in a manner of seconds. My collar strangled me, my sleeves cinched like restraints. It was too much. Everything was too much. The fire, the forest, his nearness.
My breaths came in shallow, rapid bursts. My mouth turned to sawdust. My heart thundered against my rib cage like some massive-winged creature flapped furiously against the walls of my body, demanding release. Was this a heart attack?
Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe. But I couldn’t. My lungs didn’t expand. Did I even have lungs anymore? They must have collapsed under all this pressure.
“Ollie?” Luke’s voice cut through the roar in my head, but the softness in his tone didn’t fit the danger my brain insisted he posed. It held no trace of triumph or taunting. “Ollie, hey, I think you’re having a panic attack.”
A panic attack? Right, yeah. I wasn’t dying, just crashing the fuck out.
“I’m going to grab your sleeping bag from the tent, alright?” he said.
I couldn’t answer. My tongue had turned to stone. The single nod I managed might as well have taken a year.
I heard the sound of the zipper, the rustling fabric, but it reached my ears distant and dull, like listening to a conversation under water.
The sleeping bag came into view.
“I’m going to put this over you. Sometimes having something covering you can help.”
I nodded again, and Luke draped the sleeping bag over me with the utmost care, tucking it in around my shoulders.
Kneeling by my chair, he said. “Try to breathe with me, if you can.” He gave an exaggerated and audible inhale through his nose, then released it in a slow exhale.
I mirrored him as best I could, my first attempt snagging in my windpipe, the exhale shaky.
“Good,” he murmured. “That’s it. Just like that. Again.”
I pulled in a thin thread of air, my lungs tight and constricted.
“That’s it, Ollie. You’re here with me at our campsite. We’re by the river. Can you hear it? Try to focus on that sound.”
For a moment only the roar of my pulse filled my ears. Then, beneath it came the soft rush of moving water. “I hear it.”
“That’s good. Can you tell me what else you hear?”
“The fire.”
“That’s right, it’s crackling real good tonight. Can you smell it too?”
Breathing in through my nose, the acrid-sweet scent of burning wood flowed into my sinuses. “Yes, I smell wood smoke and char with something earthier beneath it.”
“Good. Now can you tell me three things you can feel? Just the first three things you notice.”
“The sleeping bag. It’s warm. The chair under me.” My eyes drifted to where he sat beside me as a lighthouse in the storm of my floundering. Summoning boldness in the face of my panic I said, “Your hand in mine.”
Luke’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he held out his hand allowing me to take it, giving a gentle squeeze as soon as my fingers latched on.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin everything.”
