Bones settles on the floor by Sage’s stool, relaxing into a calm position. “If I said what I really thought of you, Damon, I’m afraid you’d shrivel up and die.”
I perk a brow. “Go on. Color me intrigued.”
She perches on her stool, knees angled in my direction, and I put down my paintbrush. This session is over. I can tell.
“Are you sure?” She tilts her head. “I’m going to hurt you, Damon.”
“Take your best shot, Sage. I’m confident I’ll make it out alive.”
I brace myself for whatever verbal onslaught Sage is about to unleash, but nothing could have prepared me for what she says next.
“You’re depressed, Damon.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell her she’s wrong, but she doesn’t let me.
“And you don’t even realize it,” she continues. “You pretend to be okay, to have it all together, but deep down you’re drowning in your own pain.”
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat making it difficult to speak. To breathe.
“You think no one understands you,” she says, her gaze steady as she meets mine. “But the truth is, you haven’t given anyone thechanceto understand. You push people away, Damon. Probably even those who care about you.”
Her observation stabs me in the gut, cuttingthrough the walls I’ve spent years building around myself.
“And you haven’t dealt with your grief,” Sage soldiers on, gentle but insistent. “Not properly, anyway. You’ve buried it deep inside, hoping it’ll go away on its own. But it won’t, Damon. It never does.”
The memories come flooding back. My parents. Alison. I lost them. Never got the chance to say goodbye. Never got the chance to tell them how much they meant to me.
“How was that?” she asks. “Better?”
“I—”
Before I can even finish my sentence, the world around me begins to spin. The walls of the studio feel like they’re closing in, suffocating me, squeezing all the oxygen from my lungs. My breath comes in short, shallow gasps, and I clutch at my chest, my heart hammering in unsteady beats.
Jesus, I’m having a heart attack. I’m dying. This is it. I’m finally dying.
“Damon?” Sage’s voice cuts through the haze of my panic, but I barely hear it. Dying. I’m fucking dying. “Damon, are you okay?”
No! I’m not okay, Sage! I want to scream but I can’t. I want to run but I can’t. There’s no running. No breathing. No living. Jesus Christ. No. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not. I’m?—
Panic wraps around my throat like a viper, squeezing tighter and tighter until I can’t breathe at all.
“Oh shit, okay.” I can hear Sage’s frantic voice, but itfeels like it’s coming from a million miles away, distorted and distant. “You’re okay.”
Bones jumps to his feet, his paws pressing against my legs as he tries to comfort me. But it’s no use. There’s no helping me. I’m dying. I’m?—
“I need to get out of here,” I mumble. “I need to get out.”
I struggle to my feet, my vision blurred and swimming as I stumble clumsily toward the exit. Sage is beside me in an instant, her short arms wrapping around my waist as she leads us out of the studio.
“Just breathe, Damon,” she says. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
But I don’t feel safe. I’m drowning. Suffocating. My thoughts. My fears. My actions. They’re killing me. Dying. I’m fucking dying. Oh God. Despair courses through my veins with such ferocity that I think I may alreadybedead. I’m consumed, no longer a person, a human. I’m not alive. I’m not anything. A ghost. Like her. I’m dead just like her.
“Lie down, Damon,” Sage says, her hands gentle on my back as she lowers me to the ground. Into a grave. Dead. Dead. Dead. “That’s good. Just lay down and breathe.”
I protest weakly, confused and disoriented. I see the ceiling now. Heaven. Right. Of course. I’m not going up. Just down. Down. Down. Down. Where I belong.
There’s a weight on my chest. It’s warm. Soft. And it’s breathing. I blink, tipping my chin, barely able to make sense of what the hell is happening to me. Bones is perched across my torso. His warmth seeps into myskin, grounding me in the present. Making sure I don’t float away. I don’t become one with the wind. An anchor. An anvil. My last hope.
