You probably are a little like your father, but you’reworking on it.
It isn’t like any of this is a magic bullet. At one point I lose track of the breathing, and I’m sucking wind hard enough to hunch over; I clumsily take a piece of my gum from my pocket and chew hastily, desperately, terrified of getting sick on the sidewalk. After that I basically have to start over—the breathing, the visualizing, the patience with a whole fresh hell of terrible thoughts, coming so quick it’s like beingin a sandstorm.
But eventually—I don’t know how many minutes later—it feels as though the worst of it has passed, my breathing more regular and the tightness in my chest gone, the nausea resettling into something less immediately threatening. My shirt clings unpleasantly to my sweaty back, but the unbearable flush of heat seems to have faded. My hands still shake with the rush of adrenaline, but they’ll follow my commands now, and I run them through my hair, smoothing it back into what I hope is somethingless haphazard.
“Alex?” Greer’s voice is breathless, and I feel her hand settle on my back even before she’s fully beside me. “I’m so sorry I didn’t see you’d come out. I got stuck talking to—”
I take her hand in mine, pressing our palms together and breathing out another gust of air. “It’s all right. I think—shit. I think I may have actually handled that one.”
She squeezes my hand. “Yeah?”
I nod, already feeling the exhaustion build, the muscles in my legs shaky with the same fatigue I feel after a hard run. “Did—did everyone see?” I ask her, quietly.
She squeezes my hand again. “No. It’s so crowded in there. Kit thinks you went to the bathroom to avoid Professor Hiltunen.”
“Would have done. He’s relentless.”
“He’s like Mr. Collins.” Greer pauses. “I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book,Pride and Prejudice? But trust me. Mr. Collins is—not great.” She swings our hands a little, and it’s nice, this comedown. The first time Greer stood with me for one of these, I’d only felt I’d pressed Pause on the panic, wrestled it into submission for long enough to finish outthe rehearsal.
“I’ll have to pick it up sometime.” I feel myself smile. It’s a thin, cautious thing, but it’s there nonetheless. A little sliver of hope. “I’m glad you came out. I was missing you in there. Missing you for the last couple of days.”
She furrows her brow, makes that hair-thin line appear. “I’ve been around.”
I squeeze her hand this time, only slightly embarrassed at how slick mine must feel. “Been hoping we could talk about things. About what’s next.”
She avoids my eyes, looks down the street. Her hand now feels stiff, heavy in mine. “I guess we’llsee,” she says.
We’ll see?
I should leave it. I know I should. My head’s not right, my body still processing the shock of adrenaline from the panic. There’s another forty-five minutes of the showcase, and it’s the most important thing right now, not whatever Greer and I have to figureout between us.
But my tongue is loose, my body and mind tired, and I speak without thinking.
“I don’t want to just see about it. About us. I want to talk about it. I want us to—I want us to do it.”
She takes her hand from mine, moves to delve her fingers into the skirt of her dress. But this one, it’s too slim cut, too fitted to her curves for that, and she looks disappointed as she simply smooths them over her hips. There’s a long pause. Toolong. Endless.
“Alex,” she says with a sigh, now lifting one of those fidgeting, frustrated hands to her brow, tracing her fingers across her temple. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I blink down at her. “You don’t think what’s a good idea? Talking about it? Or…” I trail off, not wanting to finish that thought. I want to take this back, this moment of weakness where I brought it up—it was stupid and selfish. I want to give her only the least painful option, the one where we talk about it later. The one where we go back into the showcase together, by each other’s side with an unspoken promise to figure out this thing between us after.
She clears her throat. “It’s just that—my life is here. And yours is—everywhere. You’ve never wanted to stay.”
“I can make changes to my life,”I say. “I can.”
“I’m sure you can.” She takes a step back, so there’s a square’s worth of sidewalk between us. “But I—I’m not going to be the one who traps you here. I mean, look at—” She’s swept a hand between us, gesturing at me, and I stiffen in shock, insick surprise.
“Look at what?” I say it quietly. But angrily too. “Look at what, Greer?”
She shakes her head, looks down at her feet. “I only mean that this is a struggle for you, being here. I can see it—how you feel whenyou’re stuck.”
Jesus. Bad enough how I’ve made myself feel about these panic attacks. This hurts like an unexpected blow to the face, Greer seeing one of them as a reason not to be with me. I don’t know what expression must move over me, but in response Greer squeezes her eyes shut tight before reopening them, her hands clenched into fists at her side.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says.
“It is. It’s what you meant.”
“Alex, I—”
