I tried to count my breaths—four in, six out, like Mom taught me years ago— but they kept getting stuck on the inhale, a catch in my throat that made me want to scream.
My ribs stuttered; the world tilted.
The panic attack came on so fast that I didn’t recognize it as panic. Only the roaring certainty that I was dying, for real this time, my heart exploding in my chest, my breath dissolving into nothing.
The world blanched into a white, howling noise.
I clawed at the wire, blinding myself with tears I didn’t even feel, and all I could do was choke on half-formed syllables that never made it past my lips.
On the other side of the glass, Caiden’s shadow jerked upright, a rapid, almost predatory lunge, as if he’d been hoping for the chance to witness my final collapse.
“You’re breathing too fast,” Caiden said, voice muffled but clear enough to cut through. “You’re going to black out.”
His face was a blur behind the glass, a shape that resolved slowly into a real boy, a boy I hated, a boy I needed.
He pressed his palm to the divider. “You’re fine. It’s just air. You’re panicking yourself into it.”
I tried to tell him to go fuck himself, but all that came out was a wet, animal sob.
My chest caved in, then ballooned out.
I was a malfunctioning machine, spiraling into brokenness.
“I can’t,” I gasped. “I can’t—I can’t?—”
The words broke up in my throat, stuttered into shreds by the convulsions of my lungs. My whole body felt like a chewed wire, twitching and sparking and not quite dead.
He dragged his fingers down the surface, smearing a streak between us. “You’re not dying, Amelia. You’re just losing your shit.”
He sounded so calm it made me want to rip my own face off.
But then his voice cracked, a hairline fracture running through the practiced apathy. “Look at me. Not the walls. Me.”
I tried, but the world was blurry, tunneling in and out, edges sharpening then softening like a bad dream.
He kept talking, voice low and regular, counting for me. “In on two, out for four. Listen to me. I’m counting. That’s all.”
And I did. I followed the rhythm: in on his command, out when he let me. I focused on the fog his mouth made against the glass.
I watched it appear and vanish.
I could have killed him for the way his voice slid between my ears, bypassing the rest of me. I could have killed myself for how badly I wanted to obey.
But I did as he said, because the alternative was obliteration.
Slowly, my lungs stopped convulsing, the tremor stilled to a shiver. Bile pooled at the back of my throat, but at least I was breathing.
My body remembered the bruises, the bruises remembered my body. I was here and I was alive, and that was the worst part.
He watched me with a predator’s patience. “Better,” he said, and his hand lingered on the glass, fingers splayed as if he might break through.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said, voice a ruin, all gravel and salt. “You’re not my keeper.”
His mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile. “You sure about that?”
I pressed my palms together until my knuckles turned white.
He was still there, staring at me. “Try to sleep,” he finally said, soft now, almost defeated. “You’ll need it for whatever comes next.”
