We're both breathing hard. Hers is arousal. Mine is something else entirely, and it’s climbing up the back of my throat causing my chest to lock around a breath I can't seem to finish taking.
"Bennet." Jenn's voice, careful. "What's wrong?"
I can't look at her. My hands have come up in front of me like I'm trying to locate the edges of the room and I'm two seconds from something I haven't felt in years, the specific vertigo of a panic attack arriving whether you want it to or not.
"I don't — I have to—" The words won't form. "I need a—"
"Fuck." She's on her feet immediately rushing over to me, and then her hands are on my face, both palms cupping my jaw.Her thumbs move across my cheeks and come away wet. I hadn't even realized, I hadn't felt them, but apparently I've been crying.
"Hey." Her voice drops. "I'm sorry. I pushed before you were ready. That's on me." Her thumbs make another slow pass. "Come sit. Just breathe for me. Right here."
She steers me back to the couch and I go because my legs are cooperating marginally better than the rest of me. She sits beside me, close but not on me, and puts one hand flat on my back between my shoulder blades and doesn't move it.
"In," she says. "Slow."
I breathe in.
"Out."
I breathe out.
Gerald appears from wherever he's been hiding and jumps onto the cushion on my other side, circles once, and sits down against my thigh.
"He likes you," Jenn whispers.
"You said—" Inhale. "He hates—" Exhale. "Everyone."
"He does." Her hand moves in a slow circle. "Shush and breathe."
The panic recedes the way it always does — slowly, leaving behind it a specific exhaustion and shame I know isn't rational but can't seem to stop feeling anyway.
I drop my head into my hands. "I'm sorry, Jenn."
"Don't." Her hand keeps moving. "You don't apologize for that. Not to me."
“Thank you.”
"The girl from the prank," she says once my breathing has fully settled.
"Yeah. Blaire Alexander."
She nods and lays her head on my shoulder without pushing any further, and we sit there like that while the room settles around us.
After a few beats she says quietly, "Fuck Blaire Alexander."
And that's how I know this woman and I will be best friends for life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BLAIRE
Another sleepless night.
The dark circles this morning were bad enough that I spent twenty extra minutes on concealer and still wasn't satisfied. I did what I could, put my hair up properly this time, wore the slate gray blazer that makes me look like I have my life together even when I don't, and told myself once again in the mirror that I've walked into harder rooms than this.
I'm not entirely convinced this morning.
The elevator ride last night ruined me. Not just Bennet — the whole thing. The robe, the streaked makeup, the way I backed out of those doors with nothing to say to defend myself against his vitriol.
