By Your Side(65)

“Dallin, please don’t do this. This is not cool.” I could already feel my pulse picking up speed, my chest tightening. It’s just Dallin, I told myself. I’ll be fine. But that logic didn’t help. It was the pillowcase over my head. I needed it off. I felt smothered, trapped, confined. “Take it off. Please. I’m not one of your stupid guy friends.” I knew he’d done this to Zach before. At the movies. He was just doing what he did. But I couldn’t handle it like Zach.

Dallin directed me on my shuffling feet to a vehicle that I could hear was already on. A door opened and he delivered me inside. I wasn’t sure if the other guys were inside—Zach or Connor.

“Can someone please just take the pillowcase off? I’m going to get sick.” My stomach hurt and I was worried I really was going to get sick.

There was the tiniest laugh but nobody helped me. The radio turned on and the car started moving. Nobody had put on my seatbelt.

“I need a seatbelt,” I said.

“A seatbelt?” The voice was right next to my ear, then another voice behind me said the same thing. They were loud, distorted. But someone buckled me in.

Throughout the ride the different voices yelled out stupid things. Things like, “Don’t run the stop sign!” And, “Is that a cop?” I kind of wished it was a cop. Maybe they’d get pulled over and in trouble for having a girl with a pillowcase over her head in the car. I thought I recognized Zach’s voice. And obviously Dallin’s, but I wasn’t sure who else was there. It could’ve just been the two of them. Eventually this case would be off my head so I tried to keep myself under control.

After at least ten minutes of obnoxious one-liners, the car slowed. I hadn’t managed to keep myself under control at all. I could feel the sweat and tears streaked down my face. There was probably some snot too. But they weren’t done. One last shout made my heart stand still. It was Dallin’s voice. “Hey, look, your boyfriend is here, Autumn! I didn’t know he like basketball.”

And for the first time the entire ride, I heard Jeff. He laughed. He thought it was a joke. It wasn’t a joke, but it was an exaggeration on Dallin’s part. Dax was definitely not my boyfriend.

“Are you pointing at Dax Miller?” Jeff asked.

“Yes, you should ask Autumn about him. They got real tight while you were under.” I wanted to punch Dallin. I understood that he might hate me for his various annoying reasons right now, but didn’t he understand timing, that he was hurting his best friend?

The car pulled to a stop and I was helped out of it. I struggled until someone freed me and removed the pillowcase. All I could think about was getting out of there. I wanted out of there.

“Autumn,” Jeff said, and I met his eyes. He was wheeling himself around the van we must’ve just emerged from. “Calm down. It’s just us.”

I looked around to see Lisa and Zach, Connor, Morgan and Avi, too. They were all staring at me like I was a little bit crazy. I wiped at my face, still trying to figure out where I could run to.

“You knew it was us, right?” Lisa asked.

“She saw me and heard us the entire time,” Dallin said. “I don’t know what she’s freaking out about.”

“Nothing. I’m freaking out about nothing. That’s what happens sometimes when you have an anxiety disorder and someone shoves a bag over your head and ties you up. I have anxiety!” I yelled this at the top of my voice. “Does that make you happy, Dallin? To know that you just triggered an attack?”

As one, my group of friends seemed to step closer to me, closing the circle.

“I can’t,” I said. “I just need space. Just give me some space.” I pushed between Lisa and Avi and ran across the parking lot all the way to the greenhouse, where I shut myself inside and tried to figure out how I was going to get home.





CHAPTER 45


I felt the burst of wind through the door before I realized someone had opened it. For the last fifteen minutes I had sat huddled on the dirty floor of the greenhouse analyzing my performance tonight. It was pretty epic. Me, looking crazed and wild, yelling about panic attacks, while my friends wondered how their practical joke had resulted in such a major overreaction. I knew I had been overreacting at the time, but it wasn’t something I could stop. And now, outside of it, when my body had calmed down and my tears were dry, I knew it even more. I wondered who else had seen me in that parking lot, surrounded by my friends like I was some feral cat they were trying to tame. They’d said Dax was there. Had he already gone into the gym by that time? I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to think about Dax. Until now, when the door opened and for one heart-stopping moment, I thought it might be him.

But it wasn’t. It was Jeff. He was standing, his wheelchair abandoned behind him. A single light outside the building reflected off the fog on the glass and created an eerie glow over the dead plants around me.

“Hey,” he said, walking slowly. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was still unsteady on his feet or if it was for my benefit.

I stood up and brushed off my pants. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

“Getting there.”

He came to a stop next to me and leaned up against a long table.

“So you have anxiety attacks?”

“Yes.”