Under Rose-Tainted Skies(37)

Go home, I think.

‘Stop worrying, for starters. I’m not sure I can handle two anxiety attacks at once.’ She smiles, all warmth. ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’ Mom links her arm through mine and leads me to a chair. ‘This will all be over in a few minutes.’

Why in hells bells would she offer him a seat? This is not a play, a production. He’s the last person I want around to witness this. But she is a lover, a Beatles song, one of those people who collect inspirational quotes. She thinks that all my baggage shouldn’t matter. She thinks people should see past it, should see that I am more than what is wrong with me. The clouds in her sky are always rose-coloured, which I know is a beautiful way to be. Alas, I have a mind that muddies everything. My skies aren’t so pretty; more tainted with fear than tinted with whimsy.

I cling to the tabletop; the room is tipping upwards like the Titanic.

‘Norah, your lips are going purple. If you don’t take a breath, you’re going to pass out,’ Mom says, kneeling in front of me and resting her hands on the top of my legs. She rubs circles. ‘Come on, honey. Take a deep breath.’ She shows me how and I copy her. The rhythm feels unnatural. My chest fights it, tries to go faster, tries to go slower. A bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck.

It goes on and on and on. I think maybe a century passes before my body gets so tired of twitching it comes to a complete stop. I’m still, calm, in the same way an ocean is before a big storm.

I can hear Mom talking, but a bubble of awkward silence is expanding around me. My shoulders hunch over, my legs shake; my head sags and a curtain of blonde hair flops forward. I hide my face behind it, wishing I could stay cloaked like this for ever.

Luke’s army-brown boots are in my line of sight. His left foot bounces. I attempt to think myself invisible. But that never works and I’m still here.

‘You need some water?’ Mom asks, standing and patting my shoulder. I nod. Can’t talk. My mouth is so dry I’m afraid my throat will split. ‘Luke, can I get you another coffee?’

‘No. Thank you.’ There’s a quaver in his voice. He’s going to leave. He’s freaked out, like maybe he just watched an exorcism or witnessed an alien attempting to adapt to oxygen. Any minute now he’s going to excuse himself, get up, and go.

‘Right. Well,’ Mom says, driving a sledgehammer into the growing wall of tension, ‘I think I’m going to head back out into the garden. Shout if you need me.’

I’m shouting, but there’s no sound coming out. It’s all internal, tumbling around my chest like a breeze trapped in a bottle. I don’t want Mom to go, but the flip-flop sound of her sandals fades into the distance.





Idon’t know what to say. Luke apparently doesn’t either. The silence descends again. I keep my eyes fixed on his feet, which stay at a standstill for the longest time. Then they move. Stand up and shuffle away. I bite down hard on the inside of my mouth. Harder and harder, until my eyes fill with salt water and I can taste blood, but the pain I feel comes from my stomach. A tortured twist that I want to push on until it goes away. I keep my head down, watch the empty space on the floor.

I scrunch my eyes shut and when I force them open, Luke’s feet have reappeared, facing me, just inches away. I catch a breath, keep it trapped in my windpipe. He crouches, and, very slowly, like a rock sailing through space, his fist glides towards me, manoeuvres its way past the blonde curtain, and hovers in mid-air, just above my knees, right under my nose.

U OK? It’s written on the back of his hand in big black letters.

It’s possible I began this sprint before the starting pistol sounded.

My head snaps up and my eyes land on his impossibly adorable frown, his hundred-watt smile turned upside down. I want to coo like you do when you see pictures of baby bunnies snuggling fluffy kittens. Instead, I nod, my dropped jaw flopping around.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘No.’ I don’t shout, but I want to. His apology is beyond unnecessary. I hate that he’s feeling guilty for trying to help. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ I consider elaborating but then bail, decide he’s probably consumed enough craziness for one day.

There will always be an excuse.

I’m not sure exactly what he saw. I study his face, try to figure it out. I don’t remember what I did, how bad it got. That happens sometimes; panic attacks have a tendency to suck away moments of my memory. I run a mental check. My throat isn’t grainy like it gets when vocal tics put in an appearance, so hopefully I didn’t make any starving-zombie sounds. My shoulders ache, which means there was probably some intense jerking around.

The good news is there’s no drool on my shirt, so at the very least I remembered to swallow. Sarcastic high fives. It gets hard to look at him, and my chin starts to dip again.

‘I’m so embarrassed.’ I don’t know what else to say. I wish he would fill the room with words so I don’t have to.

‘You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.’

Okay. I wish he would fill the room with words that are true.

‘I really wish you hadn’t seen that. I didn’t want you to see me all freaking out, looking like I’m being electrocuted or something.’ I sniff, scrub stray tears off my cheeks with the sleeve of my sweater. I’m tragic, an unkempt gravestone – I’m what a sorrowful Shakespeare sonnet would look like in human form.