Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(42)

He was still waiting for the rest of the question. He had a twitching half smile. Did he know what she wanted to ask and did he find it funny? Or was he really waiting to see what the hell she wanted because “have you . . .” could lead to anything and what she was, was a maniac who didn’t know how to talk to anyone about anything. Also, would he ask her the same? She was sure he already knew the answer. No. No, she had not. Her experience in this department was limited. To be honest, she had shocked herself in her encounters thus far by having any idea what she was supposed to do at all. It was amazing that she hadn’t flopped and flailed or fallen out a window by accident or something during any physical encounter.

David was still waiting. It had gone beyond anticipation to that point where the question was starting to break apart like smoke on the wind.

There was a ding and a buzz as a text message came in. David didn’t reach for the phone in his pocket, but Stevie could feel it against her hip. It buzzed again, like a persistent bee.

“Do you want to get that?” she said.

Another buzz.

The moment had passed.

“Is that Izzy?” Stevie asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”

“You hang out a lot,” she said, stepping away from his chest and back.

“Well, yeah. What about it?”

“I didn’t say anything about it,” Stevie replied.

“You kind of did, because you mentioned it.”

Stevie could see clearly that this was going badly, and it was happening fast. Time to turn it around. Laugh it off. Convert this conversation into something else. A joke. A moment. But David was looking down at her with that slight tilt of the eyebrow that meant he was engaged, and that slight tilt of the eyebrow made him more attractive to her and annoyed her in the same moment. Which meant that there was something in this, and no, she would not be able to let it go. It was a loose tooth that demanded wiggling. A hole in the fabric that required picking and expanding.

No. Make the conversation stop.

“That’s all it was. I was just saying.”

Her tone was too flat. She invited combat.

“She’s in my tutorial,” he said. “It’s just me and Izzy and this guy Graham who keeps loose cheese in his pocket and we think is an online predator, so Izzy and I kind of stick together. I live here right now. There are people here . . .”

“Obviously there are people here. They are people everywhere. I didn’t mean . . .”

“You did mean. You need to trust me. Do you think that I can’t control myself or something? Like I’m not serious about you? What have I done to make you feel like that? Because I’ve kind of worked hard to stop being fuckup David and be this new one? Also, fuckup David felt the same way about you too and never cheated. I just failed more classes and hung out on the roof more.”

“Forget it. Okay?”

“I’m actually trying.”

“So . . .”

David took a beat and nodded. This happened to them sometimes. They went to a hundred. In fact, her pulse was quickening, beyond the point of happy excitement and into the territory of fear. It made her neck throb and electric shocks run down her arms.

“Oh shit,” she said.

“What?”

Not now. Not here. Not this.

But that’s the thing about an anxiety attack. It shows up when it likes. It barges into the situation and takes over. The world warps.

“Stevie?”

She didn’t know what to ask him to do. She fumbled for her bag, yanking the zipper open and feeling around for the key chain that held her emergency anxiety medication.

“Are you sick?”

She shook her head.

“Anxiety attack,” she said as her fingers found the small container. She unscrewed it, removed the pill, and swallowed it dry.

“Okay,” he said, scooping his arm around her, giving her support. “No problem. Walk with me a little. Breathe that stanky air. Smell it? That’s cold, nasty river water.”

She was a useless piece of human furniture, confused, tucked under his arm. Were other people looking at them? What did they make of her? They were in the other world, the one that made sense.

“Just take it easy,” David was saying, close to her ear. “Breathe nice and slow.”

As if it was that easy. But she tried. She knew it worked. She knew it would end, and all the things that had fallen over would be put back in place, and the world would reassemble itself. She had been through this many times—not usually in public, though. This tended to happen more before bed or when she was asleep, when she could break apart in private, climb under the sheets, rest on the floor, pace from familiar wall to familiar wall. This was London, dark and bright and loud and strange, and there was only David to cling to in this moment.

He was her only guidepost as they walked back to the Tube and made their way through the clamor and bright lights of the station. On the train, she had to turn and put her face into his shoulder because the view out the window was too much—the whoosh through the tunnel, the bright subway ads flashing by, taunting her with offers for travel insurance, human-sized pictures of chocolate bars, better phone rates . . . all the flotsam and jetsam of life. Numbers and houses and futures and food. Why did all this stuff have to fly into her face? Who needed it all? Why go this fast?