6. Robert
six
Robert
While watching Delia try to defend herself against Jeremy as he lay on top of her, mimicking a real-world scenario in which she woke up to a stranger in the night, I couldn’t deny my attraction to her.
I hadn’t thought I was a ‘dick’ to her when she was dating Jeremy. I just didn’t take their relationship very seriously. I hadn’t thought it would last, and then when it did last, I had been concerned for him.
She was young, and it was inappropriate, and I hadn’t been convinced that she was in love with him anyway. It had seemed to me that she might be trying to get ahead in her schooling.
It had worked out for her, after all. Here she was, a year after their breakup, and the man still couldn’t cut ties with her, not unless he wanted to risk her telling all his higher-ups. He’d made a mess of his life, and she’d helped.
I watched as Delia managed to push Jeremy’s arms out from underneath him, straightening his elbow out and crashing her hand into it. He went flat, and she rolled him, flattened out, then slid out from underneath him.
Delia celebrated with a wiggly dance, her hands high in the air and her breasts bouncing as much as they could underneath her sports bra. Her ponytail flew around, and a smile shined across her face.
She pointed at Jeremy, and he pointed back at her, and then she whipped her head around and smiled at me. She winked, and I felt something stir in me.
That woman had almost wrecked Jeremy. She said that Jeremy propositioned her, but I knew the truth. I knew that she had showed up late one night at his office when he was doing paperwork, and I knew that she had reached across the desk for his hand and stroked it, her eyes trained on his lips.
I knew because Jeremy had told me, and Jeremy was my best friend. I knew that she had lured him in and that he had fallen for it, having little to no attention from women.
And now she was winking at me, and I could feel myself falling for it, too.
I shook my head and watched as another woman took Delia’s place, but my eyes strayed from the scene in front of me to Delia.
She was a few feet away, tossing her water bottle back and gulping greedily, letting water spill down her chin and onto her chest.
She saw me looking and smirked. She mouthed, ‘I win,’ and stared into my soul.
I looked back at Jeremy, at the woman struggling underneath him, and I felt for him. He still cared about her, and she only cared to win.
A loud sound, short and cracking, cut through the air from outside. My body reacted before my mind could, and I ducked, screaming, “Shots fired!”
I sprang into action, running toward Delia, slamming her body against mine, and pinning us both to the ground. I looked around at the others and screamed, “Get down!”
They all stared at me, frozen to the spot, and I could feel panic coursing through my body, a tension so thick that my body didn’t feel like mine.
I was outside of it, watching myself move. I got up to my knees and army crawled to the other women, tugging on their arms, trying to get them to understand.
I was transported to a battle ground, dirt beneath my knees and kicked up into my ears, a ringing so metallic all around me that I felt it in my teeth.
I could hear the difference between a shot that died in the air and a shot that hit a person. I could smell the difference instantly between a brother in arms who was alive but injured and a brother who had already died.
My body was alert and electric with adrenaline, and I was holding my jaw so tightly that my teeth ached.
I looked up, my face sweaty and cold, and realized where I was. Delia was a few feet from me, on the ground still, looking at me with gentle but wide eyes.
“It was just a car backfiring,” she whispered.
I looked around at everyone’s faces and felt the familiar shame that my PTSD had made a home for me.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as I stood up. “Jeremy, can you—”
“I got it,” he told me, a flat smile on his face. He pitied me. It made me want to flatten his smile and his nose.
But instead, I nodded at him and walked out into the hallway to compose myself. I tried to force myself to breathe. I stretched my ribs out and told myself, “It was just a car. You’re safe.” But I could feel myself losing it every second that passed, could feel the old panic and anxiety mounting.
I pinched my wrist with my nails, letting them really dig into my skin to try and ground myself.
The doors opened, and Delia walked out, concern written all over her face. Scoffing, I turned my face away, embarrassed to be seen this way but also angry that she would insert herself.
“I need a moment alone,” I told her gruffly, continuing my stretches.
“Why don’t you sit down?” she murmured, standing next to me and leaning against the wall, her eyes fixated on me.
“I don’t want to sit on the ground, thank you.”
“Why not? You were just army crawling on it.”
I shot daggers at her with my eyes. “I fully understand that you don’t like me. Now is not the time for whatever games you want to play right now. Please go back to class.”
She propelled herself off the wall with her hands and bounced back against it a couple of times before saying, “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I am,” I lied, even as the familiar panic that I’d grown accustomed to shot through my body again.
“You don’t seem okay.”
I glanced at her, at her gentle expression, one of someone genuinely concerned, and I felt something resembling appreciation flow through me.
“I am,” I repeated firmly, clasping my hands in front of me and falling forward with them over my head. Hanging upside down was good for the vestibular system. I needed that right now. I could feel the blood in my body everywhere but in my brain where I needed it. It was knocking me off balance.
My vision started to go hazy again, and I stretched my sides again.
Delia moved from the wall and walked over to me. She looked at me gently and asked, “May I?” as she put her palm flat against my chest. “Close your eyes.”
I glared at her for a second before doing as she said, but I felt nothing except the buzzing beneath my skin. She continued, “Imagine that the anxiety you feel is a ball of light in your chest.”
“This is stupid,” I told her, opening my eyes.
She was standing in front of me, so close that I could smell the hints of vanilla in her perfume.
“Just try,” she whispered, looking up at me from under long and curled eyelashes. “Please?”
We maintained eye contact for a moment before I closed my eyes again, and she said, “Okay, imagine that anxiety and panic you feel as a ball of light in your chest. That’s where you feel your anxiety, right? In your chest?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes closed.
“Okay. Do you see the light?” I nodded again.
“Good, now I want you to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, and when you do, on the out breath, the light travels, and on the in breath, the light stays still.”
I peeked at her through one eye and asked, “Do you hear yourself?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who goes through an army role-play every time a car backfires,” she said playfully, raising a blonde eyebrow.
“Navy,” I corrected her.
“What?”
“I wasn’t in the Army. I was in the Navy.”
She rolled her eyes and physically used one of her hands to shut my eyelids.
“There we go, perfect. Now, are you ready? Okay, I want you to breathe in through your nose, and can you feel that light getting bigger? Like a flame? Now, in a moment, you’re going to breathe out through your mouth. Make that breath last as long as possible. Ready, and go.”
I breathed out through my mouth, a slow trickle, and Delia said, “Good, the light should be moving. It’s a ball, but it’s flattening, like a ball of dough. Some parts of the light are moving into your arms, and some are going down to your stomach. Do you feel it?”
I did. It was stupid, but I felt it. The panic was subsiding as I felt it move into the rest of my body in a more manageable way.
I nodded, and Delia’s hand started to move away from my chest as she said, “Do you feel better?”
With my eyes still closed, I took her wrist and clamped it where it was, murmuring, “Wait. Please, just a little longer.”
“Okay, let’s do it once more. Remember, the ball is already flat like dough. Hold onto where that light is. Now breathe in through your nose, and you should see that light flickering with the energy you’re giving it. And now breathe out…and it should travel, maybe it travels down to your legs, or maybe to your hands. Wherever it goes, it’s okay if it moves. It lives inside you. It’s always there.”
“Should I let it out?” I asked breathlessly.
“No, no, there’s no reason,” she whispered.
Her voice was gentle and comforting. It reminded me of the way someone might read a children’s book to a child who was falling asleep.
“It’s okay for it to be there. It just got tangled up, is all. You need it to live all throughout. It’s too much when it’s in one spot.”
“Okay,” I whispered back, enjoying the sensation as I pictured the light traveling to my toes and settling.
“How long has this been happening?” Delia asked, her hand still flat against my chest. “The panic attacks?”
“For ten years,” I told her, enjoying the sensation of her touch a little too much.
“Ten years straight?” she asked, concern lifting her voice.
“No,” I said, without elaboration.
“So then, what’s triggered it lately?”
I sighed and opened my eyes. “My daughter likes a boy. It’s dredging up some feelings for me.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“She’s ten. No, eleven. Sorry, she just had a birthday. It’s been a lot.” I closed my eyes again.
“Why is that such a big deal?”
“It’s…too much to get into right now,” I told her.
“You can tell me,” she breathed, and I had another realization that she was still close to me, that I could smell her watermelon shampoo.
I opened my eyes again and could see her curled eyelashes. I could see a small freckle of green in her brown eyes. So, they were hazel. I could see freckles on the bridge of her nose and a small crack in her bottom lip where she’d been chewing it. I wondered what stressed her out. I wondered if I could relieve it.
“I really can’t,” I responded, my eyes trapped, glued to her lips.
I couldn’t look at anything else. She had such beautiful lips, so bow-like. I wanted to unwrap her like a present. Dammit! She made me so mad. But she was so sexy.
As if someone else controlled my hand, I reached out and pressed one hand against her face, gripping her jawline, and stroked her skin with my thumb.
“Robert, I—” she started, and I could see a flush creeping up her neck.
“Do you mind if I just…?” Her face was coming closer to mine, and I couldn’t tell if she was moving with me or if I was just taking it, but her lips brushed mine, opening slightly. They were soft and malleable and warm, and I wanted to dive into them, to have them all over my body. I wanted her lips on the head of my cock in that moment, and the thought made me groan against her opening mouth.