Chapter 5
What was I thinking? Grace sped across the courtyard. Now the new kid is going to tell everyone that I attacked him!
The very thought of that, of gossip about her starting up again, made her lightheaded.
“Hey!” The boy stormed out of the library behind her.
Grace turned into the closest building. She didn’t even know which one it was—she just wanted to hide. But she felt the resistance of weight on the other side, like someone was leaning against the door. Her urgent push dislodged whoever it was, and they gave an angry shout as the door swung open.
Grace fell through it, knee hitting the old linoleum and radiating pain up her leg. Her bag slid across the floor, the contents tumbling out. Wincing in pain, she scrambled to gather it all again. And when she looked up, she saw Chuck Wilson glaring down at her.
“Are you blind?” he said.
“No,” Grace muttered as she grabbed her lip balm, embarrassed at having half a dozen classmates just watching her crawl across the floor. No one offered to help.
“Is this ’cause you’re still pissed about this morning?” Chuck elbowed his friend with a sneer. “She freaked out because she wanted my parking spot.”
Grace’s jaw clenched as she gathered her pens. She wanted nothing more than to give Chuck a piece of her mind, but the smarter thing was to walk away. And she always did the smarter thing.
Chuck’s friend slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh. “Makes sense. You should know better than to mess with Bakshit.” He purposefully mispronounced her last name to rhyme with bat, as in batshit crazy.
The nickname cut twice with its double layer of offenses.
She heard the smattering of laughter, and her chest tightened at the echoing sound.
It brought with it memories of being in the school gym, having a breakdown in front of the entire junior class.
She focused on shoving the last notebook into her bag, letting her hair fall over her face, which now burned bright red.
Don’t let them see they affect you, she heard Halmeoni’s voice in her head. They’ll back down once they realize they won’t get the reaction they want.
But in her rush to stand, her foot tangled in the strap of her bag, and she stumbled to the side. She barely caught herself against the wall before falling again.
That created another wave of laughter that made her throat constrict.
No, not here, she thought as she hurried away.
She pushed into a restroom to escape. It was mercifully empty.
Her fingers tingled just as she pulled open a stall door. It took her three tries to get the latch to click shut. She rubbed her hands together, flexing her fingers to rid them of the needles pricking under her skin.
Grace’s panic attacks felt like an assault of contradictions.
Her body worked ten times harder to pull in air, but took in ten times less.
Her entire body vibrated, but her limbs refused to move.
Deep breaths, Grace reminded herself, leaning against the stall door. The lock dug into her back. Instead of moving, she focused on that pain point as tears pooled in her eyes.
This shouldn’t be happening. She shouldn’t be overreacting like this. She was past this. She was supposed to be past this.
She struggled to pull in air. Her lungs felt like dried-out husks that had lost their ability to expand.
It’s just a matter of will, she told herself.
And sucked in another breath, counting slowly to five despite the aching strain in her chest. Then she let it out, repeating the process two more times before she felt like she wasn’t about to start hyperventilating.
Even when the lightheaded feeling subsided, she kept counting her breaths until she was sure it had fully passed.
As she exited the stall, she thought it was one small grace that the restroom had stayed empty.
She hadn’t had an attack in weeks. She thought she’d moved past them. But now she felt like she was reverting to where she’d been months ago.
“You’ve got this,” she said to her reflection. “Just keep moving forward.”
She pushed back into the hallway just as the warning bell rang.
Just great. She hadn’t had time to study for the quiz.