Letter Nineteen #3
Once painted a pale pink, it had held an iron gold crib, a fancy upholstered rocker, stuffed animals galore, and frilly cream curtains with dark mauve trim—details I only knew from little snapshots taken of me as a baby: playing on the rug next to the crib, sitting upright in the rocker, or being held by my dad between the windows, his gaze fixed lovingly on my face as I clutched a small stuffed turtle in my dimpled hand.
Nic had framed each of these photos in silver.
They sat, the silver long tarnished, on the bookcase in the Garland Room.
My body prickled with a memory—or was it a memory? Maybe it was more of a feeling, inching slowly up my spine. Raising the hair on the back of my neck. Drawing me farther into that room.
Sunlight spilling through the windows. The way the light slanted across the diamond pattern of the rug, so bright it hurt my eyes, washing out the design. The rhythmic ticktock of the clock, echoing throughout the stillness of the house, overly loud and grating. Incessant. Harsh. Cruel.
I was alone.
Completely and utterly alone.
No one there. The clock too loud. The house too still.
I was alone, and that aloneness was a trap.
Where were you? Why weren’t you coming? Why was all the air suddenly leaving my lungs? I backed the hell out of that room and flew downstairs.
I tried texting my dad, shocked at how severely my hands trembled, making it impossible to type. Giving up, I dropped the phone and fell to the floor, ripping off my backpack and blazer as I went.
What happened next, Casey, was a tidal wave, too many sensations crashing over me at once.
Hot. Too hot. Sweating. Rapid breaths. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t see. Ripping at my clothes. At the damn dress. Stupid fucking dress. Heart racing, whole body shaking. Couldn’t breathe. Some invisible force choking me, pulling me under. Clawing at my chest. No, me.
Me, clawing. Clawing at my own chest. Clawing at the straps. Have to get it off. Have to get free. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.
Can.
Not.
Breathe.
Someone there. Grabbing my hands. Telling me to stop. Elliot, stop. Please stop. Jesus. Fuck. Stop. Michael. Michael’s voice.
Someone else there, shushing me. Saying it’s okay. Hand to my chest, telling me to breathe. Just breathe. You’re okay, Elliot. You’re okay. I’m here. You’re safe. My dad. Nic’s voice. Calm but firm, reminding me to breathe.
“Can’t.” My voice came out choked, little more than a rasp. “Can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Nic said, pressing my hand to his chest. “Deep breaths. One in. One out.”
“What—?” I tried, tears streaming down my face. “What is—?”
“Focus on my breathing,” Nic said, pressing my hand even harder against his chest. So I did, focusing on every rise, every fall. Slow to rise. Slow to fall. Little by little, my breathing began to regulate.
I tried speaking again. “What—what’s happening to me?”
“You’re having a panic attack, sweetheart. That’s all it is. You’re going to be okay. You’re safe. I’m right here. You’re safe.”
Little by little, my vision cleared.
My dad’s face: perfectly normal. Perfectly calm.
Michael’s face: not normal. Not at all calm. Scared.
All three of us were kneeling on the floor.
As Nic talked, telling me to breathe, the reassuring sound of his voice dulled the sharp edges of my panic. Underneath my palm, the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart caused mine to slow.
“Where’s Casey?” Michael asked, glancing around the entry hall.
“Not here,” I managed.
Surprise registered on Michael’s face. “He left you alone?”
But Nic wasn’t surprised. Somehow, my dad already seemed to know you weren’t there. And then it occurred to me: maybe that’s why he was there, home so early from work.
Michael’s gaze dropped to my chest. “I’ll kill him.”
That’s when I glanced down, seeing the damage for myself. During the attack, I’d shoved my new blue dress down to my waist, baring the white strapless bra underneath it. Above the bra—which thankfully hadn’t budged—were more than a dozen claw marks.
Angry, red welts.
Blood.
My fingers shook as I touched them to my blemished skin.
“No, you won’t,” Nic said to Michael. “You have to be easy on him, or he’ll blame himself for this.”
“He is to blame.”
“No, Michael. Not for this. He couldn’t have known this would happen.” With his free hand, my dad gripped Michael’s arm. “You let me handle him.”
Nic instructed Michael to grab some things from the kitchen.
“I don’t understand,” I said when Michael walked off. “Why wasn’t he here? Where is he?”
I couldn’t touch the panic attack. The panic attack scared me. I didn’t understand where it had come from, or why I’d reacted so strongly to being alone, or how my dad managed to remain so calm about it.
“Don’t worry,” Nic assured me. “Hal’s bringing him home, and he won’t ever do it again.”
Michael came back with a wet cloth and a tube of antibiotic ointment. Nic ordered him to find my Harvard sweatshirt upstairs, and he disappeared again.
Carefully, Nic dabbed at the scratch wounds, then dashed to the powder room to wash his hands before applying the ointment.
As he helped me pull the dress back up and put my arms through the straps, I spotted my blood on his white dress shirt, lightly smudged next to his pale green tie.
Next, he led me to the kitchen sink, where I scrubbed the dried blood from my fingernails.
But long after the blood had washed away, I kept scrubbing.
Nic switched off the faucet, placing his hand over mine.
By then, Michael was back with my sweatshirt. I slipped it on over my dress.
Soon after that, Casey, you arrived. Via Hal. Who slung the back door open and shoved you inside the kitchen, his sausage fingers gripping the back of your neck.
Like the year before, you were a wreck. Your blue button-down from that morning: wrinkled, haphazardly buttoned, untucked. A navy tweed bomber jacket: dangling from one hand. Hair: all mussed. Eyes: glassy and bloodshot.
Hal left you with us, then retreated from the house.
Michael charged at you. “What the hell, man?”
Nic placed a hand on Michael’s chest to hold him back. In a quiet voice, he said, “Casey, what did I tell you when I moved you in here?”
You did that thing where you lean your head back. It’s how I always know when you’re drunk. You gazed back at him, throat moving against your shirt collar, silent.
“What did I tell you when I moved you in here?” Nic repeated. “What did I say the number-one rule was?”
“Never leave her alone,” you said hoarsely.
“Never leave her alone,” Nic said with a nod.
“Yet, today, you not only skipped your classes—which I’m paying for, by the way—you thought it wise to leave my daughter all alone while you picked up some stranger in a bar.
I hope that stranger was worth it, because you’re not to leave this house outside of school and Elliot’s activities for the remainder of this term. ”
A stranger? In a bar? In addition to feeling confused and traumatized, I felt sick.
“I’m an adult,” you told him.
“I don’t care what you are. As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll do whatever the hell I say. And if you ever leave her alone again, I’ll send you back to England, and you’re finished here. Is that understood?”
You swallowed. “Yes.”
“I expect you to join us for dinner. You’ll stay down here for the rest of the evening.”
“I’d rather be alone,” you whispered.
“Not happening,” Nic said. “You’re spending the rest of your birthday down here with us, and I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about it.”
Your voice cracked as you said, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the one who deserves an apology. You owe an apology to her.” Nic pointed at me. “Michael and I found her having a panic attack.”
Your gaze swept over to me, that deep groove forming between your eyebrows. Hand to your forehead, you glanced between Michael and Nic. “A panic attack? Why?”
“Because I’ve never left her alone, Casey,” Nic said. “No one was here—you weren’t here—and she panicked.”
You walked toward me, expression full of regret. “Elliot—”
But I turned and fled to the Garland Room, where I slumped down to the sofa, still shaking from the attack. I couldn’t go to my room. The thought of being alone sent a new wave of panic crashing through me.
“You’ve been crying,” you said, taking a seat on the coffee table directly across from me. You reached for my hand, but I slapped it away. “It was shit of me to disappear on you today. There’s no excuse.”
It wasn’t rage I felt—but betrayal. “I tried to be there for you this morning, and you wouldn’t let me.”
“I know,” you said. “I get like that. I push people away. I don’t mean to. I—”
“You weren’t there to pick me up.”
“I’m sorry,” you whispered, nodding.
“You only thought about yourself. I came home, hoping to make you feel better, hoping to make your day less shitty, and you were hooking up with some stranger?” I said it like your actions disgusted me, because they did.
“You have people here, who actually know and care about you, and that’s who you’d rather spend your birthday with? Some stranger in a bar?”
You gazed back, head shaking, eyes full of tears.
“I know you’re hurting, but your behavior today hurt me. What just happened to me—that was—it never would’ve happened if you’d been here.”
You nodded rapidly. “I fucked up,” you whispered. “I’m sorry.”
You reached for my face.
But I slapped you away again.
“I do this. I run away. I hide. I drink until it hurts less. And then I—it’s so stupid.
It’s messed up. It’s—” You stopped abruptly, blinking back tears, trying not to cry, hands wringing between your knees.
“The way you punish yourself every year on your birthday? Well, I do that, too. It’s just—it’s different. ”
I glared at you.
“I never meant to hurt you,” you whispered, gaze wildly searching my face. “Don’t hate me. Don’t shut me out again. Please. I just got you back.”