Chapter 16
Loreena
My panicked breaths are loud in the car, but they’re there.
I know that as long as the sawing sounds continue, I’m getting air, and if I’m getting air, then I’m not going to die.
It only feels like it. Every bone in my body hurts.
Despite the scarf over my eyes and the one wrapped around my wrists, and the pounding metal music that Maverick turned on the second I tore off the noise cancelling headphones, all I can hear are my breaths and my racing, terrible thoughts.
They invade my skull while oxygen saws in and out. My muscles ache from being so tense. My teeth are gritted so tightly that I’m not sure they’ll be much left of them. Every minute is a thousand years long.
“A rage room,” Maverick blurts at the first stop sign we come to.
Hart is such a small city that there are more signs than traffic lights. The problem with the blindfold is that it only hides what’s directly in front of me. Glimpses of the world still peek out from underneath.
“That’s the surprise. It’s where we’re going.”
The truck starts moving again. “It’s just ten more minutes.”
Maybe everything is supposed to hurt. Isn’t that some indication that I’m alive?
I want to answer him, to ask what the fuck a rage room is because it doesn’t sound like anything good, that’s for sure, but my tongue is thick in my mouth.
It’s so dry. At the start, when Maverick carried me out of the house, it was wet.
I gagged and choked on my own saliva, but as soon as I knew I was inside of his truck, the full blown panic attack faded to what I’m doing now.
Trying to hold it together and breathe while my heart races and my muscles feel like they’ve turned to stone.
My fingers are tingling, and my face feels numb.
I know I’m hyperventilating, and I know the science behind it.
I know that I should regulate my breathing, but I can’t help but breathe faster.
“Should I turn the music off?”
I shake my head.
“Should I turn it up?”
I shake it again. I don’t think I could speak even if my life depended on it.
“Should I take your blindfold off?”
I’m going to go with no on that one too.
“It could be making you carsick.”
I don’t think I have time to be two things at once.
My stomach is already a mess and I’m sure it has nothing to do with having my eyes closed.
I try to focus on slowing down my breaths so that I can calm my heart.
I haven’t passed out yet, but there’s still time, and we still have to get inside this place.
“A rage room is one of those spots where you go and just break shit,” Maverick explains, even though I haven’t been able to ask. “You can smash shit, throw shit, slam it on the ground, or hurl it at the wall. There are so many things in there to break. I’ll make sure I pay for the whole package.”
I didn’t even know places like that existed.
Surprisingly, I’m able to focus on picturing a room like that for a moment, with a bunch of glass vases, plates, cups, things like old microwaves and electronics that have died.
It seems wasteful, but maybe the stuff is donated or saved from the landfill already. Maybe some of it gets recycled.
Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god!
There was an actual mental picture. Something beyond just the blackness, the panic, the sky falling in on me, the wide openness compressing down, and out there, a shadow pressed up against an unlit walkway that I’ll never forgive myself for walking through.
“Are you… w-wa-watching… the… road?” It takes a good long time to get the words out.
My tongue is so thick that they stammer out, slurred and dry, creaking and groaning like my bones that my skin is barely holding together.
It could split open and pour everything out. it could happen. At any moment.
But they’re there. The words. They’re real. As real as the thought.
Maverick’s hand shifts across the car and grazes my knee. He waits a second, using his fingertips, to make sure that I’m alright with his touch, before his whole palm curls around my kneecap. His fingers splay up onto my thigh. The warmth of him is like an antidote.
This isn’t just a small improvement. It’s massive. Monumental. Earth shattering.
Breath.
Speech.
Consciousness.
Touch.
“You should pick a code word and use it if you truly need help at any point. Or maybe if you just want me to intervene. Of course I’ll help you and protect you, but I realize that this is something you need to do for yourself.”
My hands are tied, as per my own insistence, but I shift them a little, so that my fingers can rest on top of Maverick’s hand.
Just the feel of his skin grounds me. It keeps me tethered to this seat, in this car.
It’s a reminder that I’m not going to blow away, and as long as Maverick is right here beside me, nothing is going to happen to me.
“You can crush my hand if you want to.”
I grunt.
The truck slows to a stop, and I can practically sense him turning. If I tilted my head, I’d be able to see a sliver of it from underneath the blindfold.
“Is that a careful what you wish for?”
I wish that my tongue would loosen up just for a few words. That would be great. Fuck.
“You are, you know. What I wish for.” The truck moves forward, accelerating, the old engine making that screaming noise when Maverick gives it gas even though he doesn’t floor it.
“Even long before I knew what I was wishing. You’ve been my hope, your letters were my lifeline.
You were my anchor and my wings. You’re so damn brave, Loreena.
” He keeps filling the silence for us. His hand is my anchor, resting heavily on my knee.
“I shouldn’t have said half that shit last night, but somehow, you walked upstairs and started the day with fresh determination. I wanted to be exactly what you need.”
I don’t know if this is me taking the first few steps, not just to get better, but to live with this instead of letting it live with me, but I hope so.
I’ve already done more this morning than I would have thought possible.
I’m able to think. To listen. My breath is still all wrong, but we can’t win ‘em all, now can we?
“I was a moody asshole and I’m sorry. I thought more about what you said, and I don’t think you were wrong.
I think a person can want to move forward and still be okay with who they are in the moment.
” The truck is far from silent, with the death metal music blasting away, so I guess it’s just a while before Maverick says anything.
“I’m not just relearning the world. I’m figuring myself out too.
I’m starting to figure out that there are good people out there.
I’m so lucky to have Scythe here to keep my ass in line, but it’s you that keeps me going,” he pauses for a moment, and I feel the warmth of his hand on my knee.
“It’s always you that I think about first thing.
When I fall asleep and wake up, and in all those sleepless moments where I can’t do either.
You make the world feel right, even when it’s not.
You always have. That’s the gift you’ve given me.
I stored all that up inside and now it’s real.
You’re real. I hope this is the day we get to move past the past, but even if there are a thousand setbacks, I’m always going to be here.
I might need a walk now and then, to get my damn head on straight, but I’m not going anywhere. ”
I don’t know when my eyes filled up with tears. I was listening to Maverick, and too focused to pay attention to my own body. The moisture leaks out and soaks into the blindfold. It’s not really the kind of fabric that absorbs anything well, so soon they’re spilling down my cheeks.
I don’t reach up to brush them away with my bound hands. I just keep them on Maverick’s on my knee and wait.
A few minutes later, he pulls the truck over and kills the engine. He makes a sound in his throat that is half feral and half a wet choke.
“Loreena…” He brushes the tears from my cheek with the pad of his thumb, careful not to remove the blindfold.
I hear his clothing rustle as he shifts, leaning over the console.
Rather than a leather vest like Scythe wears, Maverick favors a hoodie or a duck canvas coat.
He chose the latter today, the black so worn that it’s faded to gray in some spots.
The collar is fraying at the edges and has holes in it and so do the cuffs.
I think it might have been Scythe’s jacket.
It’s obviously been well lived in and well loved.
His lips graze my forehead. My breath stops completely, but not because I’m panicking.
I’m actually… not.
I’m not sucking for air. My lungs aren’t overheated billows.
I’m entirely too focused on the gentle warmth that radiates from the spot Maverick just touched.
I feel… like that kiss was a bit of a benediction after all those words that shifted down past all the layers, calluses, walls, and guards, and settled into the marrow of my bones and the channels of my heart.
“Are we here?” There they are, the first words I’ve been able to get out.
“We are. Do you need a minute?”
I don’t want a minute to think. I just want to be. I want to be right alongside Maverick. If I wait, it will only give my brain time to regroup and freak out.
I shake my head. He kisses the tip of my nose then he’s gone, ejecting himself out of the driver’s door.
It slams shut. My lungs empty out and fill too rapidly.
My chest rises and falls. I thrust myself back hard against the seat, bracing for the worst. The panic is swift, but it doesn’t catch me off guard. I knew this was coming.
While I heave and hiss, Maverick throws open my door, gets my seatbelt off, and sweeps me into his arms. He has me tucked against his chest in an instant, and there I can feel his heart beating. It thrums steadily right under my ear.
I count the beats, the whomp-whomp-whomp.
While I listen to the sound, he takes a few steps and then a big door is thrown open. The whoosh of air glides past my cheek, and then it’s all hot heat and chill music and we’re inside.
Chill music. In a place that has rage rooms.
I might not be breathing properly, but I do have the urge to laugh. I swallow it back, knowing how wrong and even hysterical it might sound, and then I might burst into tears and start sobbing.
Maverick sets me down but doesn’t unwrap his arms yet.
He makes sure that I can test my legs to see if they’re going to hold me.
He slips the blindfold off and undoes my hands, but he lets me lean against him.
I can see that he’s angled me towards a big front window, away from the counter where people will be standing or sitting and working. He shields me, giving me privacy.
He’s so gentle, so tender, so infinitely understanding and kind.
If I wasn’t halfway in love with him already, I have zero doubt that I would be now.