9. Ally
Chapter 9
Ally
The same evening, Saturday, August 20
Queen of Hearts
For a moment there, back on the porch of our beach house, Dan made me feel like his girlfriend when he pressed me against his dick and told me to stay by his side at the party. I loved the way he looked at me in my dress, like I was his, and how he wanted me to feel the effect I have on his body. I agreed to his words because being with Dan was the only place I wanted to be.
Now that we’re at the party, staying by Dan’s side is turning out to be my idea of hell.
It’s an emphasis on what I already knew but had been ignoring—that he acts differently around me. Everyone is throwing alcohol his way, questioning why he’s not drinking tonight or being the life of the party. Guys have started talking about “pussy” with Dan, being crude, and only shutting up when noticing me standing quietly beside him.
So many girls have run up and hugged Dan, blatantly flirting and sending him fuck-me eyes. He politely shuts them down, but if I weren’t here, I know he’d be into them. He’d take one of them to a bedroom upstairs where they’d have sex, and I’d have no right to be jealous because I’ve told him there’s no us .
The worst part about being here with Dan is when he introduces me to the girls, trying to involve me in conversation. The girls barely acknowledge me before they’re flirting with Dan again. It reminds me of the girls at school and how they don’t talk to me. How I have no friends.
Dan probably doesn’t want to be talking to me either right now. His social life is separated into two fragments—me and everyone else—and is intersecting right now, messing everything up for him. I’m interfering with his chances to party with his friends and hook up with girls.
To make matters worse, the music is too loud. I can feel its heavy bass pulsing through my entire body, and it makes me nauseous. There were too many people crowding the inside of the house, but even out here by the pool is no better. There are people all around us, drunk and bumping into me. Guys are shouting, being boisterous with their friends, cannonballing into the pool and splashing me.
A group of girls are talking to Dan by the pool’s edge, all wearing bikinis that barely cover their ass and breasts. I’m standing beside him not knowing what to say, looking like a loser. When I find a break in conversation, I take a chance, complimenting one of the girls on her hair, but another guy jumps into the pool and my voice isn’t heard.
The conversation continues and I feel like an idiot, growing bright red with embarrassment. I realize my teeth are grinding together and that I’m clutching my elbows. Every muscle in my body is tense and my breathing is growing more shallow by the second.
This is how it always starts.
My heart pumps faster, knowing what’s about to happen, and that I stupidly left my medication at the beach house. My God, I can’t have a panic attack at this party and not in front of Dan. He’s never witnessed one of my episodes before, and the thought of him seeing me like this is mortifying. It’s worse than him seeing how awkward I am around all these new people.
I reach up on my toes, shouting into Dan’s ear to be heard over the music, giving him the first excuse for escape I can think of. “I’m going to find Killian.”
I manage one step away from Dan before his arm slinks around my waist and he pulls me back to his side. “Killian is probably off with a girl. Stay here.” His arm drops from my side, and he speaks to the girls again. “Ally is an incredible musician.”
His conversation starter only heightens my discomfort. Dan is trying to include me, and it makes me feel even more pathetic that he has to handhold me in social situations. The girls look at me with disinterest. Clearly none of them want to be talking about me or to me. They only do it to please Dan.
“What kind of musician?” a redhead asks me, her voice bland and not carrying any of the enthusiasm it possessed a moment ago when flirting with Dan.
“Piano,” I answer, barely loud enough.
I should say something else. A normal person would elaborate and lead this conversation into something deeper. But I can’t speak, no matter how hard I try to force myself. My mind is a clutter of panic and embarrassment. My throat clenches and heat prickles in my eyes like I’m about to cry. What the hell is wrong with me? I cannot be about to cry, and the fact that I am only makes everything worse. Can they all tell there are tears in my eyes? They must think I’m weird. Which, I am. This inability to socialize is not normal.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I blurt out, seeking another escape.
“I’ll take you,” Dan says.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be back in a second.”
“I don’t want you going off on your own. It could be hard to find each other again.”
The redhead winks at him. “I’ll take her. I need to go too. Stay and chat with everyone.”
I don’t know if the girl thinks she’s doing her friends a favor, taking one for the team by getting me away from Dan, but I’ll go along with her plan if it means Dan doesn’t see me break down.
“Thanks, but I’ll take Ally,” Dan insists.
My God, he won’t give up. Needing to get away from him, I find it within me to smile and laugh at him. “Seriously, have fun with your friends. I’ll be right back.”
Dan watches me with concern, his brows drawn together, but I guess my laugh was convincing enough because he doesn’t follow me and the redhead through the crowd.
As soon as I break free from Dan, my resolve crumbles and tears stream down my cheeks as I follow the girl into the house. She doesn’t notice me crying. She’s talking about something, but I can’t hear anything other than the thumping of my pulse in my ears and the loud music. I’m burning up and need to get somewhere private where no one can see me.
We climb a flight of stairs, arriving at a corridor with fewer people in sight. “The line for this bathroom should be much shorter than the one downstairs,” the girl says to me.
I wipe my face dry before she turns around and sees me crying, but I know I’ve failed to hide my emotions when she stares at my eyes.
“Shit. Are you okay?” she asks.
“Um, yeah.” My chin trembles with my answer. Panicking, I spot an empty bedroom nearby and rush inside, locking the door behind me. It’s dark in here and I’m in such a flustered state that I can’t find the light switch. But being alone is all that matters.
The girl calls out from the other side of the door, trying the handle. “Hey, let me in.”
“I’m fine. I just want a moment to be alone.”
She doesn’t say anything else. Her shadow disappears from beneath the doorway, and I collapse onto the edge of the bed, bracing my head between my knees and crying uncontrollably.
I don’t know how much time passes, all that registers is panic, that I’m trapped at this party. I can’t call my parents for help. Mom would freak out, that the one time she let me attend a party, placing trust in Dan and Killian to look out for me, I wind up having a panic attack. The boys would no doubt get a stern speaking to from Josh, when none of this is their fault.
I can’t call for Dan. I’ll die if he sees me like this. We’ve known each other for a little over a year now, and while I’ve been honest about my difficulties in new social situations, he’s never witnessed one of my panic attacks. He thinks I’m this amazing girl, and I can’t bear the thought of that changing.
Killian is my only option for help, if he answers his phone. He’s probably off with a girl, like Dan said, and will be too distracted to take my call.
“She went in there.” I hear the redhead’s voice beyond the door, followed by Dan thanking her. A new wave of tears falls down my cheeks and my breathing grows more frenzied.
“Ally?” Dan calls to me, knocking on the door. I try to speak with a normal voice, but my throat is too tight and nothing leaves my mouth. “I know you’re in there. Let me in.”
The next thing I know, there’s a rattling sound coming from the door handle. The lock is being picked. Light streams in as the door opens and I look up, my vision blurred from crying, but I can see enough to know how concerned Dan is.
He shuts the door, blocking out the party, and rushes to my side, kneeling in front of me. Dan strokes my hair back from my face, his eyes searching mine. “Shit. You’re having a panic attack, aren’t you?” He reaches for my purse, searching through it. “Do you have your medication with you?”
I shake my head, unable to talk, my chest heaving.
He grabs my hands and squeezes them gently. “Okay, Ally, everything is going to be all right. I’m going to take care of you, but you have to look at me and listen to what I say.”
My eyes clench shut, filled with humiliation.
“Ally, baby, look at me.”
The shock of Dan using such an affectionate nickname makes me open my eyes.
“We’re going to try a breathing exercise,” he says.
“Tried them. Never work.”
“We don’t have much else to try right now. I’m going to count to four and I want you to inhale the whole time. Can you try that for me?”
I nod and he starts counting, his voice calm and soothing. We only make it to the count of one before I need to exhale. “Can’t,” I say, wincing.
“Yes, you can. Ally, look into my eyes and focus on me. Nothing else.”
Dan begins counting again, his eyes soft and holding my gaze the entire time. I fail with the breathing again, but Dan continues encouraging me, never giving up, and slowly, I progress to inhaling over the count of two, fixated on those brown eyes and how they look at me. How he called me baby.
I make it to the count of three, focusing on the warmth of his hands spreading into me.
Four.
I think about all the times I’ve crawled into Dan’s bed and slept in his arms.
My heartbeat has significantly slowed and my breathing is steady. The left side of Dan’s lips lift into a grin and he whispers, “Amazing. You did it.”
Because of him. I’ve never achieved these results without medication.
“Tell me what caused all of this.”
I pull my hands free from his, wiping away fresh tears. “I shouldn’t have come to this party. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea. I’m not like you or any of the people here. I’m boring. I sit in my room and play the piano all day. I don’t party. I don’t have friends outside of the family. But you thrive in this setting, and it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole other side of you I don’t know about. It makes me feel pathetic.”
He looks at me incredulously, like I’ve said the most ridiculous thing. “Ally… You have no fucking clue, do you?”
“About what?”
“ You’re my person, remember? You get the real me. You’re the only person who does. I have more fun spending the night at home with you than attending a party. You’re the one person in this world that makes me feel understood. I can tell you things. Things I can’t tell others. With you, I can relax and be me without feeling like I need to perform.”
My heartbeat picks up, pounding over how special every word out of Dan’s mouth is, and that he feels that way about me . He’s so incredible and patient with me. “I feel all those things about you too. I’m sorry that you had to see me like this.”
“I like that I’ve seen this side of you. I want to know every side of you, Ally. I like taking care of you. I want to always protect you and keep you safe.” Dan reaches into his pocket and retrieves his neon deck of cards. He scans through them, stopping at the Queen of Hearts. “This belongs to you. You’re my Queen of Hearts. Never forget it.” He places her in my hand, returning the rest of the deck to his pocket.
The tears fall harder as I stare down at the card, understanding everything Dan’s words don’t say. This card, the Queen of Hearts, feels like a love confession between two people who can’t be in love. I’m not pleased about the panic attack, but in some sense, I’m glad it happened, bringing this added closeness between us.
“You’ll have an incomplete deck,” I tell him, wiping my eyes. It’s almost been a year since I gifted him these cards, and he has them on him constantly, always shuffling.
“I never play with this deck. It’s too special. Every time I shuffle it, I think of you.”
I smile, gazing down at the Queen of Hearts then back up at Dan. “I won’t ever let go of it.”