Starve

Chapter 1

Everything is too loud .

The talking in the coffee shop.

The sound of chairs scraping against the floor.

And worst of all, the thoughts that are racing and chasing each other in my head.

My fingers tap on the cheap cardboard cup in front of me. I stare down at it as if the cooling caramel latte is going to grow arms, pick up a chair, and smash it across my face. Though maybe that would be a mercy if it could distract me from the noise of pure existence around me.

How dramatic of me , I tell myself silently, my gaze flicking up to a large, round man as he drags his chair back across the floor and stumbles to his feet. I can’t tell how much of his shape is him, and how much are his clothes, but I’m willing to bet it’s a solid sixty-forty split.

If he’s this cold in a coffee shop, he should really find a better place to live than Whippoorwill Gap, Washington.

My eyes track him as he leaves, and I can’t help the small flicker of a smile at the way he literally crosses himself once he gets to the door.

Like the cold is a sentient entity dead set on tearing him limb from limb.

And maybe it is. Sometimes when I don’t put on enough layers in the winter, I definitely take the weather personally. But this isn’t winter, and he won’t make it if this is him now.

But my smile fades as the noise filters back in, and my fingers tap a bit more insistently on the cup in front of me.

I can’t do this.

The thought is abrupt and the sentiment is immediate.

Before I can really think about what I’m doing, I jump to my feet, sending my chair clattering back from the table with my jerky, too-quick movement.

Luckily, I catch it before it falls, but my stomach still clenches as it teeters on its rear legs and my fingers grip the fake wood of the backrest.

Are my hands shaking?

Yeah, they’re shaking. But I hope it’s only obvious to me, as I very carefully slide the chair back under the table where it belongs.

I know I’m putting too much time, too much care into the action.

But I can’t help it. Nor can I help the way it feels like every pair of eyes in the coffee shop are on me.

From the teenagers in the corner to the person in the drive-thru window talking away at the bored-looking barista.

It’s hard not to look at every single one of them, and impossible not to wince at each laugh, snort, and every smile I see. My brain tells me they’re all directed at me, so whenever someone leans over to say something to the person next to them, I’m convinced the quiet mutterings are about me.

Maybe I’m walking too quickly. Or perhaps my paranoia is showing on my face. They heard my chair, or they’re mocking my black fleece-lined leggings that are just a touch loose under my thick red hoodie that’s too long but so comfortable.

But I’m so close to the door, even as my heart pounds in my chest over nothing at all. I can go have this breakdown in my car, then another one in the comfort of my home instead of in the public loudness of this too-bright coffee shop.

This was a bad idea.

But lately, bad ideas are the one thing I’m good at.

“What?” Words filter through my brain, louder than the others. I stop so quickly that I stumble with my hand close to the trash by the door where I intend to throw my full, gone-cold coffee.

A young girl, maybe nineteen, stands in front of the glass door, a rag and bottle of cleaner in her hands as she looks at me. Her expression falls to confusion, and she glances down at my cup, then at me. “I just said have a good day,” she repeats calmly, slowly, like maybe I’m hard of hearing.

In reality, my brain is just too full and too busy processing everything around me to take in anything else.

“Right. Umm. Sorry. Thanks.” My voice comes out stilted and almost panicked, no matter how much I will myself to at least pretend to be okay today.

Fuck, I’m really not okay. That’s the problem, and I’ve never been a very good liar. A smile twitches on my face, though it quickly withers and dies. “Sorry,” I say again, splashing my fingers with cold coffee as I toss my drink into the trash.

“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for,” the girl promises me, pushing open the glass door for me. “But if you didn’t like that, we could totally make you something else,” she adds, probably having heard the loud thump of my cup in the trash and realizing just how full it had been.

Embarrassment surges through me, and I remember how horrified my mom was anytime I tried to throw a half full bottle of liquid into the trashcan back home. But I remind myself it’s not that uncommon. That people definitely do it all the time.

“No, it was good,” I insist quickly to reassure her. “I’m just not feeling so great.” Truthfully, I don’t think I even tried my drink. I was too busy fighting down the panic crawling up my throat and failing gloriously, given my current vibrating nerves and the blood I can hear rushing in my ears.

She says something else, but I don’t hear it enough to do more than respond with a distracted smile.

I murmur something I hope is a polite thank you, and press my hand against the cold glass of the door before slipping outside, already counting the steps between me and my unobtrusive black car in the second row of the small parking lot.

While the sidewalk is the easier option, given the icy parking lot, after three steps I realize it’s no longer a possibility for me. Not with the way my brain is telling me that all the people at the window tables are watching me, waiting for me to slip and smash my face against the concrete.

They’re judging me , I think as I see a woman frown at her phone and say something to her companion.

They’re making fun of me , my mind promises me, when a man snickers and covers his smile with his hand.

“Fern, you’re fine,” I breathe, stepping off of the sidewalk into a patch of asphalt wet from last night’s rain. “You’re fine; your brain is just being a dick. You’re used to this.” At least out here, alone in the parking lot, there’s no one around to notice my one-sided conversation.

Nevertheless, every inch of me seems hyperaware. My skin prickles, the hairs on my neck standing up, and it’s so hard not to constantly turn to look behind me, with only the threat of looking like I’m seizing and giving myself whiplash stopping me from doing so.

“No one is looking at you,” I tell myself, repeating the words my therapist had told me so many times. “You’re not that important. They’re living their lives, just like you’re living yours, Fern.”

The words feel like ash on my tongue, losing their efficacy almost immediately. Thankfully, when I slip a few steps later, I’m at my car and can easily catch myself on my door even as a soft, embarrassing yelp leaves me at my stumble.

As fast as humanly possible, I slide into the driver’s seat and close the door.

My finger hits the ignition button just as my boot jams the brake pedal, and my car whirrs to life with all the surprisingly subtle noise of a hybrid.

Admittedly, the electric side of it isn’t a sound I hear very often, given the frequency of me forgetting to plug it into the charger when I get to my house.

But today, I’m happy about the softness of the battery and the soft whirring that lets me know it’s on while I settle back against my seat and just focus on breathing.

That’s all.

In and out. Over and over, until I feel just a little bit more human.

All I have to do is get myself home. The quiet of my little home in the woods is beckoning me like a lullaby, and I know that once I get there and can decompress by myself, maybe scream into a pillow or cry in the shower, I’ll be fine.

Or at least closer to fine than I am right now.

I just need to get there first, while my brain screams danger at me like the wail of an ambulance siren.

“You can so do this.” I sigh, shifting to sit up properly.

Next comes my seatbelt, and I’m careful while I reverse out of the parking lot to make sure I don’t accidentally hit someone else’s car.

Which would be more than a little traumatizing, given my current proximity to a full-blown panic attack caused by overstimulation and poor life choices.

I really don’t need a vehicular incident added to my tally today, truth be told.

The twenty-one minute drive feels more like triple that, but somehow I finally pull onto my narrow, winding street.

In the distance, through a veritable sea of trees, I can see some bits of the Cascade Mountains.

Not for the first time, I applaud myself for buying a home so far out in the middle of nowhere so I don’t have to see another person for days if I don’t want to.

Though I guess if I were to have a slip and fall, it would take a long time for the paramedics to come get me. And my road is creepy enough as it winds through spindly trees that smarter people might turn back after claiming to see a ghost in the woods.

The thought makes me sigh when I see my neighbor’s driveway and the flapping sheets he puts up in his trees to drive home that point, to scare anyone who might come back here to bother them, or so he claims. Even though I told the eighty-year-old one-eyed lumberjack there’s very little reason for anyone to come this far back in rural Washington to fuck with him.

But what do I know?

The road narrows, becoming barely two lanes wide as my cabin-style house finally comes into view. The trees part to show my gravel driveway and the solitude I’ve been seeking ever since this panic set in.

Or what should be the start of my solitude and peace today.

But my hands grow cold when I see a shiny red car parked in my driveway. I can’t help the urge to just drive on past instead of park beside it, already a little frustrated at seeing my mom’s car.