1. The Unluckiest Man Alive #3
It’s getting harder to breathe. My whole body is overheating, bile is flooding my mouth, and a part of me is afraid that I’ll pass out from the adrenaline rush.
Come on, Harlan. You need to calm down. Everything is going to be okay.
Maybe it’s because I’m too busy juggling the disturbingly detailed possibilities of our demises to pay much mind to my surroundings, but Irelyn’s face pops up in front of me.
“Harlan? Are you okay?” Her timbre is soft, curling around me in a caress that overrides the foot traffic of panic stampeding through my weak, jelly-limbed body. If I wasn’t still lucid, I’d swear I was hallucinating an angel.
“Clau…claustrophobic,” I eke out, throwing my head back against the wall, my jaw clenched so tightly that I’m afraid I’ll dislocate it in one wrong move. I try to leech the cold out from the metal holding me upright, but it’s not enough to rival the wildfire barreling through my bloodstream.
Irelyn—crouched down—cups the side of my face in her hand, her forest eyes large and imploring. My very own snippet of paradise, rife with alternating shades of green and plumes of fibrous texture that nature wishes it could replicate.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. We’re going to get out of here. The fire department is only five minutes away.”
I claw helplessly at my heaving chest, and although her steadfast visage should mollify me, it doesn’t. All I can think about are the walls closing in on us.
I’m surprised I manage to vocalize any words given how my throat is hell-bent on collapsing in on itself. “Hurts…to breathe.”
Irelyn retracts her hand and runs it through her hair. “Fuck, I think you’re having a panic attack. Okay. Just—just breathe. In for eight, and out for four. You’re safe. You’re okay. Breathe with me.”
She demonstrates a sequence of grounding, measured breaths—waiting for me to mirror her—and shakily, I attempt to inhale and inflate my lungs.
My diaphragm expands with air, but the invisible weight on my chest refuses to fall to the wayside.
The breaths I take are shallow, unproductive, and a new strain of terror takes root, closing my senses off to any instruction that she’s actively trying to give me.
I don’t hear her voice anymore. I don’t feel her touch. I don’t smell her perfume. I see her, though she’s the equivalent of a blurry mirage.
I can’t steel myself. There are too many stimuli overriding the natural order of things, and the bridge between my brain and body has suffered an irreparable hairline fracture.
I’m going to die surrounded by anal beads and butt plugs.
Used anal beads and butt plugs. I need to have more dignity than that.
I can feel wetness crest behind my burning eyes, but the tears never fall before something exacts a tender pressure over my mouth, reeling me back to the present and yanking me up from the serrated-edged chasm I was subconsciously hovering over.
Irelyn is kissing me right now, the lingering taste of mint fluttering over my tongue. Her lips are softer than I ever could’ve imagined, and she doesn’t ask for more than she’s given. She waits for me to reciprocate—to show any sign of authority—and I return the pressure with ease.
Unfortunately, my high doesn’t last long when I rip free from my trance, which also rips me away from her glorious mouth.
My heartbeat is thundering so loudly that I’m afraid she can hear it. The slipstream of apprehension wreaking havoc in my psyche ebbs upon the realization that I, Harlan Beaumont, just had a kiss with the girl who is (hopefully) going to be my future wife someday.
Everything slows, but not in a way that wilts time—in a way that preserves this exact moment in the hub of my memories.
“You just kissed me,” I say, blinking rapidly, my mouth still slightly parted.
I yearn for the phantom feel of her lips on mine again, and the section of my hindbrain responsible for harboring fear conjures up a scenario worse than death by elevator—never getting to kiss her again.
Guilt occupies her face, wrinkling her perfectly penciled brows. “I saw it happen in a movie once. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you for your consent, but you weren’t…you weren’t responsive. I didn’t know what else to do.”
You did the right thing, I want to tell her, yet my cognizance is accompanied by its usual self-conscious partner in crime.
“I—”
My attempt at starting a conversation is severed by the frantic footfalls of the fire department careening toward us, and a sliver of light shines through the crack in the doors.
“Is everyone okay?” a male voice asks.
Irelyn jumps to her feet. “Yes! Please—please just get us out of here.”
A crescendo of voices overlaps each other in the otherwise quiet self-storage facility, and before I can thank Irelyn for saving my life, the partitions are widening into a river large enough for us to fit through. She’s the first one to get hauled to the other side.
And while I’m waiting for my own retrieval to begin, life doesn’t seem as scary as it was when I first undertook this whole mission.
Irelyn St. Clair kissed me. And I kissed her back.