Eighteen #2
“Oliver, are you even listening to me?” I blink a few times to bring my father into focus.
I look him up and down again, the furrow in my brows growing as I evaluate him.
Before I open my mouth to speak, not even knowing what to say, his phone rings.
The Caller ID for the hospital lights up the screen.
Is this really where I want to be in thirty years?
If not, what the hell am I doing right now?
*
I forgot how overstimulating my family can be after having been away for so long. I don’t know what to make of the day I just had, but as I open the door to my apartment, I know one thing: I need to sit down.
I stumble into the living room, cursing this stressful day.
As if seeing my family wasn’t stressful enough, being trapped on the train always gets to me.
Driving there would have been so much more difficult, but at least I wouldn’t have had to go under the East River in a metal tube.
The tunnels don’t make sense to me. How do they build them?
How are they not the eighth wonder of the world?
To make matters worse, it started torrentially raining on my walk home from the train station, so my socks are soaked in my shoes.
After my father left for the hospital, my cousins proceeded to scream—what I call “screaming” is their normal speaking volume—at each other for the entire dinner.
Between the heat blasting at 78 degrees and the overworked oven, it was sweltering in there.
I could barely eat anything. I was too busy discreetly wiping my head with my napkin and trying to zone out from my cousins’ banter.
What must it be like to look forward to spending time with your family?
I sit down on the bed of the treadmill, my knees almost reaching my shoulders.
I don’t know why this is the spot I chose, but it’ll have to do for right now.
I wish I could get up and wash my face, but I can’t seem to find the wire in my brain that connects to my legs and tells them to move.
I haven’t had a panic attack in so long, I almost forgot what it felt like. But I could never really forget this.
I rub my hands up and down on my cheeks until the stubble turns my hands red.
I try to inhale deeply, and my exhale comes out shakily.
This is panic, I tell myself. In a minute I’ll get up and take a shower, and I’ll feel better.
These and other mantras are the strategies therapists have given me over the years, and in theory, they’re a good idea.
But in the moment, when your body feels like the slightest touch could make you explode, they really do jack shit.
My legs still won’t move.
I try to remember more of the exercises the therapist I went to a few years ago taught me, but I’m coming up blank.
Again, the strategies are great when you hear them, but when panic wants to take you over, then that’s exactly what it does.
Panic has the power to freeze every muscle in your body, every neuron in your brain.
It’s the invisible enemy that no one talks about, but whose power is all-consuming.
Inhale, I hear Elle’s voice say. My memory takes me back to the yoga class, when her hand was on my chest, her fingers laced with mine.
“I’m sorry I ran out of treats, but we’re going to find some, I promise,” a muffled voice says in the distance. My mind doesn’t fully register it, because I can still hear Elle’s voice commanding me. Exhale all the air out.
“Oliver?” Her voice sounds closer now, not as muffled as it did in the memory.
My eyes flutter open and I see Thor bounding towards me, licking my face as soon as he reaches me.
He shakes in front of me, flicking me with water.
They must have been outside too. I hear Elle’s footsteps close behind him.
“Oliver? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I try to meet her gaze, but my vision is blurry, and she won’t come into focus.
I can feel her hands on my arms, like coal branding my skin.
“I’m having a… panic attack,” I mumble, my voice shaking.
“Okay, okay,” Elle’s voice sounds rushed, the complete opposite of the voice in my memory. “Just breathe,” I hear her say as she moves away from me. I can feel the imprint that her hands left behind.
She returns seconds later and takes my hands. I close my eyes again, breathing deeply. “Hold this,” she says, placing something cold in my hand. The sensation shocks me, and my eyes fly open.
“Wh—Why?” I stutter. She closes my hands around an ice cube and lifts them to my heart.
“I actually have no idea, but apparently it’s supposed to help,” she says.
“Well it’s just fucking cold, so I don’t know what it’s doing for me.”
“You’re not shaking anymore, so that’s progress.”
I lean my head against my knees, trying to slow my breathing. Elle is running her fingers through my hair, her nails gently massaging my scalp. Her other hand is holding my shoulder and it is so steadying, so sure, that I feel like if she lets go, I’ll fall over.
“Tell me something you feel,” she commands.
“The cold ice cube you just gave me, dummy,” I reply.
She flicks my shoulder. “Something else.”
“Your hands. They’re warm.”
“Now tell me something you hear,” she says, putting her hand back on my shoulder. She kneads circles into my muscle and my breath hitches.
“Thor licking himself,” I mutter. Elle snorts and I can’t help but smile. “I know this trick,” I add, calling her out.
“Yeah, well, it’s working, isn’t it?” she says, her fingers finding the side of my face.
I let my head lean to the side and inhale sharply when she cups my cheek in her palm.
My eyes open and I’m greeted with her brilliant brown ones, so close to me our foreheads could touch.
She’s kneeling down on the floor in front of me, holding me.
Her hair is wet, her cheeks flushed. She gently takes the hand away that was stroking my hair.
“Tell me something you see,” she whispers, her gaze flicking back and forth between my eyes and my mouth.
“The gold outline around the brown in your eyes,” I whisper shakily, the lids of my eyes drooping as our eyes meet. Elle’s hand lands on my forearm, and I’m transfixed by the way she grips it. I can’t stop looking at her. Every stitch of panic is gone from my body, but I’m still frozen.
I lean my head close to hers and drop my gaze to her mouth, and once I see her take a small breath between her small pink lips, the energy shifts between us. Our eyes don’t move for a while, but it’s Elle who finally breaks our gaze.
She looks down for a moment, and then jumps backwards as Thor barks loudly behind us.
Elle tumbles backwards from her kneeling position, and Thor abandons his post at the window, where I’m sure a pigeon was threatening our safety and demanding to be barked at.
Thor clearly thinks Elle is playing with him by the way he gallops over to her and puts his front two paws on her chest. She giggles as Thor licks her face and starts digging in her hair.
When she sits up, I see that her face is red from laughing, and I let out a nervous laugh, shaking my head at the situation. This day has really gone off the rails.