33. Deacon
Chapter thirty-three
Deacon
When I had my first panic attack, it was right after Dominic passed away. My entire world shattered in a five-minute phone call. I couldn’t even remember if it was a five-minute phone call. I spent most of it on the floor, begging everything around me—the couch, the floor, the ceiling, every door I tried not to run into—asking something or someone to explain why this was happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen to my family.
Certain traumas left scars that stuck with us no matter what we did with them. The reminders faded, but the marks they left would always be there.
When I lost Dominic, it felt like someone ripped a piece of my heart out of my chest. How could I live in a world where part of me was missing? I didn’t know how to continue or how to help my parents. There were moments when I caught myself having a good time or laughing too hard. How could I find joy in a world where my younger brother didn’t exist?
Every moment I wasn’t thinking about him was a moment I allowed myself to forget. Nerves and anxiety always followed the good times and laughter. A physical and mental panic would set in, and the only way to fix it was to find peace in solitude.
When I was alone, I felt closest to Dominic. I looked up to the sky and felt like he was with me. That was hard to do in a room full of people who had the freedom to think of much less complicated things. Everyone had things . I never downplayed anyone’s personal life or the struggles that they went through, but I lacked sympathy for problems that had easy solutions. My problem didn’t have a solution. The person I lost wasn’t coming back.
The world continued to spin for everyone outside my family, and sometimes, I wondered if mine was still at a halt.
On nights I couldn’t sleep, my mind flooded with the memories I wished would subside. I remembered the phone call, the hospital, the service, and all of the friends and family who couldn’t find the words because there were none. An entire week of events was burned into my memory so vividly, and I fucking hated how well I could recall something that still didn’t feel real.
After months of rotating heavy sleep medication and melatonin, I enrolled in therapy. My entire life, I had planned out milestones and figured out problems. Losing Dominic was something I couldn’t solve on my own. I couldn’t figure it out or put a plan in motion to move forward.
As more time passed, I learned it was easy to confuse moving forward with moving on. Moving forward meant bringing the important parts with you, while moving on meant you left it behind. I was still trying to find a way to chisel off the hurt and the heartbreak. It wasn’t in my plans to grieve my brother, but I’d never move on from him. I’d move forward and take Dominic with me, living with him instead of without him.
I dragged my hands down my face, irritated that it was three in the morning and I was still awake. Once I parted ways with Lyla, I texted back and forth with her to ensure she was okay. The last thing I wanted was to be the guy in the background, so when she told me she was about to start a movie, I didn’t text back. As long as she said she was okay, I’d do my best not to worry about her. Lyla could handle herself. It wasn’t her fault I had a habit of overthinking about the people I cared about.
I heard Nathan and Andre stumble in around two. Because I still wanted to try and get some sleep, I stayed in my room instead of engaging in their argument over soft tacos. I laughed every time Nathan’s obnoxious cackle rang throughout the apartment, and finally, thirty minutes later, it was quiet again.
It was just me and my thoughts. Joy.
It was tempting to take my morning jog now instead of waking up in a few hours. I weighed the pros and cons and finally caved to my burst of energy. After I reunited with my usual running route, maybe I’d finally be able to get some sleep. Plus, my therapist always suggested exercise to work through anxiety. So instead of being the crazy guy running at two-forty five in the morning, I’d be an invested patient following doctor’s orders. Yes, that sounded much better.
An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach as I slipped on some gray sweatpants and a hoodie. It felt like something was missing, or I overlooked something I was supposed to do. I rifled through the papers on my desk in case I forgot an assignment. I checked my phone for missed calls or texts. Nothing was jumping out, so I shrugged off the feeling as part of the anxiety and shut my bedroom door on the way out.
Since it was still the middle of the night, I took my key so I could lock the front door. I stepped out into the hall, and the uneasy feeling in my stomach grew. When I saw her tear-stained cheeks, I dropped to my knees in front of her, and my heart hit the fucking floor. “Lyla?”
“I’m s-sorry,” she managed through a shaky breath. She cleared her throat to steady herself. “I just needed to stop for a minute on my way home. I’m not staying—”
“Your way home.” I cupped her chin and examined the same emotionless expression she wore at The Attic. “Lyla, what happened?”
“I just wanted to leave.” Her eyes met mine. “But when I started hyperventilating, I ended up here.”
My inability to know that Lyla needed me outweighed my instinct to question why she didn’t call. I was worried that there was a reason she left in the first place.
“Wanted to leave,” I repeated calmly, and then my voice grew louder as images flashed through my head. “As in, that guy wouldn’t let you leave?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
I pulled her against my chest and took exaggerated deep breaths. “Breathe, Brooks.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she wrapped her arms around my waist. I stood up and guided her into my apartment. Andre and Nathan returned from the bars about forty-five minutes ago. How long had she been sitting outside in the hall?
Lyla sat on my bed, and as I placed my key back on my dresser, I recognized the look on her face. She was playing back a memory.
“I’m glad you came here,” I said, lightly grazing her hand.
“I shouldn’t have,” she muttered. “This isn’t your problem. Whatever this is.”
I knew what this was. Whatever she’d kept bottled up inside was threatening to spill over. It was easy to lash out at people when you were on the verge of exploding. I spent the last two years doing the same thing. Lyla had already walked to one place by herself in the middle of the night. She wasn’t doing it a second time.
“Relax here for a moment, and I can walk you home,” I offered.
“Didn’t you just hear me say this isn’t your problem?” she snapped, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
I reached for her hand before she could get any further. “Then talk to me, Lyla. Please?”
She stared down at my hand, and I released my grip.
“You can tell me as much or as little as you want,” I prompted gently. “Whatever you’re carrying—it will never be a problem to me, Lyla. I want you to know that.”
“Nothing even happened, so there’s nothing to tell. It’s stupid. It’s stupid that something like this gets to me when there are people like you who—” She looked away and covered her mouth with her hand. I wouldn’t force her to stay and talk to me if she didn’t want to, but I felt helpless. There was nothing worse than watching someone you cared about endure pain you couldn’t take away.
I pulled her to my chest again, letting her decide where to go from there. If she needed to lean on me, I’d stand. If she needed to cry, I’d hold onto her until she wanted me to let go. If she wanted to talk, I’d listen for as long as she needed me to. I trusted Lyla with a piece of me I was still trying to mend, and I wanted her to know she could do the same.
“I promise you that whatever it is, it’s not stupid,” I assured her.
“You lost someone.” She pulled away, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “You’re one of the best people I know, and I hate how you and your family had to go through that. It just makes everything else seem so small, you know? I can’t get past something that shouldn’t even be anything while you carry the weight of the world every fucking day.”
I felt the familiar sting behind my eyes. It flooded me with questions I often asked to whatever power was in charge of it all. What about me presented so strongly that I seemed equipped to handle losing a sibling? Why did so many others get a second chance when Dominic didn’t? Why did it matter if you were good or bad in this world if life took what it wanted anyway?
“Sit down,” I suggested softly.
Lyla settled into her usual spot, pulling her knees to her chest. I sat beside her, and it felt good to have the blankets stolen from my side of the bed again.
I took a deep breath and dragged my hands down my face. “I don’t know why things happen like they do, Brooks. My entire life, I’ve figured things out on my own.” I shook my head and rested my hand on her knee. “I can’t figure out why this happened, but what happened to me doesn’t discredit anything you’ve gone through, whether you think it’s nothing or not.”
She squeezed my hand, and the corner of her mouth curved into a slight smile. “Time, right?”
“Time.” I mimicked her expression. “And having people you trust to listen helps too.”
“It really is stupid,” she whispered as her green eyes became glossy.
“Nothing you could tell me is stupid. Try me.”
Lyla exhaled and rested her head against the headboard. “I told you I had a boyfriend in high school.” I nodded, and she continued, “His name was Hunter, and he was one of those guys who was liked by everyone. He was sweet and smart. It was a small town, and people knew Hunter was going places. He'd come out of line and kiss me right before he’d run onto the field before games. The coaches hated it, but he was the starting quarterback. They would never punish him, and he knew that.” She let out a laugh that was devoid of any humor. “Everyone loved watching him fall in love with the girlfriend who supported him from the sidelines.”
She looked at me, and her eyes narrowed. “Do you ever look back on something and wonder how that was even you in the memory?”
A small snippet of the day Dominic passed away flashed through my head. Sometimes it didn’t seem real.
I ran my thumb along her fingers. “All the time.”
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “It was one night, and every time I think about it, nothing happened. He was my boyfriend, and I was his girlfriend, and I didn’t tell him no. We’d done it plenty of times before, but this time, I thought I made it obvious I didn’t want to. He passed out before anything happened, but if we never had sex, why did it feel so—”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, a few tears rolled down her cheeks. She drew in a shaky breath and pulled her hand from mine. “It’s like we were two different people. He was drunk, and it didn’t matter who I was. I broke up with him two days later, and when I told my best friend Anna about it, she made me feel like an idiot.” She shook her head, disgusted at the memory. “She asked me why I was making a big deal about my boyfriend wanting to have sex with me.”
The thought of Lyla feeling invalidated by someone she should’ve been able to trust caused a crack to form down the middle of my chest. I pushed aside my hatred for a girl I didn’t know and waited for Lyla to continue .
“Hunter and Anna made me question everything about myself. That night comes back to me every time I try to stay somewhere, and I just can’t do it. Suddenly, I’m back in that room, and I have to leave before something happens. You probably think I’m insane—”
“Lyla.” I cupped her face, prompting her to look at me. I grazed her cheek with my thumb, and she relaxed into my touch. I knew how painful it could be to relive a memory, and I couldn’t imagine hiding that memory because I was nervous to trust someone with it.
“I get so worked up about a night where nothing even happened,” she whispered.
It didn’t matter how often she said it out loud to try and make sense of it. High school wasn’t a stepping stone for a guy to realize he shouldn’t make assumptions and for a girl to learn she should say no next time.
“Someone you trusted made you feel like you had no control over a situation, and that can be scary ,” I said, weighing my next words carefully. “Silence doesn’t mean consent, and just because he passed out doesn’t mean it was nothing . It wasn’t nothing , Lyla.”
Lyla leaned into my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her tiny frame.
“It wasn’t nothing, sweetheart,” I murmured. “And I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
Pieces of our conversations floated around in my head, and parts of Lyla’s past began to fit together. Her first and only relationship was the reason she moved before her senior year of high school. The first guy she trusted was the reason she didn’t get attached.
Lyla peered up at me with tired eyes and a soft expression. “You know what’s crazy? ”
I leaned back against the headboard, pulling her with me. “What?”
Lyla let out a sniffly laugh, and the emotional shift threw me off. “I’m pretty sure you’re my best friend.”
I chuckled, and the contagious light behind her eyes returned. “You mean I didn’t mention that in my fake boyfriend pitch? I should’ve warned you that you might actually like me.”
“Nope. Totally left that out.”
I kissed the top of her head and settled into the mattress. “Thank you for telling me. I know it isn’t easy, trusting someone with chapters from your past.”
“It’s been five years since I tried talking about it with someone,” she admitted.
“Anna?”
Lyla sat up. “Yup. She’s the only person I’ve told, and she’s dating Hunter now, so it really just adds a layer to the bin of high school memories.”
My eyebrows shot to the top of my forehead. “What! Your best frie—” My voice trailed off, and I shook my head. “Fuck, Brooks. I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. Her best friend, her boyfriend, her dad—this girl continued to be disappointed by people.
“Believe it or not, I am trying ,” Lyla said with a small smile. “I’m trying to move forward, but it’s hard. I changed high schools, left the small town, and went to college. I just want to start over. Keeping people at a distance is an easy way to make sure things happen my way.”
“You know I’m always here for you, right?” I eyed her playfully and smirked. “You kind of sort of might be my best friend too.”
She winced. “This is getting too rom-com for me. ”
“I was waiting for you to realize that. Do you want me to walk you home? Or you can stay here if you want. It’s totally up to you.”
Lyla stretched, letting out an exaggerated yawn. “You don’t mind sharing your bed? I know it must be nice to have it to yourself again.”
I fell back against my pillow and got under the blankets. “You’re always welcome in my bed, Brooks.”
She reached behind her to turn off the light. “That’s some cute boyfriend-girlfriend shit.”
I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it into the closet. Lyla settled in closer and rested her head in the crook of my arm.
When I was with Cassie, I tried my best to seem okay. I could never be tense or guarded or come across as stressed or bothered by something I wasn’t telling her. It made her feel awkward. She’d prompt me to talk to her, and then somehow, I’d end up comforting her. Eventually, I just accepted that she was more interested in me accommodating her feelings instead of trying to figure out my own. It was like trying to breathe in a closed-off room. I didn’t realize how much I was struggling until Cassie cracked a window and forced me to leave.
Lyla never made me feel like I had to push something away because it would make her feel uncomfortable. I waited until she fell asleep first, and about two minutes later, I was right behind her. The pressure in my chest was gone, and the chaos in my head finally stopped. It felt nice to come up for fresh air again.