Falling
I have no air in my lungs. “What did you just say?”
Theresa Lee gives me another pitying glance, then hands me a thick green file folder.
I fight down a stab of nausea and lean back into the sofa.
I should get up and walk out right now, as Trey urged earlier, but the kids are upstairs, and I honestly don’t know if my feet can manage the climb.
I’m tingling, like fire ants have crawled up my legs and arms, that horrid numbness, the sensation of being in one position for too long.
It’s not my body, though—it’s my life. I’ve been sitting still, domesticated, and my husband has created a facade of existence for us all.
A kaleidoscope of emotions courses through me. My heart begins a restless pounding. My breath comes short. My vision pinpoints.
I do not want this file. I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to see another world, another reality. I just want my life back. I want to rewind to yesterday, before Trey dropped his bomb of a surprise in my lap. Before he turned into a stranger.
That’s it. I am not required to participate in this conversation.
My legs finally have feeling again, and I use them.
I drop the file and burst out of the front door onto the porch.
My instinct is to run—hard, fast. To get on a plane and disappear.
To exit this particular world and find myself a new one, like I used to do.
Panic clogs my throat, that jittery anxiety kicking up again.
My pulse is roaring in my ears. I can’t see.
The night is all-consuming, shadows with jagged teeth slinking around my body.
I feel them caressing me, winding sinuously.
I know, without hope or reservation, that I am going to die.
There is no breath, no sight, no resonance with the air, just my heart pumping like I’m sprinting the last two-tenths of the twenty-sixth mile. I have lost myself. The adrenaline has overcome me, and I’m suffocating. Drowning. I scream silently, everything inside me breaking apart.
And in the scream, I think of air. Of skies. Of clouds. Of rain. Of fields. Of forests. Of dust. Of death. Of life.
Life.
Kisses. Sensations.
A heartbeat. Another. Not my own. My children’s.
Two tiny pulsations resonate, keeping time with my own, and I drag in a breath, expecting the simple action to hurt, shocked when it doesn’t. I have to breathe again for them. They lived inside me. They need me now. I can’t leave them behind.
The gasp of air fills me, almost like coming to the surface of a deep lake after being held underwater. I breathe hard, panting, infusing my body with oxygen.
The panic attack is receding. I can think rationally again.
A car swings onto the street, its high beams on.
I realize I’m standing on the side of the road.
Eden’s house is behind me. The two women, Eden and Detective Lee, stand in the glowing yellow doorway, mouths open, hands up, reaching for me, and the car is screeching to a halt, but slides on what must be black ice and goes sideways before straightening out again.
A fraction of a second more . . . I congratulate myself on stopping in time. My God, if I had given in, run one more step, that car would have hit me.
I turn, and something gives. My ankle buckles. The whole world tilts on its axis.
Shrill yells, skidding tires, the horn . . . Impact.
Light in my eyes.
Sharp pinch on the inside of my elbow.
Cold air hissing up my nose.
“Does this hurt?” “This?” “This?”
Hands, everywhere.
Darkness.