There was a ding and a buzz as a text message came in. David didn’t reach for the phone in his pocket, but Stevie could feel it against her hip. It buzzed again, like a persistent bee.
“Do you want to get that?” she said.
Another buzz.
The moment had passed.
“Is that Izzy?” Stevie asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”
“You hang out a lot,” she said, stepping away from his chest and back.
“Well, yeah. What about it?”
“I didn’t say anything about it,” Stevie replied.
“You kind of did, because you mentioned it.”
Stevie could see clearly that this was going badly, and it was happening fast. Time to turn it around. Laugh it off. Convert this conversation into something else. A joke. A moment. But David was looking down at her with that slight tilt of the eyebrow that meant he was engaged, and that slight tilt of the eyebrow made him more attractive to her and annoyed her in the same moment. Which meant that there was something in this, and no, she would not be able to let it go. It was a loose tooth that demanded wiggling. A hole in the fabric that required picking and expanding.
No. Make the conversation stop.
“That’s all it was. I was just saying.”
Her tone was too flat. She invited combat.
“She’s in my tutorial,” he said. “It’s just me and Izzy and this guy Graham who keeps loose cheese in his pocket and we think is an online predator, so Izzy and I kind of stick together. I live here right now. There are people here . . .”
“Obviously there are people here. They are people everywhere. I didn’t mean . . .”
“You did mean. You need to trust me. Do you think that I can’t control myself or something? Like I’m not serious about you? What have I done to make you feel like that? Because I’ve kind of worked hard to stop being fuckup David and be this new one? Also, fuckup David felt the same way about you too and never cheated. I just failed more classes and hung out on the roof more.”
“Forget it. Okay?”
“I’m actually trying.”
“So . . .”
David took a beat and nodded. This happened to them sometimes. They went to a hundred. In fact, her pulse was quickening, beyond the point of happy excitement and into the territory of fear. It made her neck throb and electric shocks run down her arms.
“Oh shit,” she said.
“What?”
Not now. Not here. Not this.
But that’s the thing about an anxiety attack. It shows up when it likes. It barges into the situation and takes over. The world warps.
“Stevie?”
She didn’t know what to ask him to do. She fumbled for her bag, yanking the zipper open and feeling around for the key chain that held her emergency anxiety medication.
“Are you sick?”
She shook her head.
“Anxiety attack,” she said as her fingers found the small container. She unscrewed it, removed the pill, and swallowed it dry.
“Okay,” he said, scooping his arm around her, giving her support. “No problem. Walk with me a little. Breathe that stanky air. Smell it? That’s cold, nasty river water.”
She was a useless piece of human furniture, confused, tucked under his arm. Were other people looking at them? What did they make of her? They were in the other world, the one that made sense.
“Just take it easy,” David was saying, close to her ear. “Breathe nice and slow.”
As if it was that easy. But she tried. She knew it worked. She knew it would end, and all the things that had fallen over would be put back in place, and the world would reassemble itself. She had been through this many times—not usually in public, though. This tended to happen more before bed or when she was asleep, when she could break apart in private, climb under the sheets, rest on the floor, pace from familiar wall to familiar wall. This was London, dark and bright and loud and strange, and there was only David to cling to in this moment.
He was her only guidepost as they walked back to the Tube and made their way through the clamor and bright lights of the station. On the train, she had to turn and put her face into his shoulder because the view out the window was too much—the whoosh through the tunnel, the bright subway ads flashing by, taunting her with offers for travel insurance, human-sized pictures of chocolate bars, better phone rates . . . all the flotsam and jetsam of life. Numbers and houses and futures and food. Why did all this stuff have to fly into her face? Who needed it all? Why go this fast?
“Breathe,” David was saying.
“I’m breathing,” she mumbled.
She was breathing. In and out. That was one for the win column. She was breathing. Her therapist had told her this was the thing to grab on to. You are breathing. You are okay. Grab hold of your breath. Make the exhales longer than the inhales. That was all she had to do. In for four. Hold for five. Out for six. Her own warm breath cocooned her against his coat. It was a blanket, something she could grab with her hand and understand. She had her own breath and a handful of coat and she was going to take those two things and put the planet back together with them.
This was how they got back to Craven House.
By the time they arrived, the medicine was starting to take effect. Things were still racing, but they were slowing down. She pressed close to David, but her knees were more stable, her gait more regular. The lights didn’t strobe at her quite so much. She was almost able to enjoy the moment, her body against David’s, the way he held her.
He said nothing as he helped her into the elevator, then down the hall. Nate’s door was open, and he looked up as David came in with a stunned-looking Stevie.
“What’s going on?” Nate asked.
“No big deal,” David said, taking the key that Stevie was fumbling with and helping her open the door.
“Are you drunk?”
Stevie shook her head heavily and stepped into the half-lit room. The medicine she’d taken would knock her out soon enough. She shrugged off her coat and let it fall to the floor, then climbed into the bed, the plasticky mattress squeaking as she huddled under the duvet. Her thoughts kaleidoscoped in her mind’s eye—the streets of London, the view of the bridge, the socioeconomic realities of 1880s London and the taste of garlic on David’s lips, Izzy and her aunt and the lock on the door, her stubbornness. David’s face. His long, angular face. The softness of his coat and the warmth of his breath. It all blended together and rode along the tracks made by the ambient light coming through the blinds and slicing up the wall. And then, the full effect of the medication kicked in, and everything faded out.
EXCERPT FROM THE WITNESS STATEMENT OF SUZANNA RILLINGTON
24 June 1995
Q: If you could take us through the night, please, starting with this game you were all playing. Where did you go when the game started?
A: I went outside through the back, out the mudroom door. The gardens here are vast. I thought the back garden was a good place to start. There’s a yew maze back there.
Q: Did anyone go that way with you?
A: Julian did, but we went separate ways once we got out.
Q: Where did you go?
A: I ran around the back garden for a few minutes, but I couldn’t find anywhere that seemed suitable to hide. I ended up in the walled garden on the north side of the house. It has an edge of shrubbery lining the inside. I wedged my way in there.