“I’m okay. This happens sometimes.”
“How often?” he asked, still studying her face.
“It hasn’t been this bad in a long time. I’m usually good at hiding it. I’m always hiding it,” she said weakly, her eyes fluttering closed. “It’s crowds. They … overwhelm me … a bit.” She tried to give him a sad smile.
He groaned and dropped his forehead to her knees.
“Harper, I’m so sorry. I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me. I had no idea it’d be like this.” He let out a rattling breath.
Harper’s fingers threaded into his hair, enjoying the way the chocolate waves slipped between them.
“How could you know something I didn’t tell you,” she said, twirling a lock around her pinky. “I thought I could manage—I thought maybe I could pretend that it happens to someone else, not me…” she trailed off, knowing it would always be her.
Living with that chronic panic in her chest, that constant thrum of anxiety, sometimes made her forget how much worse it could be. But this would always, always be her. A mortifying, uncontrolled mess.
Her hands moved to his jaw, pressing his chin up so he’d look at her. She wanted Dan to see her. He obliged, his green eyes locking on her, his large hands tracing soothing circles up and down her thighs.
Every wall she’d ever built lay in a crumbled heap around them, and Harper was too exhausted to start rebuilding tonight. For once, she didn’t want to guard her words and pluck them carefully from her mind. Harper wanted Dan to know.
“It started when I was twelve,” she told him, cupping his cheeks. “The claustrophobia, I mean. My anxiousness … well, that’s always been there. But I was in a car accident. My mom was driving.”
Harper stared at him, scared that if she looked away, she’d be back in the passenger seat, looking at her mom.
“It was November. I remember it being so dark. I think it was icy—isn’t that always the case? No one’s ever told me it was icy, but my mind has always locked on to that idea … made it the unequivocal truth.” Harper cleared her throat.
“My mom was my whole world—whose mom isn’t at that age?” she continued, her voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “But what I had with her always felt special … even when I had her, I knew what we had was special. I’m glad I’ll always know that.” Harper’s throat started to burn, and she blinked through the tears pricking at her eyes.
“She raised me herself. I never knew my dad, and I never really cared. Things weren’t perfect—she was a single mom, I was an anxious kid, it never felt like there was enough money, enough security—but things were … happy.” A hot tear slid from the corner of her eye as her mother’s radiant smile beamed in her memory.
“The night we got into the accident … I’ve always thought it was strange, but all I remember are the lights. I don’t remember the sound or the feeling of the impact, just these blinding lights, spinning and circling. The car flipped, I guess. I didn’t realize that at the time. All I knew was that I was suddenly so … so trapped. I couldn’t move my arms, my legs. Everything was dark and I was stuck and I thought I would never be free again. I started to freak out and panic and just—I couldn’t even scream. It was like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. It was so quiet, so still. I thought maybe I was dead. Dead and alone.”
Dan stared at her, tense and still. She picked up one of his hands that was resting on her thighs and held it in both of hers, tracing his long fingers.
“But then the silence broke. It was the most overwhelming chaos you could imagine. People were shouting and screaming and there were these bright lights that felt like they were burning me. Then these hands started grabbing and pulling at me. It felt like all those hands would rip me apart.”
She took a deep breath, trying to remember it without feeling it. Why did she always have to keep feeling it?
“All I wanted was my mom, but instead I got this huge crush of people. In reality, it was probably only a few medics, but at the time it was so much.
“They put me in an ambulance, and even that felt too small and suffocating. All I wanted was my mom. I didn’t know where she was or where I was or what was happening. But I needed her so badly. I screamed and thrashed to the point that they eventually strapped me down. It was—” Harper shuddered, swallowing down painful sobs that wanted to rip from her chest.