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Inhale. Exhale. He goes slowly, waiting for me to catch up.
“That’s it. You’re doing great.”
A strangled laugh slips out, because I never thought breathing was something I could be good at until I suddenly couldn’t do it at all.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when my breathing returns to normal and I can finally open my eyes. At some point, I grabbed his sleeve. I hope I wasn’t holding on too tight.
“Thank you,” I rasp out as I release my grip. My eyes are wet, but I am here, in Stanley Park. I am here with Miles. “How—how did you know what to do?”
He turns a little sheepish. “I, um, looked it up. That day in the ice-cream truck. It seemed like maybe you were about to have a panic attack, so after I got back to my room, I did some research. I wanted to make sure I’d know what to do in case it happened again.”
He did some research.
Of course he did, and in this moment I’m immensely grateful.
“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on,” he says. Gentle. How is he always so gentle in these moments I feel made of glass? “Unless you want to.”
I press a hand to my forehead, brushing away sweat-damp hair. “I—I don’t know. It’s stupid. Really.”
“Somehow, I get the feeling that it isn’t.” His hand is on my back again, hypnotic, easing some of the lingering tension. “Whatever you’re going through, whether it’s loop-related, or about something else entirely… I’m a good listener, or at least I like to think so.”
I let this sit between us for a moment. He’s not pushing me to talk if I don’t want to. And I can’t deny that I’ve wondered if this is something I need to do in order to move on from it. To become someone different from that girl I was in high school, and maybe even to become the person I thought I’d be in college. Or at the very least, someone in between.
I want to know about you, too, he said the other day, and I might want to tell him.
Because maybe I don’t need a push. Maybe all I need is a gentle tap. A featherlight touch. A good listener.
I take a few shuddery breaths. It feels impossible to tell him when I haven’t told my own mother, and yet, despite all the reasons they shouldn’t, the words start spilling out.
“I told you about the tennis scandal, and how it kind of turned the school against me. Not just Lucie—everyone, or at least what felt like everyone. I guess I’ve always been an odd duck, but it got worse after that.” I stare down at the blanket’s strawberry pattern, debating how much I want to share. Then again, he hasn’t exactly left anything unturned for me. With another exhale, I keep going. “The only thing I could do was pretend it didn’t bother me. Develop an even thicker skin. So that’s what I did for the next three years.”
I chance a look at Miles. He tenses, as though he wants to say something. But he can sense I’m not done.
“By senior year, things started to feel okay. I kept to myself, but no one was whispering about me or going out of their way to avoid me. Most people had graduated and moved on by that point, but I was used to shutting everyone out, so I just kept doing it. But then… I got asked to prom.”
I expect the words to dry up in my throat at this point, but they don’t. I make a fist in the blanket, anchoring myself to the present, as I keep going. “Do you remember that guy who showed up when we had the ice-cream truck? The one I told you was from school? That was who asked me,” I say, and a muscle in Miles’s jaw leaps. I try to turn the mood lighthearted. “It’s like the scene in every teen movie where the cool guy invites the tragic girl with glasses to prom, and suddenly she takes off her glasses and she’s gorgeous.”
“I like your glasses. They suit you,” he says, and my face warms at the compliment. Though it’s not exactly a compliment—it’s not as though he’s saying he likes my eyes or my hair or my mouth.
“Remember when I said my first time was, um, brief?”
Miles blushes at this too, no longer making eye contact. “It was on prom night?”
I nod, gripping the blanket tighter. “It was my first everything, all at once. And I wanted it to happen. He was cute, and he was nice, and he sure as hell paid me more attention that night than anyone had in years. Part of me thought… well, I thought that if I didn’t do it, if I didn’t get it over with with him, then maybe I never would. Maybe no one would want to.” I say that last part quietly, and even though it hurts, I charge forward, suddenly wanting to get all of this out of my brain and into the space between us. Needing to.
Four months, it’s been trapped there, and I don’t think I can carry the weight of it alone anymore.
“The next week at school, my locker was stuffed with flowers. Cole… was the brother of someone who’d been on that tennis team, someone who’d lost a scholarship, and I’d had no idea. It was this hilarious thing, that he’d ‘deflowered’ Barrett Bloom. He and his friends even created a hashtag: debloomed. I still don’t know their exact motive—maybe Cole wanted to ruin my life because he blamed me for what happened to his brother. Or maybe they just wanted to turn me into one more joke, and they did.” My breath is coming in sharp bursts again, and I can’t look at Miles anymore. “They left a rose on my desk every morning in homeroom, and everyone who knew what was going on would laugh or shake their heads, like they pitied me but couldn’t be bothered to say anything about it. And the people who didn’t know probably thought I had some secret admirer. They just… couldn’t let me leave high school without reminding me who I was.”
I relax my grip on the blanket and bring my gaze up to Miles. His jaw is set, his dark eyes flashing with something I’ve never seen before.
“That,” he says, more venom in his voice than the most poisonous flower, “is fucking appalling. Barrett… I am so, so sorry.”
“I haven’t talked to anyone about it.” My words are high-pitched. Unfamiliar. I am a fucking mess in the middle of Stanley Park on a day that doesn’t exist. “I just—I’ve been scared of what it means about me if I finally acknowledge it out loud.”
