Page 41 of Apparently, I’m Torture

With one hand on her hip and the other wrapped around her notebook, Stacey looked like a teacher’s pet. The girl who snitched on everyone else while sucking up to the one man who could give her a good grade.

Not a bad strategy. After all, I’d seen it at work over the years. Trevor, for one, lapped up the attention his students lavished on him, and reveled in the parent-presents that graced his desk at the end of every school year. Were grades altered because of it? I’d like to think not. But honestly, I couldn’t vouch for Trevor. He was the one who held my job dangling over my head like a warm, flaky pastry. Who knew what he was capable of?

And there I went, mind wandering again as Stacey’s words slid right over me. “Sorry, I missed that.”

“I asked you for an update. Have you finished tweaking the logo to fit the keyrings?”

I leaned back in my chair, giving Stacey the satisfaction of a slight shake of my head. Her eyes twinkled as she faked exasperation. I bet she faked orgasms too.

I turned my head and caught sight of a suit-clad Shawn studying a handful of papers, and bit my bottom lip. No. Probably not. Not if she had someone like that between her thighs.

In the years we worked together back at Tristy’s, not once did I ever hear a complaint from the girls he slept with. Not even after he dumped them. I mean, I thought I’d see one of them fling an insult at him one day. I’d even hold my breath as they stalked toward our wooden counter. Surely, they’d tell him he was too small, that he plowed into them like a freight train, that he wouldn’t know where the g-spot was even if it punched him in the face.

But nope.

The women who did complain were only upset about one thing: that they had to forget him.

And to think, that was something I had in common with them.

Oh lord, my thoughts were taking weirder turns than usual. I must’ve been more exhausted than I thought.

“Can you fix it today?” she pushed, pulling my attention from him.

“Stacey, I’ll get them finalized this week, I promise. But I just have to get this done first.”

She stared down at me, down at my takeout coffee, at my half-eaten chocolate croissant, at the picture I had of Tristan, Nikki and their two adorable girls: Kelly, and my namesake, Lilly.

“What exactly are you getting done? Are you that behind your work for next semester?”

She dripped contempt, sounding exactly like the Stacey I remembered and avoided.

“No, actually. I’m trying to find a tutor for one of my students. Her mother wants her to go to an Ivy League school, and–”

Stacey held out her notebook and used it to point at me. “I don’t care. While you’re here, your job is to help us get this fundraiser up and running.”

“I know that, and I’m doing my job. I spent the last two days catching up on my work, which I wouldn’t have had to do if my computer was up and running from the start.” I folded my arms, looking up at her with what I hoped was calm. “I’m on target and on task, so will you just back off already? You can’t push me around like you used to. We aren’t in a sorority anymore.”

She clucked her tongue, turned on her heel and left me in peace.

But as the morning turned into evening, and the search results dwindled into nothing, I quietly clutched my tight chest. Panic was spreading. I was going to fail at this. I knew I was. I might’ve finally gotten the fundraiser back on track, but this? There was no way this was going to work out.

Because no self-respecting woman who spent years studying literature would take twenty dollars an hour at the last minute in order to appease some overprotective mother whose head was too stuffed full of societal expectations to listen to what her daughter actually wanted.

I took a breath, tried to steady myself as my head raced and my thoughts swarmed. They were dragging me under, tightening my stomach until it was a lean funnel of acidic dread.

Here’s the thing about panic attacks. They’re not quiet. They’re full of wheezing, frantic clutches, and tears. But the lead-up to the panic attack is quiet. Or at least, it can be, depending on the person. Some people voice their thoughts out loud, let them swirl and thread together, like a typhoon of words and terror. Those people aren’t staging anything. But they’re smart enough to know what’s coming. They’re smart enough to ask for help.

Me? Not so much. I’ll sit and let my mind run round and round, until it dizzies itself, tied into a pretzel. And then, it doesn’t stop. The twist and bend of my brain only ensures one thing: that I’ve forgotten how to breathe. And as I clutched at my chest, taking in fistfuls of air, my eyes desperately trying to land on one thing, two things, three things I recognized, moisture beaded my eyes until a stream ran down my cheeks.

So, there I was, at the end of the day, keychain graphic not fixed, on the receiving end of Stacey’s irritation, with no suitable tutor to calm Mrs Hernandez, having a panic attack.

It wasn’t until a pair of big hands squeezed my shoulders rhythmically, and I heard a soft but deep voice chant my grounding, familiar, childhood words, that I could feel that space in my chest widen.

“Jump up, make a sound, hey, stomp your boots, turn around. Start now… make a change, gonna make that sound. Come on Lil, sing with me. Jump up, make a sound, that’s it, you got it. Start now, make a change, gonna make that sound. Yeah, that’s it. You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

He kept singing, and his voice turned into hands that pressed against my cheeks, brushed my bangs back, smoothed the fear from my skin.

I turned to look up at him as my breathing slowed, watching his shoulders sag with relief.