Page 48 of The Fall Classic

I’ve committed that passage to memory. Studied it, considered it endlessly.

I haven’t opened my hand yet.

But I want to.

I look back at the Meant to Bean patch and then put it back in the zipper coin pouch of my wallet for safekeeping.

***

The world is still asleep when I pull out of the parking lot, taking Sycamore over to Meant to Bean at four twenty in the morning. The shop is dark, as is the apartment above. The streetlamp on the corner throws light most of the way across the parking lot but not quite to the northwest corner, where the lending library sits in the long shadow of the live oaks.

I park and get out, and soon, I’m standing in front of the little library with its powder blue paint, brass hinge, and slightly uneven pitched roof. I open the door, return the Shel Silverstein collection, and slide Tuesdays with Morrie in next to it.

Then I close the door and stand there with my hand on the latch, and that’s when my anxiety, which has been unusually quiet all morning, decides it’s had enough of being ignored.

What are you doing?

It’s less a question than an accusation.

You’ve been going to her coffee shop since April hoping she’d appear, and she finally did. But you think because you saw her at a game, tracked her down through questionably ethical video surveillance, and have been meeting her for a week that this—leaving a book that lays your soul on the line before you leave for a week long-road trip—is an emotionally healthy idea?

What are you doing?

I take my hand off the latch, listening to how loud my anxiety is screaming.

Have you considered that she’s not even a person to you yet? You’ve made her into a symbol. You latched onto the idea of her when Lucas left, didn’t you? You needed something to want so you didn’t have to look at the actual problem, which is that you don’t know who you are without your brother and you are terrified to find out.

I stand in the dark parking lot and let my brain go until it’s finished.

Because that’s the thing about anxiety—it’s not stupid, and it’s not make-believe. It reads the fine print, the actual historical evidence, and it builds a case. I have used things as symbols before. I have held on for the wrong reasons.

My anxiety keeps receipts. And it’s auditing me right now.

What would Dr. Chang want me to do?

I remember his voice, the cognitive behavioral therapy worksheets, all his talk about forcing a parasympathetic override. So I try it.

I plant my feet. Close my eyes. Inhale for four. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Hold for four. Basic box breathing to clear stress hormones, stabilize blood chemistry, and force neural reengagement, according to the worksheets.

I breathe again, keeping to that four-second pattern until my heart rate calms.

Better.

Next up: refuting the cognitive distortion with objective data.

I can hear Dr. Chang’s voice.

What does it feel like to grip when you should release?

I keep my eyes closed and think and feel.

Gripping too hard feels like my two-bedroom apartment that’s too big for me but that I haven’t moved out of yet. It feels like standing on the mound with runners on base, beating myself up and being afraid I’m going to screw up. It feels like everything being out of control and me grasping for it like I’m trying to catch running water in my fists.

Does this—thinking about Georgie, leaving a book for her, getting excited to see her—feel like that?

My mind runs through a hundred moments, everything from her dimples to the way she lingered against my chest when she bumped into me to her texting beg your pardon. Her dark, ringed brown eyes, sideways hearts, and sideways ice cream cones.

No.