Chapter 2 - THE NIGHT BEFORE
It started around eleven.
Not with pain.
With pressure.
I was lying in bed watching videos on my phone when I noticed I had to breathe deeper than usual to feel satisfied.
I sat up.
Still strange.
I walked to the bathroom.
By the time I came back, my heart was beating much faster than it should have been.
I went downstairs.
Mom was on the couch watching television with Uncle Ray. He had been staying with us for three weeks after another breakup, which meant our already small house suddenly felt smaller.
“Mom?”
She glanced over.
“What?”
“I feel weird.”
“What kind of weird?”
“I can’t really catch my breath.”
Ray looked over the back of the sofa.
“You running marathons upstairs?”
I ignored him.
Mom sighed.
“Emma, you’ve been stressed all week.”
That was true.
I had graduated high school two months earlier and was supposed to begin community college in the fall. I was working evening shifts at a grocery store and saving for a used car.
Everything suddenly counted as stress.
Tired? Stress.
Headache? Stress.
Didn’t want to go to work? Stress.
Couldn’t breathe?
Apparently stress.
“I’m serious.”
Mom muted the television.
“Are you having a panic attack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Then go lie down. Breathe slowly.”
I stood there for another few seconds.
“Should I go somewhere?”
“Where?”
“Urgent care?”
Ray laughed.
“At midnight?”
Mom rubbed her forehead.
“You don’t need the emergency room every time you feel uncomfortable.”
I had never asked to go to an emergency room before.
That should have mattered.
It didn’t.
I went upstairs.
At 1:30 a.m., I woke again.
This time I had pain when I took a deep breath.
I texted Mom from upstairs.
Still hard to breathe.
She replied:
Try to sleep. We’ll see how you feel tomorrow.
Caleb was awake.
His room was across the hall.
He saw me sitting on the floor outside the bathroom.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He did not believe me.
Neither did I.
But when the adult responsible for you says you are okay, sometimes you borrow their certainty because the alternative is more frightening.
So I went back to bed.
May you like
By morning, walking downstairs felt like climbing a hill.
And my mother still thought I was pretending.
