by Leanne Davis
I start quickly down the street, cutting across the same way I came from. My heart thumps in my chest. My breath gets shallow, and I feel light-headed. Then my temples throb, and I feel exactly as I did the last time I was face to face with Hans. Did she stay in contact with him for this entire time? She must have. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. I feel like I just got sucker punched, and now I struggle to breathe. How could I miss it? Why didn’t she tell me? There were times when she left the apartment for hours, saying she wanted to explore the city. She likes spending time alone. She adores the city. I didn’t care what she did, and of course, I never gave it a second thought or questioned all the time she took doing it. Was it a ploy to go see Hans?
She can’t know the truth. I realize that in a flash, and it grips me as if being stabbed in the chest. My rage is insurmountable. She can’t know about any of it. If she did, she wouldn’t go near him. I’m raging at her even though I know it’s unfair.
I can’t think of going back to the apartment. She’ll go there soon, if not now, then later. She’ll probably be confused by my reaction to her. Sweat streams down my forehead and rolls down my face. I’m sticky now under my jacket and shirt. The sweat feels different from my usual workouts. It’s the cold sweat of unmitigated fear.
I remember what happened. And Hans. And what happened to me could happen to Jacey, too, or any person of color. That reality eluded me until I came here and faced Hans. It’s been almost a year since it happened, and I still can’t shake the fear.
I’m like a trigger ready to go off. I can’t believe something that I know can’t physically hurt me can still manage to intimidate me.
I run towards the weight room, needing something to do. I have to flush this anxiety out of me. Get back in control. I am strong and sure, not like this blithering idiot I want to run away from. He is nothing, not a threat or a danger, yet why do I refuse to believe it?
I throw my jacket off and start lifting weights. Ridiculous get-up I’m wearing, a pair of jeans and a sweater, but I’m experiencing a ridiculously unreasonable freak out. Concentrating on my arms, more sweat pours off me, and a voice interrupts my reps.
“Wyatt?”
It’s a soft voice. Feminine. She sounds concerned and confused. It’s Jacey, of course. How did she know I came here? I suppose she knows me well enough to guess I’d retreat to the place where I feel most at home.
I don’t glance over at her as I lift two barbells up past my shoulders. I slowly bring them down from a series of hammer curls. Sweat pours off my face. I definitely need a towel, but I settle for the hem of my sweater.
“Wyatt?” She has a question. She is concerned. Her mind is fogged in confusion. It’s all there. I can hear it in her probing tone. Her soft, clear voice calls out to me. I lean forward, my head bowing down, and stare at my black shoes. Nothing athletic about them. I’m hot and cold and sweaty and chilled. I feel completely out of control, which I never am. I don’t know what to do with my simmering energy.
She comes up behind me. I feel her presence. Her radiance. Her concern. Her shoes squeak when she stops behind me. Her hand touches my back, just above the shoulder blade. I twitch at the unexpected contact, even if it’s just the light pressure of her hand.
“Wyatt, what just happened?”
“I hate that motherfucker.”
“He cheated off your paper and almost got you into trouble, which is a terrible thing to do. But Wyatt, you must admit your reaction to him is getting crazy. And you’re saying this is all about Hans?”
“Yeah. Hans.” I sneer over his name.
Her hand releases my back. “You’re sweating all over. Let’s go outside, come on. Talk to me. Tell me exactly what’s going on.”
I don’t want to talk. I can’t explain anything to her. My stomach twists and hurts as I imagine telling her the truth. I have to tell her, or she’ll stay with him. She won’t take my word. She’ll need a better reason for what she sees as crazy, irrational jealousy.
I shrug and rise to my feet but don’t look at her.
“How could you go near him again? If you don’t see that—”
She gasps. I won’t look at her still. “Wyatt. What are you talking about?”
I grab my head. A headache begins to stab my temples. I don’t want to tell her. As much as I didn’t want to tell Dani. But I can’t stand knowing she’s fucking friends with Hans. I assumed our last encounter with Hans would keep her far away from him. But no. There she was eating ice cream with him.
I press hard on my temples, trying to soothe the pounding in my head. “I can’t believe you would still see him. How could you after I told you—”
“Not to?” she finishes in a soft, cool, even voice.
If I were calmer, her sedate tone would have entered my consciousness and probably cooled me down. I’d have heard the warning in her voice. But I’m totally gone. Completely into myself, and my ears are ringing with rage.
“Yeah. The one time I asked you not to.”
“Yes. You did. You asked me, and I made my own decision. He’s my friend.”
“He’s not. He’s not your friend at all. He’s with you strictly to… to get back at me. To cause me… I don’t know. Pain. Or to silently remind me to keep quiet.”
“Wyatt! Listen to yourself. You’re acting psychotic with your jealousy and speculation. Keep quiet about what? Cheating on a test? Sure it’s a shitty thing to do, but he already apologized, and I guess I didn’t realize you were asking me to respond to an ultimatum. Am I, Wyatt? Is that what you believe? Sad, weak, needy Jacey is so inured to receiving shitty treatment that she’ll do whatever you say? Is that what you think? That I should just behave?”
My head pounds harder and something bubbles up from my gut and swirls into my heart and starts hurting my brain. It’s overwhelming. Blinding. Sweat pours off me even though I no longer lift the weights.
I rub my face on my arm, but the wool scratches my face. I shake my head. No. No. No. This is all wrong. I know it’s all wrong. She did nothing wrong. I have no right to give her ultimatums. I’m not that guy. Especially to my girlfriend.
She thinks I’m jealous over a stupid, shitty, asshole move by Hans. She doesn’t understand what happened. And that’s all my fault. But my words escape me. My stomach cramps. I turn and run up the steps out of the weight room, hurrying to the door. I go through the main part of the gym until I can exit through the doors out front. Cool air rushes over me. I gulp it in as I try and relax the contraction of my heart. It feels like it’s being squeezed and wrung out. My breath gets shallow, and my irrational thoughts keep swirling as they pound in my poor brain.
I see a bench, and I bend over it, resting my hand on the back and breathing hard. I am trying to stop the vertigo I am suffering from as the world starts tilting. What the fuck is wrong with me? When did I become such a fucking wuss?
A cool hand touches the back of my neck. “Wyatt? What is going on?”
Her soft tone is kind. Now that she’s seeing my uncensored reaction, I can’t continue to claim it’s nothing. There’s no more blind jealousy to defend. She knows me too well now. She can see it’s far more than that. Mad as she might be at me, she still knows who I am. And this is not how I usually act.
“Please talk to me. You’re scaring me. What is this really about?’
Chapter 14
JACEY
Anger bubbles in my voice when I yell at Wyatt. How dare he stand there and chide me. Telling me what to do about Hans. He insists that a friend of mine, completely separate from him, whom I met on my first weekend visit, is off limits, and then decides I can’t see him even on my own time? How dare he cross such a boundary? What is wrong with Wyatt? Why is he throwing a tantrum? I don’t have a clue why he reacts so violently to Hans. It’s so out of character that I don’t know what to think about it. If my other boyfriends behaved that way, it would not have fazed me. But Wyatt? No way. Overreacting by running away. Freaking out over me sharing
an ice cream with a guy that I call my friend? Trying to force me to stop seeing him?
I can’t believe this is Wyatt. After the last month, which we spent together as often as possible, everything was different. More vivid. And amazing. For the first time I had a glimpse of what it’s like to enjoy caring, happy, healthy interactions, and then he goes nuts and ruins it? Over what? He has a conniption over a random guy that means little to either of us? Of course, I would pick Wyatt over Hans in a heartbeat, but that’s not the point. I believed our relationship was stronger and better than any of my previous ones and that there was no need for ultimatums or possessive claims that forbid me from choosing my own friends.
He’s sweating profusely. He’s so ridiculous to start lifting weights. I suppose he needs to work out the rage that’s flowing through him. He’s so violent and irrational. Why does he have to act like this? Crazed is putting it mildly. This is so not Wyatt.
He isn’t jiving with the Wyatt I know him to be. I don’t like the abrupt change. I keep trying to coax him back to his previous persona. I want him to understand. I want him to pinpoint the true source of this ridiculous jealousy. But it only gets worse before he runs out on me.
I’m confused as I watch him disappear. Climbing the stairs three at a time, his unparalleled speed takes my breath away. In one blink, he’s standing before me and the next, he’s clean out of sight. I kick my legs into gear and go after him. He stops dead and leans on the park bench out front. His head is dropped low, and his shoulders are hunched over. I come up behind him, slowing down as I approach. His fingers are gripping the wood at the back of the bench as if he’s clinging to it for his life. He’s not acting right. This isn’t Wyatt.
Something is seriously wrong now, and it’s much more than me having ice cream with Hans.
It dawns on me. Wyatt is having a panic attack. The sweat isn’t normal; it’s cold. Fear-sweat. His back moves up and down in rapid succession indicating the shallow, rapid breathing. He’s having a full-on anxiety attack. I am stunned although I shouldn’t be. I know that anxiety attacks can affect anyone. One look at Wyatt, and all of his physical prowess and strength make it so easy to believe he can handle anything he might encounter. Being level-headed and calm, his leadership qualities hint that he has his entire life under control at every single moment. I’m ashamed now to realize I failed to see the stress or whatever is happening that burdened him so heavily.
I’m supposed to be his girlfriend, and even I didn’t see it. It’s inexcusable to me now that I can see he wasn’t okay and needed my help and understanding more than ever before.
I take in a deep breath of air. I know about bad feelings. The kind that overwhelm you with fear and dread. I do. I should have recognized this long ago. I walk closer and touch the back of his neck. It’s clammy with sweat, which tugs on my heartstrings.
“Wyatt? Please tell me what is going on. Please, you can talk to me. You’re starting to scare me. What is really going on?”
His head shakes, and he refuses to speak.
“Wyatt?” I keep my voice calm. “Take a deep, deep breath. Count to ten, and then let it slowly out to the count of ten. Will you do that?” I say it more like a command than a suggestion. He doesn’t reply but I notice his chest seems to open a little and expand. In goes his first breath as I count to ten in my mind and out goes his exhale, again to the count of ten.
“The reason your thoughts are spinning is because your brain needs more oxygen.”
At my insistence, he repeats the breathing technique. I set my hand flat on his back, between his shoulder blades, and do the breathing with him. “Focus only on your breathing. You’ll be okay. I promise. I know it hurts your lungs right now. And feels like it won’t ever end, but trust me, it will. Keep breathing very slowly and deeply. In and out. In and out. Slow. Even slower,” I coach him. For the first time, I’m teaching Wyatt something new. Thankfully, panic attacks aren’t something I tend to suffer from. I saw plenty of other kids over the years who did, however, and I would often hear the social workers telling them to do what I told Wyatt.
I keep mumbling incoherently while touching his back. I allow him to breathe slowly until a sense of calmness descends, and his breathing goes back to normal. Eventually, the sweat dries, and he turns to flop onto the bench. He wilts like a delicate rose in the burning sunlight. He acts as if he just finished running twenty miles. I’ve seen Wyatt run further than that without appearing this exhausted.
He buries his head in his hands and leans forward. He is quiet now. I sit beside him. I am quiet, too. I touch his arm. I want to let him know I’m here, without crowding him or his thoughts. I’m giving him all the time he needs to work through this.
He shakes his head three or four times and says, “I’m not sure why I freaked out.”
“You had a panic attack. Thought you were having a heart attack or a stroke, right?”
He nods but does not reply or look up.
“Wyatt, just because you’re a star football player doesn’t make you inhuman. You’re as tied to your emotions as the rest of us. Sorry, but your Superman-strength doesn’t extend to your emotions. That’s why they’re so strong and overwhelming. Anxiety is a force to be reckoned with and something you can’t control or command. Even with all these muscles.” I squeeze his biceps, and very slowly he turns his head and gives me a tiny smile.
“How do you know all about this? Does this happen to you?”
“No. But being in foster care, I saw plenty of kids over the years. I lived with a lot of peculiar people, don’t forget, and got exposed to a lot of traumatic situations. But many of those kids already had emotional issues without any coping skills. It often comes out in periods of depression or unfounded anxiety.”
“I don’t suffer from unfounded anxiety.”
“You just did.” I reply quietly before kissing his biceps to soften my argument. It’s a blow to his pride, sure, and I can see it in the gleam of his eyes.
“I guess maybe… I did.”
“Has it ever happened before?”
Hesitation. It lasts too long and makes him appear unsure. I sigh. “This is going to be discussed at length. So, get over it. Now, once again, has it ever happened in the past?”
“Yeah. Yes,” he finally admits. After a long sigh, he presses his hand on the back of his neck to relieve his tension.
“Did it start last year? Was that the reason Dani kept noticing something different about you? Something you wouldn’t tell her?”
“Part of it.”
I grip his arm tighter. “Maybe you just weren’t ready to admit it then. I imagine it must be a tough pill to swallow. Being the most accomplished, strong, controlled member of any group, you manage to keep calm and cool despite the pressure. Usually. But Wyatt, what’s going on now is a physical reaction, and it’s something you obviously can’t control. After what I just saw? You have to admit you need some help.”
He nods, keeping his head down. I press on. “It started last year then?”
“Yes. But… I can’t talk about it here.”
I glance around, seeing not a soul in sight. Outdoor lighting shines on the empty sidewalks, building fronts, and landscaped patches. It’s deserted. But I get it. Wyatt Kincaid is well-known. His personal issues must always be kept private. They involve only him. But he needs to articulate them in order to purge their toxicity. No way could he do that here. This place where he holds super-human status. Surreal. Perfect. How could Wyatt admit anything on this campus that clashes with the image he works so hard to maintain? The bastion of healthy, strong, leadership that keeps him revered and always expected to do well.
Except with me. Maybe I provide the one escape he sees from that role. I tilt my head, staring at his profile. His family expects a level of performance that Wyatt has always managed to sustain. His grandparents have expectations from him to help them accept the untimely death of their daughter. The entire town uses his image as a source of inspiration, almost l
ike a mascot. He’s always expected to perform. And win. Wyatt has to be perfect. And yeah, to date, Wyatt Kincaid always rises up to whatever challenge. Dani was also exceptional in her grades and level-headed decision-making. That’s part of what makes her intimidating. She isn’t someone I could readily admit my faults and shortcomings to.
Since I was far from average, perhaps it made it easier for Wyatt to finally admit a flaw in his character. An imperfection. An area in need of improvement or even professional help. Wondering if Wyatt has anxiety issues strengthens my confidence. For the first time, maybe I’ve got something to offer Wyatt in return for what he’s given me. It’s the first time I believe he sees something in me he thinks he can’t find anywhere else. Besides his attraction to me, I get it… the sex. Wyatt likes to teach me new things. He seems thrilled at my desire to learn and improve my mind. That’s right up Wyatt Kincaid’s alley of how I should be. He errs on the side of being overly invested in his role as a mentor or coach to almost everyone he meets. But this is so much more. I never guessed he’d find something in me that I could later repay him with in kind.
This is reality. He can be real. He can take off his mask and show his true self now, and I’m certainly not anyone to judge him, am I?
“Let’s go to your truck. I think you need to go home. I’ll drive you back.”
“Home? Like in Silver Springs?”
I nod, rising to my feet. As I turn and put my hand out, my palm is up as an invitation to him. He takes it and rises. Yeah, he’s tall and strong and broad-shouldered. A shining Greek statue in beauty and youth and strength. Imagine never allowing yourself to show any flaw of ordinary human weakness. His hand rests in mine. “Yes. Like in Silver Springs.”
I don’t expound on my thoughts, and he lets it go, following me like a docile cat. He is so not Wyatt, I find it disconcerting. He’s too quiet, and he hangs his head.
“Give me your keys. I’ll drive back,” I say decisively.
