Pull Me Close: The Panic Series

by Sidney Halston

  “Hello?” Rose says, bringing my attention back to the call.

  “Oh, uh…sorry. What did you say?”

  “I said that I’m almost home. Love you, sis. Have fun!” She hangs up thinking I’m somewhere with a random guy, which is partly true. Except it’s not at all for the reason she’s thinking.

  “You’re safe, so I’m out of here,” Nick says, standing by my bed. I hadn’t realized how tall he is. I look up from where I’m sitting; his sleeves are wrinkled, the tie I saw earlier is gone, and the top button of his shirt is open. His black hair is sticking up all over the place, and his beard seems longer or maybe just messier, making him look disheveled and dangerous.

  And sexy.

  But I push those thoughts back and focus on the dangerous side.

  “I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.” I look down at my bedsheets, never having felt so humiliated in my life. Vaguely I remember telling him I was having a panic attack, but I don’t want him to know the extent of my anxiety. Barring this disastrous night, I never leave my apartment, and having him here is setting off alarms—none of which I want to explain to him. This man, this tall, dark, and handsome man with the most mesmerizing green eyes I’ve ever encountered, has just seen me at my worst. I want to hole up in my house and never leave again. Normally I don’t leave because I’m scared, but now I don’t want to leave because I’m mortified. Just one more thing to add to my shitty life. I can feel the heat begin to rise in my cheeks.

  “I’m used to this shit,” he says, catching me off guard. He’s already put on his shoes and is just standing there studying me.

  “You are?” Did he once suffer from a debilitating anxiety disorder too?

  “Yeah. You fucking junkies are all the same.” He huffs and walks out of the small area I’ve designated as my bedroom.

  Miami is an expensive city, and I live in an eight-hundred-square-foot open-floor-plan loft in Miami Beach. So, really, he can’t escape me—I can see him clearly even though he’s no longer next to my bed.

  “Wait,” I croak as he reaches my front door. His words trigger a memory of what he said right as I passed out earlier. I stand up; realizing I’m still wearing the stupid short dress, I pull the hem as far down as I can. “I’m not a junkie.” Even though I don’t want to have to explain myself, I don’t want him to think I’m a drug abuser either. “I told you about the panic, I think.” Didn’t I?

  “Whatever, lady. I gotta go.”

  “No, seriously.”

  He holds his hands up. “Not my problem.”

  I have this issue (one of many)—I replay people’s last words over and over in my head. I can’t let him leave like this or it will drive me absolutely insane. I obsess over things; it’s what I do. I obsess over my anxiety and fears until the obsession becomes a full-blown panic attack. I obsess about the what-ifs until I’ve frightened myself.

  I can’t let him leave like this. “What happened to me…it wasn’t drugs!” I say to his back, but he’s already opened the door and walked through it. “Wait! Nick.”

  I’m not proud of my anxiety attack. It makes me feel weak and as if I’m losing my mind. I lose total control of my body and am terrified of leaving my home. I want to run out after Nick and explain, but I can’t.

  I’m stuck staring at the open door, unable to move. It’s as if an imaginary and impenetrable wall has been planted in front of me. And after what happened at the club tonight, I don’t know if I can ever leave again.

  I want to take the steps. To explain myself. To follow him out. But the world is too big a place. Dangers lurk everywhere.

  I’m a prisoner in my own home.

  I can’t leave.

  I stare out the door in disbelief. “Say something,” I yell. “Please.”

  He turns around and looks at me from the other side of the hall, already by the elevator. His eyes sweep up and down my body slowly—dare I say appreciatively? Then he shakes his head in disgust. “Fuckin’ waste. Get some help.” Then he walks into the elevator and out of my life.

  I slam the door shut and fling my cellphone across the room.

  Get some help.

  I slide down to the floor, my back against the door.

  Three

  Rapid Heart Rate

  Nico

  I leave Katherine’s apartment feeling uneasy. Maybe because it’s the first time in a year where I’ve had a moment to do nothing except sit and read a book. It’s the first time in a long time I didn’t have to worry about the bills, the press, my father, or the club.

  Katherine’s soft voice also made me feel strange. She looked sad and scared, and for some reason I had an urge to help her. She said something about panic, but all these junkies are a bunch of liars. She isn’t my problem and I have to remember that. I have enough on my plate right now, and helping Katherine would be nothing but another problem.

  A problem that mirrors the last problem I’m still trying to recover from.

  Only a masochist would fall prey to the same snake twice—and this one would be worse because I’d be doing it with my eyes wide open. Maybe it’s the moment of relaxation or the damn book, but I speed back to Panic and surge in with a decision made.

  Matt is downstairs by the DJ booth yelling something at the new kid. Something that two hours ago I would’ve wanted to know. Right now? No, right now I didn’t give a fuck whether the DJ was playing electronica or big band. “Need your keys,” I yell into Matt’s ear. He looks at me from over his shoulder, holding a finger up to the DJ. “For the bike? Keys?” I explain, holding out my hand. He reaches into his pocket and drops the keys on my palm, and I slap my car keys into his. “Only call me if there’s a fire. Don’t fuck up my baby,” I say as I turn around and head to my office to change into something more comfortable.

  “Wait up, man.” He jogs up to me, an arm on my shoulder. “You’re leaving me your car to drive my bike? Where the hell are you going? You never let anyone drive your baby. And it’s the middle of the night.”

  “You were right,” I yell over the loud music. “I need a breather. Clear my head. You got this, right?” I gesture at the club.

  “Fuck yeah I do,” Matt says. He is always hounding me to give him more responsibility; instead, I take it all on. It’s just the way things are. I always take everything on and let everyone lean on me.

  “Don’t forget to have Toro sweep the bathrooms every hour or so,” I remind him as I change into jeans and a T-shirt. We have a strict no-drugs, no-prostitution policy in Panic, and Toro checks the bathrooms periodically. Anyone selling that shit or caught using at my club is banned permanently. Same thing with prostitutes, though that’s harder to pick out. The women who sell themselves at Panic don’t look like your typical street-corner hookers. They are beautiful, expensive-looking women who charge a lot. But I can usually tell. Men can go to the bathroom, to a restaurant, to a club, to get a tattoo alone. But women? Women can’t piss by themselves. They go to most places in packs. Seeing a woman all dressed up walking into Panic alone is a red flag.

  Panic is now a reputable Miami Beach nightclub. Which means we aren’t exactly in the black right now. Apparently illicit drug use and whoring draw in a crowd. But slowly we’re getting back to where we were and starting to turn a profit again. And I will never again be caught unawares about the goings-on in my club. My second home. Matt says I go overboard, but he seems to have forgotten how shitty it felt to have to explain yourself in an interrogation room, adamantly deny all allegations, and then hear and see exactly the activities that we’d denied playing out in wiretaps and undercover video right in front of us. Showing how blind and stupid we really were.

  However, I’m tired. Tired of the stress, of the all-nighters, of everything. In order for me to tackle this beast, I need to get out of here for a few days. Regroup. And I know myself—if I don’t leave right now, if I go home and get some sleep first, I’ll wake up in the morning, remember all my responsibilities, and change my mind about going.
>
  “Oh, shit, Nick, I forgot to give that chick her wallet back.”

  He hands me a small purple wallet that holds a few credit cards.

  It’s well past three in the morning, and I should wait until tomorrow to give it to her. But like I said, if I don’t leave now, I’ll wind up not taking the break I need. So now I have to drive back across town to hand the woman with all that hair her wallet.

  Katherine

  The teakettle whistles loudly.

  I can’t go back to sleep.

  Life has become all about getting through the day. Structure. Keeping busy. Trying not to think.

  I’m disappointed in myself, and I realize I really need help—and not the WebMD kind of help. The look of disgust I saw in Nick’s eyes is one of the many reasons I don’t leave my house. I can’t imagine anything will help since things have spiraled so out of control. Before things became debilitating, I saw a therapist weekly, but that didn’t help; I tried medication, but that didn’t help either, and it made me feel nauseous and sluggish all the time. So I stopped everything when I began to feel better. And I began to feel better when I stopped leaving the house. It was a vicious cycle, and it’s the seriousness of my current state of living that’s made me realize that.

  I rarely take Xanax because, first of all, I never leave, so I don’t normally have panic attacks, and second, when I do take it, it makes me really sleepy, which means I need to be home when I take it. So, really, what’s the point? I still have it around, though. Even though buying drugs online is pretty easy nowadays, I don’t need to resort to getting them illicitly. My psychiatrist prescribed them years ago, and when I stopped seeing her, my general practitioner continued ordering the refills, knowing the severity of my condition after reviewing my medical records. They’re like my “in case of emergency break glass” last resort. Getting in the cab before the club and then having a panic attack while being in the club was the very definition of an emergency.

  Since this panic attack was one of the biggest I’ve ever had, my hands are still shaky and I can’t sleep. I pour myself a cup of tea and pop another quarter of a Xanax, hoping a nice and calming numbness will set in.

  There’s a knock on my door just as I’m about to turn on the television. My heart picks up speed. Who would be here at this time? Or at all? Except for my sister, no one visits me, and especially not at this time. It’s almost morning.

  I look through the peephole and see Nick’s scowl. I unlock the five deadbolts and chain. “Nick?”

  Like he did earlier, he looks me over from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. “You left this.” He hands me my wallet but doesn’t step inside.

  “Did you walk here? You’re soaked,” I say quickly as he turns around to leave.

  “It’s raining and I’m on a bike.”

  “Did you want to come in?”

  “No,” he says curtly. “Just wanted to give that to you.” He begins to walk away, but I can hear the rain pelting down hard outside and his boots squeaking against the floor.

  “Nick,” I call from my apartment. He turns around, his brows drawn together. “Um, it’s raining hard. You can stay here and dry off and wait for it to stop. I have tea,” I add quickly, showing him my mug.

  He looks over his shoulder, then back at me. Apparently getting drenched is preferable to my company. “Or not. Just a suggestion,” I say. “Thanks for the wallet and, well, everything.” I start to close the door but I hear his wet boots squeaking their way toward me.

  “You got coffee?”

  “Uh…I can make some,” I say, holding the door open to him. After I close the door, I run to the bathroom and grab him a towel. His wet hair hangs loose a little past his shoulders, and I find myself staring at it. I didn’t even think I liked long hair on men, but on him I do. He towel-dries it and goes to sit on the couch but then remembers he’s soaked, so he remains standing.

  “I can put all that in the dryer for you if you’d like. Doesn’t look like it’ll let up anytime soon,” I say, just as thunder cracks down hard.

  “It’s been a shit day,” he grumbles.

  I make my way to the kitchen to start the coffee. “Yeah, no kidding. Don’t forget you’re talking to the woman who passed out in a nightclub and had to be carried home.” I don’t really like that he’s in my safe space. It’s new to me, and new things generally make me uncomfortable. But I still feel in control because it’s my house, my things, so I’m not completely losing it, which gives me a small sense of victory.

  “I was leaving on a road trip. A spontaneous one,” he shares. “Can’t even do that. Damn rain,” he says. “If I sit down, I’ll get your shit all wet,” he says, looking at his dripping clothes.

  I don’t really know how to respond to all this, since I was about to get cozy on my couch and I can’t do that if it’s drenched.

  “Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer to dry my clothes.”

  “Sure. Give me a second.” I don’t have any clothes to offer him, so I bring him another towel. “Bathroom’s right over there.”

  “Thanks.” He starts toward the bathroom but then turns back around. “You have a lot of fucking hair.”

  It’s probably the last thing I expect him to say. I do have really long hair, and it’s mostly because a haircut is one of the few things I can’t seem to do myself, even after watching dozens of YouTube videos. I cut the ends when they get ragged, and hope for the best. Regardless, though, it’s an odd thing to say—especially coming from a man whose hair is long too and I don’t know if it’s meant as an insult or a compliment.

  I’m fumbling with the coffee and decide it’s best not to make eye contact since the man is too attractive and too intimidating. “You have a lot of fucking hair too,” I say, mimicking his tone, like a toddler.

  He laughs.

  It’s a glorious sound. Until that moment I’ve only seen him scowl. His laugh is deep and throaty, and it makes his green eyes sparkle. The corners of his mouth crinkle behind that thick beard, and I can see his teeth are perfect. He shakes his head as if I’ve amused him, then closes the bathroom door.

  “How do you like your coffee?” I yell a minute later, when it’s ready.

  “Black,” he says, finally emerging from the bathroom.

  I almost drop the mug when I turn to hand it to him. His body is tanned, as if he spends a lot of time in the sun. His abs are defined, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised to see that he has so many tattoos. Probably because of that suit he was wearing earlier. Even with long hair and a well-groomed beard he seemed professional and serious. The tattoos, however, give him a different kind of edge, and now I’m extremely aware there’s a man—a man wearing just a towel that hangs too low on his narrow hips—in my home. A man I do not know. He notices my stare and asks, “Does this make you uncomfortable?”

  I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “No. Sorry. Just…” I don’t get out much, I almost say. “I don’t really know you. You could be a serial killer, for all I know.”

  “And I’m going to kill you with just a towel?” He looks down and shrugs. “You really should have made that assessment earlier. Kind of naive of you, don’t you think?” At that moment I decide my tall, edgy, sexy savior is kind of an ass. Earlier tonight when he was being serious and mean, I attributed it to the inconvenience I put him through. But now, he’s in my home and I’m helping him. There’s no need for him to be a jerk. Still, I try to make conversation anyway.

  “I was unconscious during our last get-together, remember? There wasn’t an opportunity to assess.” I put the mug down and reach for his clothes. “Sit. Your coffee’s there. I’ll throw these in the dryer.”

  After I’ve started the dryer, I sit down on the other side of the couch. It’s a small apartment, so there’s no place else to sit other than my bed, and that would make things infinitely more awkward.

  Still seemingly upset over my imaginary drug use, he clearly doesn’t want to talk. I’m surprised when he re
aches for the remote and starts going through the channels, making himself at home. But a warm, peaceful sensation begins to settle through my body as the Xanax begins to kick in, and that’s all I can focus on.

  “Why were you still awake?” he finally says.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He looks at me again, a slow, thorough perusal. I glance down at myself. My legs are tucked underneath me, and I’m leaning away from him, the hot tea in my hand. I have on cotton shorts and a blue T-shirt I sleep in. I don’t have a bra on, but I also don’t have large breasts, so I’m not exactly sure what he’s looking at; even so, I pull my shirt down to cover more of my legs. He’s hard to read, and he doesn’t seem to care that I’m looking right at him while he’s looking at me. It makes me uncomfortable, and suddenly I don’t really want him in my apartment. But I also know it’s just me getting myself worked up. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  “You’ve got the shakes,” he says with that look of disgust from earlier, tipping his chin toward my hands.

  I set my mug down and sit on my hands as I reply, “I don’t.”

  “You do.”

  “You think I’m on drugs. Like right now. You think I’m high?”

  “No. I think you’re getting off your high and you need a fix.”

  Ironically, he’s kind of right in the sense that I am on drugs, but it’s a legitimate prescription drug. And the reason for the shakes is that he’s making me nervous. But the Xanax is really beginning to do its job now, and my eyelids feel heavy. I am well aware everything is beginning to feel a little slow and fuzzy. “I’m not. I don’t do drugs. Well, not the illegal kind, that is.” I yawn again. “I already told you I was having an anxiety attack.”