For some reason, the Fernandes boys didn’t like to dress up to come to the club, even though it was a rule imposed at every corner—except to them. Gui was wearing jeans, a polo shirt, and cowboy boots, and he carried a white and dark blue bag with the Montenegro logo on it. He walked with an easy gait, and still looked confident, masculine, and handsome.
I inhaled sharply as his eyes found mine, and one corner of his lips tugged up. My heart sped up, and I stifled a gasp when I realized it wasn’t from panic.
Despite my best efforts to remain impassive, I smiled at him. Until a shadow caught my sight, and I looked past him.
Lucas had just arrived too and was walking up the path a few feet behind Gui.
The smile faded from my lips. A knot appeared between Gui’s brows, and he looked over his shoulders. He halted upon seeing Lucas and waited until Lucas was right beside him to keep walking. They started chatting and Gui didn’t look at me again.
I focused on my mother and Eloisa. They were now discussing honeymoon options. My mother thought Hannah and Leo should do a classic trip through Europe, while Eloisa thought they should do something more exotic, like going to the Maldives or some other stunning beach.
Okay, I was done. After coming up with an acceptable excuse, I bid my mother and Eloisa good-bye and walked to the parking lot, eager to get away from here.
I was nearing my car, keys already in my hand, when someone called me.
“Hilary, wait.”
I turned around and saw Lucas jogging toward me. Images of the engagement party flashed in my mind and panic rushed through me. Clutching the keys, I stepped back, bumping into my car.
“H-hi, Lucas.”
My expression was probably of a scared woman, because he halted a good distance from me, his hand turned up as if in surrender.
“I just want to say I’m sorry.” He shook his head once. “I don’t remember anything about that night, but Gui and Malcolm told me what I did. I’m so, so sorry.”
My palm was wet around the car keys. “I-it’s okay now. Thanks for apologizing.”
“I know there’s no excuse for it, but I want you to know that I usually don’t drink that much. It’s just … my girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, had just broken up with me the day before, and I was … I wasn’t in the right state of mind. That mixed with too much alcohol …” He ran a hand through his hair. “Not good. I’m really sorry.”
I nodded. He was right. It was no excuse, but it made me feel a little better to know that he usually didn’t drink that much. Hopefully, he didn’t try to kiss every girl who crossed his path at parties and clubs.
“Okay,” I muttered, not sure what else to say.
“All right. Yeah. I just wanted to apologize.” He started turning around. “I need to go …” I nodded again and he waved me. “Bye.”
Lucas jogged back to the club. Stunned and still a little shaky, I kept watching him and, in the distance, I saw Gui standing near the main polo field, watching me.
Gui
Usually, we showed up at the club an hour before a game, but today I decided to go even earlier. I arrived at the club almost two hours before the scheduled afternoon game. And I kept telling myself it wasn’t because Hilary was probably still here with Hannah and her mother for their bimonthly lunch. Because that would be freaking stupid and girl-like.
Não. I had arrived early because I wanted to go for a run around the club before the game. Yes, that. I wanted to work out a little before the game, but I still wanted to have some time between the workout and the game. Right.
I parked my Jeep in its usual spot at the back of the parking lot, under a large tree and its sweet shadow, and walked to the main building. And there she was, seated beside her mother, and some other woman on the balconies overseeing the tennis court.
As if Hilary knew I was looking at her, she turned her head and her eyes met mine. I should have looked away, but she held my stare, and I just couldn’t look away.
Then, her eyes shifted, falling on something behind. I glanced back and saw Lucas walking from the parking lot, a few yards behind me. When I looked back at her, Hilary was still staring at the floor, her hands pressed together on her lap. She was probably remembering the engagement night, when this fucked up drunken dude hit on her. I had almost hit him then, and for some reason, I almost turned around and hit him now.
Instead, I paused long enough for him to catch up with me.
“Hey man,” I said.
He looked up at me, his brows furrowed. “Hey. What’s up?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. Going to the field to get ready for the game. You?”
He launched in a tale of watching the Knight House practice as I shifted most of my focus on Hilary. I saw as she stood and started walking toward her car. Lucas noticed too.
“Wait.” He halted. “I have to go talk to her.”
I didn’t like that. “I think that might not be the best idea.”
“I know but, I need to apologize for the other day. I feel too bad, and, shit, she probably hates me right now. With good reason.”
All right, I could understand that, so I didn’t stop him when he jogged back to the parking lot and called her.
I took one step, willing my body to go to the field, or the lockers. Anywhere. But my mind had another idea. I whirled around, on the side of the polo field’s main path, and watched Hil and Lucas, just in case.
The conversation was quick and when Lucas turned around and started back this way, Hilary’s eyes found mine. I held her brief stare, and something like longing, like want bloomed in my chest. I wanted … I wanted to go to her, hold her hands, and tell her she was okay.
Then she broke the stare, slipped into her car, and drove away.
I let out a long breath as I resumed walking. Soon, I was on the side of the building, going through the side entrance, to the locker rooms. My brain tried to come up with excuses to why I should have gone back to the front and talked to her before she left, but nothing made sense, and finally, I told my brain to shut the hell up. It wasn’t happening. It was better if I kept my distance.
I changed into shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt and went running. Hopefully, the exercise would clear my head.
Chapter Six
I ran across campus, doing my best not to bump into anyone. My first exam on Monday was at ten in the morning, so I usually slept in a little. However, today I had last Friday’s test scheduled at 8:30 a.m., and I had totally forgotten about it!
Because of that, I ran like a crazy woman, my tote firmly under my left arm, my coffee mug in my right hand.
I stepped into the classroom at 8:33 a.m. and the professor was handing the tests to the students. My eyes scanned around, searching for a place to sit, but I froze. The classroom wasn’t full, but there were only boys here. Only men. About a dozen or more.
I barely registered as the professor said, “Miss Taylor, you’re late.” I opened my mouth to explain to him what happened, but no words came out. He sighed. “Take a seat.”
I glanced around. Would I take a seat? If I didn’t take this test, I would fail this class. Wasn’t I strong enough to push through my fear, my panic, to pass a class? I wasn’t so sure.
Shaking so hard I was sure I was going to fall on my face, I finally moved, taking the nearest empty seat I could find to the door. Just in case. Just so I could tell myself nothing was going to happen and that I was safe. This was a healthy environment, a respectful college. Besides, the professor was here, and he would never allow anything to happen to one of his students, would he? Well, he was also a man.
I closed my eyes and tried my therapist’s technique. The tap tap of a pen, the chuckle of someone behind me, the whispers at my side, the footsteps of the professor … It was useless here.
I can do this. I will do this.
I took a deep breath and willed my heart and my breathing to slow down. Not so easy.
I can do this.
Just as I grabbed a pen from my tote,
the professor handed me the test, then walked back to his table in front of the class. “You may begin,” he said.
I turned to my paper and started reading the words. I read the same sentence five times and still couldn’t absorb what it said, not when I was surrounded by men. Men who were stealing glances at me every few seconds. Men who smiled at me as if I were their prey.
Okay, okay. I was imagining things. Wasn’t I?
Calm down, Hilary.
I dared to peek to my sides, and sure enough, most of the guys in the classroom were watching me. Some scribbled a little, then looked at me for a few seconds, then returned their attention to their test, and the cycle went on. But a couple were blatantly staring at me, as if they could see the answers to the test in my face? I wasn’t sure.
Stifling a shudder that started in the base of my neck and fought its way down my spine, I did my best to block the men out of my sight and my mind.
Focus on the test. Focus on the test.
I stared at the words on my paper and repeated that mantra for about five minutes, until my hands shook a little less and my heart didn’t pound so painfully against my rib cage. Still paying attention to my pencil and the paper in front of me, I finally started the test. It was a challenge to ignore the world around me and immerse myself in economics 102, but I managed.
Until thirty minutes later, when the professor’s cell phone rang, and he excused himself, saying he needed to get this call. He exited the classroom and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with over a dozen strangers. A dozen men. Men who probably had sex on their minds.
My hands started shaking again, and I sucked in a rugged breath.
Focus, Hilary. Focus!
But I couldn’t focus, not anymore.
Then, a guy’s hand reached over my desk, and he dropped a folded piece of paper on my test. He quickly went back to his seat on my right, but not without brushing his hand over mine first. Wincing, I jerked back and dropped my pencil on the floor.
Shocked, I stared at the piece of paper as if it could bite me. The fold wasn’t too hard and the paper was half-open.
Go out with me, beautiful, it read.
I felt sick to my stomach.
Another guy, from my left this time, knelt down and retrieved my pencil.
“Here you go,” he whispered, putting my pencil on my desk. He lingered close, as if I would talk to him.
Something snapped inside me. I jumped from my seat, bumping into my desk and causing my test and my pencil to hit the floor. I didn’t care, though. The only thing I cared about was getting away from here.
I swiped my tote from the floor and rushed to the door. With my shaky, sweaty hands, I fumbled with the knob, fear clogging my throat. Why wasn’t it opening? Was the door locked? From the other side, the professor opened the door.
“Miss Taylor,” he said then paused. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you all right?”
I could barely breathe, much less talk.
Instead of answering, or even acknowledge him, I ran. I ran from the building. I ran across campus. I ran to my dorm building and into the safety of my room.
***
Although I still shook while recalling what had happened, now that I looked back at it, I felt stupid.
“I overreacted,” I said to Dr. Walker, my therapist. I was seated in her comfy armchair, positioned strategically in a corner of her office, from where I could gaze through the window and admire the view of the park below.
If I closed my eyes, I could still see myself in that classroom with those guys, and the seemingly locked door, and the missing professor. I knew I had seen and felt the situation in a more dramatic way that it had been, but that didn’t stop me from shaking all over again.
After the test, I locked myself in my room for the rest of the day. I even missed another final exam. Mariah came into the room twice, saw me in that state, and left without saying a word. During our first week living together, I had a major panic attack and I had to tell her about them, but I never told her why, what had first caused the attacks. And I never would.
At night, I got an email from Fallon White about my first day at her studio. That finally snapped me out of it. Immediately, I called Dr. Walker and asked for her help—with my current state and with contacting my professors and asking them to reschedule my exams. Thankfully, one of the professors listened to my therapist and let me take the exam another time, without many questions, but the other professor didn’t want to hear it. He gave me an incomplete and said he would email me soon about retaking the exam—or the entire class next semester.
This morning, I was out of my dorm and had already moved into my apartment in Santa Barbara. However, before I could settle in my new temporary home, I had to do a pit stop at my therapist.
I was trying to focus all my thoughts and energy on the fact that I had an incomplete. Me, the perfect A student, who barely ever missed a class my entire life. I felt pathetic for having an incomplete, and the possibility that the professor would just decide it wasn’t worth it and ask me to retake the damn class. However, hovering around those thoughts were the main reason I had come to the therapist: my dear panic attacks.
From a chair a few feet from mine, Dr. Walker pushed her red-rimmed glasses up her nose and stared at me, her dark brown eyes calm. “It’s normal for your fear and panic to surge again during situations like this.”
“Will I always react like that to these kinds of situations?”
“In extreme situations, probably. Yes. But you will be able to control your reaction. You won’t shake as much, or feel like fear is seizing you.”
“Hopefully,” I muttered.
“Be positive, because positive thinking brings good results. Say definitely.”
I scrunched my nose at her, not believing her. “Definitely.”
She winked. “I’ll pretend you meant that.”
I let out a little laugh and sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why do I think every male, regardless of age, only thinks about sex, about having sex now? That they see a pretty girl and immediately lust over her and imagine her naked?”
“Well, the truth is, most males do. But that doesn’t mean they are all perverts.” She gazed out the window. “Try to remember how you were before the incident when you met a strange person for the first time, or the people you walked by on the street. Even if not consciously, you processed how attractive they were, and you weren’t even aware of it.” She returned her kind eyes to me. “That’s the same with most men. They don’t will their minds to go there, to lust over girls and imagine taking her to bed. It just happens, and most of them are so used to it, they don’t even notice it anymore. Unless the female in question is absurdly stunning, and they can’t take their eyes off her. Then I bet they are conscious of their thoughts.”
“It all sounds so technical, as if there was a manual for male and female, and we had to conform to it, no questions asked.”
She chuckled. “Something like that.”
This woman knew how to push my buttons, and that was what made her a great therapist for me. I had tried four others before finally feeling like she got me, like she understood me.
“All right, I admit I do remember looking at guys and thinking whether they were attractive. To be honest, I still do sometimes. These moments give me a little hope that I will get over the incident and my fears someday. However, when I was sixteen, I wanted to do something about it if they were attractive, like talk to them, dance with them, get their phone number, whatever. Now, I want nothing. I just acknowledge they are handsome and move on.”
“At least the feeling is there. You think men can still be handsome. That’s a big step.” She pulled a notepad and pen from her table. “I suggest we make a list of all the things that you fear. Even silly, minor things, like spiders, cockroaches, fear of the dark, fear of horror movies, anything. Then we work our way up to the bigger things, like for example, your fear of being alone in a room with a ma
n you don’t know. Then last items would be to kiss a boy you’re attracted to, and finally trusting a man completely.”
I blushed, thinking of how silly it would be to have a list I shared with my therapist about kissing boys. I wasn’t sixteen anymore.
“Just make a list?”
She shook her head, a slow smile taking over her sharp face. “Then, you go item by item from smallest to biggest and check them off.”
“W-what? No!”
“I understand your hesitation, but listen to me. Even if you don’t get to the biggest items, even if you stop in the middle of your list, you’ll still have faced many fears and you will feel stronger, more confident. You will know for sure that you can defeat all of your fears, one by one. And then one day, you’ll end up checking off the biggest items, even if you didn’t intend to, I’m sure.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “It still sounds a little silly.”
“And that’s why you have to do it. Silly doesn’t go well with fear. You don’t need to fear this list. It’ll be perfect.”
I considered that for a moment. Well, she was right. It sounded so silly; I didn’t have to fear it at all. And I could always stop in the middle like she said.
“Okay,” I said, my tone low, guarded.
“All right.” She sat up straighter, her pen poised against the notepad. “What shall the first item be?”
I forced a smile. “That the professor will turn my incomplete into a fail and I’ll have to repeat the class?”
Dr. Walker returned my smile, but hers was real and it said, “Don’t be silly.”
Hard not to.
***
Hannah and Bia helped me bring my things from my car—and the rented U-Haul trailer—to the apartment. It wasn’t much, just my clothes and toiletries and books and other things from my dorm. And Hannah had brought a few of my things from our parents’ house too, like some more of my clothes, fitted sheets and pillow covers, towels, etc.
Breaking Through (The Breaking Series Book 3) Page 7
