I hold up my hands in surrender. “Des, it’s okay, I’m sorry, I—”
When my hands go up, she stumbles away from me, as if scared of me, of my hands, and her eyes are wet with tears. “Don’t! Don’t touch me, don’t—please—”
“Des? What’s wrong? What did I do?” I’m totally baffled. I barely touched her, and as soon as she said the word “no” I had my hands off. This is an extreme reaction to a simple situation, and I don’t know how to handle it, what to do, or what caused it.
She hits the end of the bed with her knees, sits down, and then scrambles away from me, and she’s sobbing, and I’m totally helpless.
* * *
This is a panic attack.
I’ve only had one before this, and that was the last time I let a man touch me. It was a guy from a two hundred-level psychology class, someone I’d been in several classes with. He was a nice, attractive guy, easy to talk to, easy to look at. We had coffee after class one evening and then a few drinks and then we were in his car and we were kissing. Then his hands were under my shirt, and I wasn’t sure I liked it but I let him grope my boobs anyway, just to see how it would feel.
But then he got greedy and tried to undo my pants and I freaked. He stopped right away and apologized, and I could tell he didn’t know why I was freaking, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t see, dizzy and lungs aching. Eventually I managed to get it under control and the guy took me home, confused and frustrated and still nice as ever.
That was a year ago.
This panic attack is wracking and unending, terrifying in its intensity. I’m crying, and the more I cry the more I can’t breathe, and the more I can’t breathe the worse my terror gets, which in turn only worsens my weeping. It’s a cycle I don’t know how to break.
I hear Adam saying my name, but that’s somewhere outside myself, and all I can grasp are the tears and the need to breathe and the terror. And somehow the tears come harder and faster and I can’t breathe. I’m choking and rolling away from him and crawling up the bed to curl into a ball near the pillows, sobs wracking me.
The bed dips with a heavy weight, and I feel something warm drape over me. A blanket. He’s covering me. He wraps the blanket over me, and then slips his hands under me and lifts me like I’m a child, weightless. He settles on the bed with me, my head against his chest, and I can hear his heart beating steadily, a little fast, his breathing even and easy, and his arms are around me and his lips are at my ear, and he’s murmuring something rhythmic and soothing.
I focus on his heartbeat, focus on his breathing, and try to match my breathing to his, try to will my heart to beat in time with his. Slowly my terror recedes and the hyperventilating lessens to ragged gasps. His hands rest on my shoulder and my hip; I’m curled on his lap like a child. I hear his voice now, and realized he’s singing some pop song, the kind of song you hear on the radio a dozen times every day but never really know the title or artist, just the hook and chorus. His voice is low, quiet, and melodic.
I’m still crying, but quietly now.
I have to stop this. I have to calm myself. I move off him into a sitting position. Breathing deeply and slowly, I slow my heartbeat back to normal, and I wipe at my eyes with the heels of my palms.
I can’t even look at Adam now.
He slides off the bed and goes to the kitchen. I hear water running, and then the gurgling of a kettle. I need to get up, need to get dressed, need to get out of here, but I can’t seem to move. I’m not thinking of the panic attack now, I’m thinking about what preceded it.
I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life: I let a man I’ve known for a matter of hours almost get me naked, let him touch me, let him kiss me. And he’s not just some random guy, he’s a rich and famous movie star.
What the fuck was I thinking?
And then I go and have a panic attack.
God, I’m a freak, and a mess.
He comes up the stairs and into the bedroom with a mug in his hand, the string and tab of a tea bag dangling over the side of the mug. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of black gym shorts, and even after everything that just happened I catch myself staring at his crotch, watching the bounce and sway of his dick in his shorts as he walks toward me. I can see the tip in the folds of the shorts, a thick round thing. I force my eyes away and blink hard, keeping my eyes down on the floral-print comforter and accept the mug of tea from him.
He sits on the edge of the bed and watches me sip the tea. Waits. “Des, I—” he stops, sighs, and tries again. “Are you okay?”
I shrug. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
“I want to ask what happened, what I did to make you have a panic attack, but I—”
I interrupt him. “It wasn’t you. I just…have issues.”
“I should have backed off. I’m sorry, Des. I saw—I knew you were nervous or something, but I didn’t realize—”
I finally meet his eyes, and see that he’s genuinely upset. “Just…forget it, okay? It wasn’t you.”
“Don’t feed me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit, Des. You don’t just have panic attacks that bad out of nowhere.” He says this gently, reaching out to trace my cheekbone with his thumb. “Drink your tea, babe. I’ll get dressed and take you home.”
Babe. He called me babe.
Why do I like that so much? And why do I feel this crazy urge to explain everything to him?
Instead, I follow him across the room with my eyes as he snags a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt out of a suitcase in the corner of the bedroom area. He goes into the bathroom and comes out dressed a few seconds later. I notice he didn’t put on any underwear, and that does things I can’t quite figure out to my insides.
I take a long sip of the tea, which is some kind of minty lemony herbal tea, and it’s exactly what I needed even though I didn’t know it until now. I listen as he calls down to the front desk and requests a private carriage.
“What kind of tea is this?” I ask when he comes back.
He goes down to the kitchenette and grabs the wrapper off the counter. “Harney and Sons. Mint Verbena.”
“It’s really good.” I try to smile at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He smiles back at me, but the questions that keep piling up in his eyes are all I can see.
“I’m sorry for freaking out on you, Adam. It really wasn’t your fault.”