42

I just gasp in response.
The thumping turns into desperate banging. “Open the fucking door, Clarissa! Please!” But I can’t, I can’t reach it. And I don’t want to. He can’t see me like this.
“Clarissa! I need to know you’re okay!” The worry in his voice reaches inside my chest and tears at me. I don’t want to be the reason he feels this way.
I drag myself to the door, reaching up and turning the knob.
“Matthias…” I groan, my mouth opens and closes like a gold fish… gasping for its last breath.
He reaches through the crack, grabbing my hand, but the door won’t open any more, my body blocking it. “Oh my god, Rissie, what happened?”
It’s ironic that when the brain over triggers its fight or flight, the first thing that it sacrifices is my breathing. The one thing that will help me.
Stupid, broken brain.
He squeezes my hand, his voice desperate as he says, “Rissie, you need to back up a bit so I can open the door, okay? You can do it, just scooch back a little, just a little, okay?” I don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything.
But I do it, for him.
I slide back, each inch feeling as a marathon. The door pushes up against me, and his arm slides all the way through.
“A little more, Clarissa, almost there.”
One more marathon, and I slump on the floor, still gasping.
His whole body pushes through and he drops to the floor, lying down on his side next to me, eyes wild with fear.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
I just stare back at him, fear matching fear. When the panic comes, it feels like it will never go away. And all I can think about is how this will either be the way I live for the rest of my life, or that this is how I’m going to die. Gasping for breath, heartbeats racing to an early end.
“Oh my god, Clarissa. Breathe. God, please breathe.”
He moves so that he’s behind me, and gathers me back against him, his chest warm, strong against my back.
“Oh darling, can you tell me what’s happening?
“Pan… ic… a… ttack…” I gasp.
His chest rumbles with understand, and he squeezes me tighter. “Okay, Rissie. You’re okay, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere, you just concentrate on breathing, okay? Just slow… slow down, one breath at a time. One breath… at a time.”
I stop moving, stop fighting altogether, try to disengage my brain and choose to trust my body to do what it needs to do. Finally, my mouth falls open and my diaphragm contracts, dragging air into my lungs.
My entire chest inflates, and my back pushes back against Matthias. He doesn’t move, an unmovable wall behind me, bringing me strength.
“That’s my girl, one more,” he whispers, gently stroking the hair out of my face.
I take another breath.
And another.
Each one is a little easier than the one before it.
“You’re okay, I’m here. You’re okay. Just breathe,” he whispers, over and over and over, rubbing his hands all over my body while trying to make the oxygenated blood pump around my body again.
Somehow, it works, and after about twenty minutes I feel human in my own skin again.
Finally, I pull away, sitting up and take one long, satisfying deep breath.
Matthias gently touches my arms and guides me back against him. “You, okay?”
This time it’s a question. Now that he’s no longer having to reassure me, now he’s reassuring himself.
I nod in answer.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
I wait a few seconds to answer, knowing he deserves to know.
My shoulders lift once and fall. “I had a panic attack. I get them sometimes.” White lie. I get them all the time.
His head tucks itself into the crook of my neck, his breath against me, warm, comforting. “What caused it?”
And then, I don’t know why, but I laugh. I laugh so hard I feel his body shake from my body shaking. I can’t see his face but I can only guess that he’s looking at me like I’m fucking crazy and I don’t really have an argument to counteract that. So I laugh.
Because two things I didn’t want to happen, just happened in quick succession.
I never wanted to be one of the women that Matthias bedded.
And I never ever wanted him to know about my anxiety.
Ever.
Don’t tell God your plans, and all.
When I finally stop, I turn to face him. He’s a little less frantic looking, but concern still clouds his eyes. “I don’t really know what caused it. I have some triggers that I know about. And sometimes they just come out of nowhere.” I don’t tell him that one of those triggers is my father, another is confrontation. And the last, is the mere mention of a certain Baxter.
I just thought that I had it under control.
But waking up with him, remembering the way he’d looked when he came, like if he had to choose, I’m the only woman he’d want to be there with him in that moment, quivering under me as we climaxed together must have scared me. The bruised part of my brain took control and in the space of just a few minutes, as I laid there in his arms, made me think of every scenario where this was going to end badly for me.
“Run,” my brain had yelled, but I had nowhere to go.
And now he’s seen me at my worst. I can’t imagine much worse than losing control in front of Matthias Baxter.
A hot, fat, ridiculous tear falls down my cheek.
“Hey, hey… why are you crying?” he says, gently.
Another tear chases the first. “Because I didn’t ever want you to see me like this!”
He exhales, and wraps his arms around me even tighter. “Why?”
Seriously? He’s asking me that? “You’re kidding me, right? You think I want anyone to see me like this? You think I like being this weak?” My sobs echo around us, the bathroom acoustics working against me to hide my emotional state.
He pulls away, crouching to make sure I’m looking at him. “Hey, Clarissa! This isn’t a weakness; it happens to countless people around the world.”
“Well, I don’t want to be one of them.”
He lets out a sweet chuckle at my little sulk. “I know. But it’s okay that you are. I’m sure it makes life so hard sometimes, and I’m sorry for that. But tell me how I can help you, okay? I’m here.”
He pulls me into his arms again, and it comforts me, but I don’t want it to. Because in every single one of those scenarios that flew through my brain, none of them ended in us being together for too long. I can’t get attached to him comforting me because what will become of me when he’s not here anymore?
“I need a bath,” I say, once I’m sure it’s over.
He gets up and presses a button on the rim of the tub and water flows out of the faucet over the tub. Then he leaves and comes back with a Caramello Koala.
He drops a soft kiss on the top of my head as I take it from him. “I’ll be out on the balcony when you’re done. Take as long as you need.”