collarbones

21 ~ anxiety

 A/N: I'm pretty sure that this is the last chapter, and entry #21 is the last entry to this book. Thank you again for all your support. :)

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Anna was running.

She sprinted down the street, away from the café and a distraught Trent. He'd looked just as surprised as Anna did when she began to find it difficult to breathe.

Anna didn't know how the panic attack started.

She'd felt an unknown, uncomfortable feeling settle in the pit of her stomach as the waitress had placed the chocolate fondant down on the table, directly in front of Anna.

There had been one for both of them.

Trent was oblivious to her anxious state at the time, instead picking up his spoon and immediately beginning to dig in, leaving Anna to twirl a lock of her hair viciously around her finger.

The light sting against her bottom lip as she ran told Anna that she'd gnawed at it so brutally earlier that it had begun to bleed.

It wasn't her fault.

She hadn't ordered the desserts. Trent had stunned her by ordering them himself at the end of their little meal, that consisted of ham and cheese melts, at the Costa café.

Her breaths became shorter and faster as she recalled the exact moment where it began.

"This smells divine," Trent moaned, his mouth full of chocolate.

Anna's head began to pound.

The clutter of the dishes, murmurs of conversations around them, the 'clink' as Trent's spoon connected with his plate; they all amplified loudly in Anna's head as she stared at the calorific temptation in all its sugary glory.

She sped up suddenly, pushing past the shoppers in the town centre as she headed straight to the park.

Her heart began to beat loudly, too loudly, her blood seeming to rush into her ears. Her hands became clammy, her throat seeming to dry up significantly.

Trent continued to eat, oblivious to her distraught stature.

The entrance to the park shone at her in all its glory, right across the road from where Anna was stood, breathing heavily as she waited for the light to go green.

"Anna!"

Her breaths became deeper, more urgent, the feeling of being strangled overcoming her as she grasped her neck, trying to somehow force the air through it.

Trent stopped eating, pausing as he grabbed the napkin on the table and began to wipe away at some chocolate which had trickled onto his jeans, chuckling to himself slightly.

She hurried across the road.

Dots. They clouded her vision. Her finger froze in mid-air, her head throbbing as the strand of hair she was playing with was tugged against her scalp.

Anna couldn't move.

A horn resonated around the air as she narrowly missed a vehicle, the light she ran past still red.

"Anna?"

All she could do was stare at Trent, her jaw slackening slightly, as a wave of anxiety encompassed her fragile frame in a sudden rush.

She was petrified. Petrified of eating the chocolate fondant when she didn't know the consequences.

She hadn't checked the menu for its calorie content, its sugar levels – she hadn't checked anything and it terrified her.