Love after Loss

Chapter 45 - Breathe

Ian

"Aliha? Aliha are you okay?" I called as I waited outside the bathroom. I couldn't hear anything other than hyperventilating.

I don't know what happened. I walked into the coffee shop, speaking how I would with Matteo to find someone else was talking to him... Aliha.

"Come on man, I know you and I don't always get along but you gotta open the door so I know you're okay!" She was still hyperventilating, so I changed my approach.

"Hey, hey, hey. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. I know you of all people would call it my ugly voice so listen to it. You can get through this. This voice is real. Focus on it." Her hyperventilating soon transcended into heavy but still shaky breathing.

"Just... just go okay! I wi-I'll be okay, okay?" She sobbed from behind. I hated when she cried. Not because she'd go crying to her brother and then I'd get told off but because... well... she never sounded or looked good crying.

"You know..." I turned so my back was leaning against the door frame and slid down to sit. "I once had panic attacks too. Still do, they never completely stop."

I heard a slight shuffle and the breathing slowed down a little to more of a shuddering breath.

"Y-you do?" She asked.
"Mhm, I do." I replied calmly.
"H-how do you d-deal with them?"
"Well... first of all, breathe. I hear your breathing is better, good. Keep taking deep breaths, in and out. Controlling your breathing is key."

"That's it?" She asked.
I realised maybe I'd have to talk about my past.

"Not quite. Focus on something. A sound, a voice. Something attached to reality. Like right now, you focused on my voice." I replied.

"You mean your ugly voice?" She said softly and chuckled a little, and so did I.

"Yes okay, that voice. This is probably the only time that I'll let that slide. But... if we're talking long term, there's the psychological aspect of it. What triggers it, what needs to be resolved in the mind, etcetera—"
"—English please! I know I'm a uni student but the big words really aren't helping!" She snapped.

"Okay. Well... how about we just talk instead?"
"O-okay I guess..." she nervously replied.

"How much has your brother told you about my past?"
"Not much, only that he met you in uni and him and your friends all helped you and eventually Allah guided you to Islam." She replied, a slightly confusing tone filtered by the sadness of tears in her voice.

Ah yes, of course. My conversion happened in the last year of university. Everything before, it was the old me.

"Before that, I used to be... well let's just say I have a military past." I heard a slight gasp behind the door. "Yes Aliha, I did... kill people. But only ones who shot at me first. One mission, something..." I quickly thought twice at what I was going to say. I didn't want to implicate aliha into my past at all. "... well, happened. At first it scarred me more than my first kill. Sometimes I still see it today. I wound up in that rabbit hole of thought making me the monster of it all, making me the man responsible for it... but in reality there was nothing I could do. I only saw that properly around the time I converted. It was written for him to die that way." My mind started to replay the moments again, but this time not as intense.

I heard a door open, but didn't move.

Then the next thing I knew, Aliha's sat in front of me on the floor too. I look to her and she looks to me, to which we both look away from each other at the ground.

"I don't want to intrude into your past so I'll say this." Aliha started. "Whatever it was... you're a good man, Ian. You could never be responsible for another man's death." I looked up. My eyes were not full of tears like last time I recalled the story, but full of something else.