All the Things I (Don't) hate About You

Chapter 16 - The One With The Panic attack

I try to clean up my tears. It wasn't a good day to remind myself of all of this, but that's the thing with bad memories - they tended to come to us when we were fragile. I took my phone out of my pocket and open the Uber app. I wanted to go home and forget that this day even existed.

While I unlocked it, I see that there are six unread messages from Liam. Taking a deep breath, I look forward to facing the parking lot, as if that would help me forget that they were there. I close my eyes for a second and feel the breeze on my face and the smell of the rain that was yet to come.

I look again for the phone, and when I'm about to click on the screen to read the messages, the phone starts to ring. The name of Liam appears. I don't take the call. I wasn't in the mood to hear his excuses. Would he not tell me something so important to him? I didn't even know he was dating! And it didn't make sense if he was gay, would he date a girl? So many questions to no answers.

And, the truth was, I wasn't ready to hear anything. I still wanted to be alone to deal with the fact that he didn't tell me. He knew I had trouble with people not telling me things since my mother disappeared. He knew my father tried to hide from me that she was gone and was not coming back, as long as he could. He knew, and he still hide this from me!

I call the Uber and wait, while walking from one side to the other, with my arms behind my back. The place was empty because they were all in class, which is something that I appreciated for some time. However, after a while, my thoughts started to be so loud, that I wished to have noise all around me. It was a way to shout them down. I started breathing hard and my hands were trembling. After a while, my breath felt like it didn't belong to me as it had gained its own will and was acting on its own.

I sat, hoping that that would help, but it didn't. I thought it made it worse. My breathing was getting faster and louder like I'm running a marathon. I try to calm myself and try to breathe slower, but it has no effect. After a few seconds, it's like my lungs don't belong to me anymore, and they are doing their own thing, and I'm trying to catch them. What the hell was going on here? My mind starts to be clouded with thoughts that I don't know even existed, and I can't help but feel helpless. And it's that feeling that makes me start to cry.

So, there I am. Crying and trying to breathe in the middle of the school stairs, without anyone around me to witness my fragility. But the thing is, it wasn't anybody to help either, and that makes me cry even harder. Everybody seemed to disappear when I most need it. First my mom, without even caring to say goodbye. Then my father, although I knew he was there, he was not really there to hear me out. And now, from the place that I least expected... Liam. Maybe he was hiding all these important things from me because he was also planning to leave me. It wouldn't be the first time that someone did that, and I started to think that it also wouldn't be the last. I try to breathe, but it feels like I'm drowning in my thoughts. Like my mind is swelling me up to never let go.

And I had this thought in the back of my mind that maybe, I was the problem. You can fix problems, but what does it happen when the problem is you?

"Hey", I hear someone's voice, "Lay yourself down."

Unable to think for myself, I do what the voice says. There was something sweet about that voice, something that I would under other circumstances classify as sweet, but right now, I just wanted not to think and make all of those things that I was feeling go away. I feel a light touch on my hands and it's then that I realize that I have clenched them in fists. The person is doing small circles in my skin.

"You are doing great, now concentrate on your breathing", the voice continues. "Take a deep breath and hold it until you count to three in your head. After that, let go and count to two."

I do as it says. Somehow the calm voice mixed with the constancy of the touch and my breathing starting to feel like my own again makes me calm down. I breathe easier every second that went by until I'm able to open my eyes again to find the owner of the voice. When I do it, I can't believe my eyes.

"Olivia?"