All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

Strobe Lights & Truth.

The stall door creaked; a hand dryer roared. Lydia's vision tunnelled, silver at the edges, like the night was dragging her toward a pinhole and she needed to fit her whole life through it at once.

"Lyd!" Belly's voice, then Taylor's, then Denise's—heels skidding on tile, a flurry of hands and concern. Denise got to her first.

"Hey," Denise said, not soft, but steady. A hand on Lydia's back, not pushing. "With me."

"I—I can't—" Lydia's words were gravel. "I can't—breathe."

"You are breathing," Denise said, as if she was reading a fact off a page. "Too fast. We're going to slow it down."

Taylor was already shoving a wad of paper towels under the faucet. Belly twisted open the little high window and let cold air slide in like a different country.

Denise put her palm flat over Lydia's sternum—not heavy, just there. "Match me. In through your nose. One, two. Out through your mouth. One, two, three, four."

Lydia shook her head. "I can't—Denise, I can't—"

"I know," Denise said, eyes never leaving hers. "You can be terrified and still do this. In, two. Out, four."

Belly pressed a cool paper towel to the back of Lydia's neck, whispering nonsense comfort. Taylor, breathless, found Lydia's hand and squeezed it like she could pull her back to shore by tendons alone.

"Look at me," Denise said, and when Lydia dragged her eyes over, Denise nodded. "Good. Five things you can see."

Lydia stared at her, blank. "I—"

"The faucet, the mirror, Taylor's bad eyeliner—"

"Hey," Taylor said, but smiled; it cracked the moment just enough.

"—Belly's bracelet," Denise finished, "this tile. Four things you can feel."

"The sink," Lydia got out, fingers whitening. "Your hand. The towel. My—my ring."

"Three things you can hear."

"The... the dryer. The music." She swallowed, hearing it now through the wall, its relentless, dumb heartbeat. "You."

"Two things you can smell."

"Alcohol," Taylor supplied, wrinkling her nose.

"Lavender," Belly said, pointing at a soap dispenser like it was responsible for something.

"One thing you can taste," Denise finished, lowering her hand as Lydia's breathing re-entered the world.

"Lime," Lydia said, unexpected. Her mouth pulled into something like a laugh that hurt. "From the shots."

"There you go," Denise said. "That's all real. So are you."

The room widened by degrees. The silver at the edges of Lydia's vision dissolved. Air went in and—miracle—came out.

"What happened?" Belly asked, eyes huge. "Was it the tequila? I knew we should've—"

"It wasn't the tequila," Lydia said, voice shaky but back. She leaned on the sink, staring down at the water spots like they might spell out instructions.

Her reflection above looked older than she felt and younger than she had any right to be. "I just... I closed my eyes and I was somewhere else. With someone else."

Taylor brushed hair out of Lydia's face with the kind of gentleness that spoke apology for every sharp thing she'd ever said. "You're okay," she said. "You're here."

"Am I?" Lydia whispered.

Silence fit itself into the corners.

Denise didn't rescue her. She just stood with her, the way you stand beside a person about to do something hard in their own voice.

Taylor, panicking at the edges of her own patience for quiet, defaulted to the script everyone had been writing for weeks. "Lyd, okay—breathe, calm down," she said, fast and tender. "It's Daniel. Daniel. You're getting married. He's your dream man, it's going to be your dream wedding."

The words landed like a glass shattering on tile. Time didn't stop so much as take one long step to the side.

Lydia stared at herself in the mirror for the length of a heartbeat, two, three. Her chest rose. Fell. Rose again.

"No," she said. The sound was small and absolute.

"No... he isn't my dream man." Her eyes lifted to them, finally, truly. "This isn't my dream wedding. I didn't even picture this. I never pictured any of this."

She swallowed. The next words escaped their way out and left them all different.

"I... I only ever pictured Conrad."

The air didn't rush out of the room so much as decide it didn't need to pretend anymore.

"Fuck," Taylor said, first, reverent and horrified.

"Fuck," Belly echoed, hand flying to her mouth, eyes filling.

Denise didn't say it out loud. It sat in her eyes anyway: Finally. And also: Now we deal with it.

Lydia let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob and dropped her gaze to the sink, water spluttering as if the faucet couldn't commit either.

She nodded once, as if answering herself.

"Fuck," she said.

The music outside kept doing what it was paid to do—beat, beat, beat. In the mirror, four girls stared at the truth like it was a door they'd finally found in the dark.

And the night, having gotten what it came for, waited.