Life Lines

14: Something Happy

"Nat..."

That was Corey. He'd caught up to us again and he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Nat..."

"Abernathy! What did I tell you?!"

I needed to relax, that's what my father used to tell me when I was a kid. If I felt an attack coming on, I needed to breathe slowly and evenly, trying not to panic. But if my airways decided to close up, there was nothing I could really do.

This wasn't an asthma attack though. This was me not being able to catch my breath because I was becoming Elite. For some reason The Sickness attacked the lungs the most and in my case, it could be the death of me.

"Give her some space," a booming voice said.

I knew that voice, in fact only a day or two ago he was advising Jesse not to tell me more than what he was allowed to. Everything inside of me wanted to yell at him, tell him he didn't know anything about what was going on. Instead, my wheezing got worse and the pressure on my chest got tighter.

"Nat, hey, look at me." I opened my eyes carefully and looked at Corey. "Good, now, go to your safe place. Do you remember where that is?"

I wanted to smile at what he was doing. When we were kids, Cecil used to do this when I didn't have an inhaler with me. Calming techniques are common in dealing with asthma. Though it doesn't make the attack go away, it lessens it a little so you have time to get away from your trigger and treat it.

After I nodded in response to his question he continued.

"Breathe out, all the way. That's good. Breathe in slowly, calmly."

When I tried to do that, air caught in my throat and I started to cough, stomping out the miniscule progress I'd just made.

"Get her outside," the coach barked. "Someone get her emergency inhaler from the office."

"She doesn't need one," Keenan said.

Corey disappeared from my line of sight and Keenan replaced him. How he was able to crouch down like that amazed me. He was a pretty big guy. My mind kept going over how he could possibly collapse his big frame to look that...small.

That's when I realized that I wasn't seeing things clearly. There was still that fuzzy haze that I'd learned to associate with my asthma attacks. But it also happened to line up with what happened in the hall that morning with Jesse.

Keenan had a double, just like Cecil had. Where Cecil's double looked tortured and lonely, Keenan's double was smaller and determined. It was like all the muscle and bulk was sucked out of him and what was left was what I was seeing.

Apparently my double sight only worked on the Elite since Corey had looked the same.

"Calm down, get a hold of it."

My brow furrowed in desperation. How could he be asking me that now when my airway was threatening to close up completely and deprive me of precious oxygen? He was no better than the coach.  

"Imagine it and it'll happen. Close your eyes, picture it. Your lungs release all the oxygen and pulls in clean, fresh air slowly, filling you back up."

The picture he was creating was a good one. I could literally see the anatomy dummy we used in Physical Science and his lungs, inflating and deflating with imaginary air. After a few moments, my heartbeat slowed and it got easier to breathe.

"Good. If you have to cough, do it carefully, slowly. In and out. Think of something happy, a memory maybe. A place. Anything."

The only thing that came to mind was the last time Cecil did this for me. We'd been exploring in the woods by the country club. Our parents were there for some kind of luncheon and we'd grown bored listening to them talk about donations and charitable works.