Mary and Halley (sequel to When Mary Met Halley)

twenty two

I got my phone off the nightstand. 3:15. I was wide awake, heart and mind racing, the anxiety having morphed into actual fear. All I could think of was that I had to talk Leif out of going, that there had to be another way. 

I got out of bed, careful not to disturb Halley, and pulled on sweats and a hoodie before swallowing an anti-anxiety pill.

Leif was in the kitchen. He sat in the dark with the dim wash of the street light on him, the photo album of Elle's pictures open in front of him. He glanced up at me and kicked the chair at the end of the table out a little for me to sit in. He occupied the one to the left of it. Two Red Bull cans sat by the old book. 

I was glad he wasn't drinking something stronger.

I took the seat and he pushed the album toward me a little, holding his right hand out so I took it and focused on the pages before us. The pictures were from a few weeks before the accident, at the fair, more than nine years ago. Elle with multi-colored cotton candy smiled from Leif's back, his face matching, a disgruntled Caleb standing by in his perfectly unmarked shades. He'd been mad about some guys saying hi to me and thought my shorts were too short, which they probably had been. 

God, they looked so young. I wondered what she would look like now if she'd had been allowed to grow up.

"I don't know what to do," Leif said in a low voice raspy with emotion. He met my eyes. His were red from weed and crying. "If you ask me to stay, Tug, I'll stay."

That should have made it easier but it had the opposite affect. What if I made the wrong decision? I already had once. And what would Paramjeet do? Go alone? Not go and get arrested? Fuck.

"You have to go," I said, the words ripped straight from my soul, leaving tatters in their place. My little sister hung over the edge of her car on the Ferris Wheel in the next photo, waving and making a face because I'd been admonishing her to stop. 

His hand tightened on mine. The cat meowed sleepily at me from his lap and went back to sleep, tucking his nose under his tail. "I'm a little scared," Leif said plaintively, eyes steady on mine. 

Tears burned even through the medication that was already working. "Me too."

He nodded, tugging his gauge. "I mean," he whispered, swallowing. "People die. This much we know. In, like, plane crashes. Not that it's gonna happen again, or happen to me or anything, but . . . " he shrugged, because it could.

"I know," I said, trying not to think that this could be our last time together.

But that's a thing that's always true in a world where nothing is promised and terrible things happen to good people.

They left at five and he called two hours later, right as they were about to board. "I'll be okay," he said firmly, having regained his confidence, or at least a good fakery of it. "Don't worry, dude. There are, like, six babies getting on this pla--, uh, thing, and get this, a whole group of nuns. Herd of nuns? Flock of nuns? I'm pretty sure that's it, a flock of nuns. So we're good, go back to sleep and I love you and so does Pammy and they're calling us so I gotta go, call you when we get there!"

"I love you guys too," I got in before he hung up, sitting on the bed in Halley's arms, and they got on the plane. 

After Leif hung up I cried for half an hour, unable to stop, even after I took one of the few Valium I had at my disposal. Finally my very worried girlfriend called Therapist Sarah. She had already been appraised of the situation, and Halley told her briefly how I was stuck in weeping mode, and listened for a minute before she handed me the phone.

"Mary," Sarah said in her no-nonsense voice. "That's enough, take a deep breath and let's get you past this. You can't cry for the next five hours," she said reasonably. "Now, breathe with me. In, one, two, three, four, hold for seven," she coaxed. "Now out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight."

I tried from Halley's arms, my breath hitching, my nose stuffed up and my eyes swollen and my whole self miserable. Of course people would need to fly places, and I knew my reaction was unreasonable and hysterical but I literally couldn't help it. It made it even worse that part of me knew it was ridiculous. I felt like I wanted to run but there was nowhere to run, nothing to run from. Stuck in a panic attack, and all I could do was wait. All I could feel was a crazed apprehension.

All I could see was luggage falling and mangled bodies and smeared blood.

"Mary," Sarah's voice sounded in my ear, bringing me back. "If you can't calm down I'll need to have you come in for a shot, so let's try to calm down so we can keep you warm and cozy at home, okay?" This wasn't the first time she'd talked me down over the phone, and there had been times I'd had to come in for the injection. Only twice, because just the mention of a hospital trip usually helped me to get myself together.

"But it could happen at any time, it could be happening right now," I gasped the words out, trying to make them understand how this was the time to panic, that there was no other choice. How the plane was just fine one second and you were listening to fallen angels discuss life through your headset and then three minutes later everyone was strewn around you on the ground in gruesome pieces with their intestines looped around scrap metal.

"Mary, Leif and Paramjeet are going to be fine, and if for some reason something does happen, which it won't, we will all get through it together," she said crisply, and I clung to this beloved voice of reason that had once led me to the light at the end of the tunnel when I saw none at all.

I nodded, though she couldn't see me. Halley rocked us back and forth and kissed my temple; as always she was my anchor, my heart. I might as well not be taking any meds at all if I could still get like this.

"Maybe we should go get the shot?" Halley said almost apologetically, putting the vape pen in my hand.

I automatically put it to my lips and inhaled. The familiar motions combined with the cannabis to calm me down enough to get a grip; that and the fact that if she was concerned enough to suggest that, I must be really bad. "No shot," I forced myself to say, and pinched the skin on my thigh hard enough to get my attention. It wasn't a tool I was supposed to use anymore but it helped for the moment and I focused on it intensely to ground myself.

Halley caught my hand in hers and kissed the back of it, hugging me tighter. "Don't hurt yourself, sweetie," she implored.

"Mary?" Sarah asked.

The fluttering in my chest was easing a bit as the sedative took more effect. "Yeah," I answered, though it took extreme effort. I felt limp as a rung-out rag, thin from years of overuse. "Sorry," I said to them both, wishing I could just be normal, hating that Halley had to put up with my high-maintenance shit on top of everything else that was crazy in our lives. "I'm sorry." An old song by Tyler Joseph played on head radio. There's a word that I've said more than any other word and that's sorry.

They both rushed to tell me not to be sorry, and said other soothing things, but the tranquilizer was knocking me out. When Halley maneuvered us to lay me down, I realized my eyes were closed and tried to open them but I was gone.