Memory Documentation

chapter eleven | documenting this beautiful, sorrowful day

And what about Papa? He's old. He's not young like a lot of dads. What if he goes? What if he

I shut the book. Without even finishing, I shoved my journal and my pencil off my lap as my breathing began to quicken and the tears began to form again.

I didn't write the word, foolishly think that if I stopped, it would stop the thought from infiltrating my mind. But now the words were echoing in my head as if I'd shouted it in a canyon.

What if he dies? Leaves me? He can go at any moment. He could leave me.

If it was this painful to lose someone I haven't seen in so long, what's it going to feel like when my Papa leaves me? When Papa dies...

A noise escaped my lips. A cry and a groan all mixed into one guttural noise. I squeezed my eyes shut. My fingertips dug painfully into my thighs as I brought my legs up against my chest and pressed my forehead against my knees. My chest was tight. My body was thrumming. Quicker and quicker, my breath became a pant. Panting, mixed with more guttural noises, as if I was trying to release the tension in my chest with every exhale.

"Darce!"

I didn't open my eyes or lift my head, but I knew that was Jessica's voice. Somehow, within the volume of all my cries, I didn't hear her come up to the rooftop. Her touch soon found my hands, her own cold ones prying the fingers digging into my thighs. She held my hands in hers and repeated my name over and over, instructing me to breathe deeply, but all I could do was cry and say over and over, "Papa. Papa, it could happen to Papa."

"Darcy, no." She spoke softly yet firmly. "Your Papa is fine. He's fine, he's fine. I promise you. But I need you to breathe with me."

In response, another mix of a cry and a groan escaped my lips. My body was thrumming in a way I've never felt it before. I could feel it in every nerve, every part of me. My toes, my legs, my arms, even my cheeks...

But Jessica kept hold of me even as I noticed the deathly grip I had around her hands. She instructed me that we were to inhale and exhale for four seconds each, and I was supposed to focus on the area that I felt it the most. She repeated her instructions until I finally nodded in understanding, then she began to count.

"Breathe in, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. In two, three, four. Out, two, three, four."

Jessica cycled through. I honed into the rise and fall of my stomach, as well as the cool air that tunneled through my throat as I inhaled. After a couple of rounds, the thrumming began to disappear, the tightness in my chest unwound, and my grip around Jessica's hands loosened. She stopped only after I lifted my head from my knees and looked at her.

She greeted me with a smile. "Better?" she asked, brushing a few strands of hair back from my forehead.

"Better," I confirmed with a shaky smile of own. "Thanks, Jess. Where'd you learn that?"

"I've had a fair share of panicked moments. Helps to take deep breaths."

"It felt weirdly good." When I breathed in, it felt as if the air was passing right through the problem area in my chest, chipping, taking bits of it away each time.

I scooted over on the bench I was on to give Jessica room to sit. After Jessica and I cried so much that our shoulders were visibly wet, Papa (who'd let Jessica and Reece in the first place) suggested I come up to the rooftop for air. A lot of apartments vary in what their rooftops had, but ours wasn't the most chic or funky. Instead, it was a collection of various styles of chairs and benches that were thrown up here over the years. The bench I snagged was a lime green garden bench with its paint chipping all over.