"Let's talk about panic attacks."
Lydia is jolted out of her reverie to see the guidance counsellor still hovering over her and the session only five minutes in.
After everything that's happened at Beacon Hills High, they've started doing counselling sessions with the students. A little too late, in Lydia's opinion, but there you go. She knows that a lot of her peers are suffering from PTSD-like symptoms and from trauma. So, the school got a bunch of professionals, counsellors, psychologists and all the rest of the ones Lydia can't stand, to collaborate on creating this program for the high school. Once a week, with a group of six other students in a cohort. Something about 'making new friends' and 'building a support group'. Lydia thinks it's extraordinarily stupid.
So, Lydia tends to spend these sessions not paying any attention, plopping into her plastic chair in the small circle and spending the next fourty minutes doodling the integral symbol on her notebook in assorted fonts. She really doesn't need another shrink trying to tell her how she's feeling without knowing the whole story. Except that just now the counsellor Marie is watching her with some expectancy on her face, clearly having seen Lydia get jolted back into reality. "Miss Martin? Do you have anything to say on the subject?"
Lydia smooths down a flyaway that's found it's way into her vision, delivering up a wide, fake smile. "Hmmm. I'll pass," she says, voice sugary sweet.
Marie frowns. There's a sound from across the circle, something like a snicker which hastily becomes a cough. Lydia lets her eyes flicker up to meet the perpetrator's eyes.
Stiles has smothered his own grin into his hand. Having Stiles as part of her "support group" has been a coincidence both reassuring (like when Marie was talking about sleepwalking and he sat next to her holding her hand tightly but inconspicuously for the entirety of the session) and with the potential to be rather annoying, like right now- he's sitting across from her today, and his legs are stretched obnoxiously across the small circle, soles of his shoes almost brushing against the tips of her shoes. She lets her eyes drop down to his feet and then slowly and deliberately back up to his face. He gets the message, immediately reining in his legs and tucking them under his chair with an apologetic look. She gives him one more look, like, "now keep them there," and then resumes staring at the ceiling.
Throughout this entire exchange, the room has been silent, and Marie sighs and throws her hands up. "If we don't make any progress, I can't let you guys go," she huffs. "Believe me, you've all made it very clear how much you dislike these sessions. But the faster you start participating, the faster you'll all get out of here." Stiles perks up at this, encouraging the counsellor to go on. "I know that many of you have experienced a panic attack. Now, what are the symptoms?"
The silence lingers for three long seconds until Stiles finally speaks in a resigned sort of way. "You- you start shaking," he says.
Marie leaps on that eagerly. "What else do you experience?"
Someone else, a girl sitting near Lydia, pipes up before Stiles can answer. "Uh, I start sweating and my chest starts hurting and everything seems kind of hazy."
"Heart feels like it's going way too fast," someone else says.
"Your skin starts tingling all weird," Danielle says, demonstrating by tapping her fingers against her arm.
Marie is delighted and also seemingly overwhelmed with the amount of responses. "Anything else?" She asks Stiles breathlessly, now targeting the instigator of all of this participation.
Lydia watches his Adam's apple bob nervously in his throat before he speaks again. "And- and-" his eyes dart around the circle before settling, perhaps unconsciously, on Lydia's, "I feel like I can't breathe."
