Leap of Faith

Day Three

Two hours later, and Libby still not happy with any of the dress choices, my sisters and I made our way to Scalla, the Italian restaurant in town. Anna and Libby walked ahead of me, chatting animatedly about something or nothing- probably about the wedding- and a feeling of dread took over me.

I could feel my heart racing and a sensation of drowning suddenly hit me. I hated this feeling because it was out of my control. I rumbled around in my purse and found my meds, took one of the tablets and swallowed it without water. I used to hate taking tablets, but ever since my SAD diagnosis, it was a habit I had become accustomed to.

I wait for the calm to take over and roll my shoulders to help me relax. I take a few sharp intakes of breath and sigh when I feel the fresh oxygen flood my body. This was the upside of my panic attacks- the feeling of weightlessness when all my worries…

“Hello, Cate,” Adam’s voice cuts through my nirvana. I groan audibly and my world turns to black. “Oh, come on, baby. That’s no way to greet your ex-boyfriend.”

You know when someone says something to you, and in your head you have a million and one come backs, but when you open your mouth, nothing comes out?

That’s how most of my conversations with Adam tend to go. His egotistical ways always get me riled up, and in the back of my mind I have the mother of all retorts, but then I realize that I’m Cate Westbrook, the girl with SAD who would never dream of saying words like that out loud.

“What do you want, Adam?” I settle on.

“Where’s your new boyfriend?” Adam circles me, his breath tickling my neck as he speaks.

“Adam, right?” I hear a new voice behind me but it isn’t one that I recognize. I wait for the boy to show himself to me, but he doesn’t. I guessed his attention was focused solely on Adam, but that still didn’t stop me from wondering who he was. “We met a couple of days ago, remember? In fact, I’m getting this sense of déjà-vu. Yeah, this is feeling really familiar. Didn’t it end with you walking away?”

Adam scoff. “And who are you?”

“I’m the guy that’s going to kick your ass if you don’t leave,” the boy says, a smile in his voice. “Now.”

“This isn’t over, Cate,” Adam threatens. “We’ll talk some other time, baby.”

I shiver as he walks away, but still manage to turn and face my rescuer. TJ, Greyson’s friend, was stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his attention focused on Adam as he walked away. Once Adam was out of sight, TJ settled his amused grin on me and he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“So, how do you know that jerk?” TJ finally asks.

“We dated for a while,” I confess much to TJ’s amusement. I roll my eyes at his reaction. “Yeah, I know. I could do a lot better, right?”

He laughs. “Totally. Are you coming to hang out with us?”

“Us?” I frown up at him. Boy was he tall. “Who is ‘us’?”