Page 98 of Caught Up In You

“I’m sorry, it’s just…” But I trail off. I don’t know whatitis. I just know that my brain is too loud and my body feels like it’s vibrating too fast. I can’t catch my breath, and I feel like myheart is trying to escape from my chest. Everything is spinning, and it’s cold but I’m sweating?—

“Owen,” Fatima says, gripping my upper arms. The venom is gone from her voice. She tugs gently on my sleeves, and suddenly I’m sinking down onto a cardboard box in the corner of the room. “Owen, listen to me. I think you’re having a panic attack. I need you to take a deep breath, okay?”

I try, but it feels ragged in my chest, and I huff the air out quickly.

“Good, try again. Breathe while I count to four, okay?”

She counts, and I breathe. It takes a few tries before I’m able to slow my breathing down, but once I do, Fatima nods.

“Okay, now I need you to name three things you can see,” she says, and when I don’t answer right away, she repeats it.

My eyes dart around the small room, unable to land on anything, but Fatima gives my arms a squeeze, and something inside me slows.

“Uh, paper towels,” I say, scrambling for words. “Bottles of cleaner. Shelving units.”

“Good,” Fatima says. “Now give me three sounds you hear.”

This one requires more effort, but Fatima is patient. “The air conditioner humming,” I say finally. “Someone talking down the hall, probably at the nurses’ station. And, uh, does the pounding of my own heart count?”

“I don’t think the judges will have a problem with that,” Fatima says. “Okay, now I need you to move three parts of your body.”

I wiggle my fingers, which are clenched on my thighs, feeling the gentle release of tension in my forearms. Then I slowly roll my neck, breathing with the motion as something in my shoulders cracks. And finally I reach up and swipe at my cheeks, where a trail of tears is making its way down into the collar of my shirt.

“Okay, good,” Fatima says, letting out a long breath of her own. “Now, I’m going to take care of Eden, and you are going to go home.”

“But—”

“No,” she says, her voice kind but firm. It’s the voice I hired her for. And I need to remind myself that I hired her for her skills too. “You are going home. Are you safe to drive?”

I remember that I drove here with Wyatt. In her truck. And I have a sudden sinking, miserable thought.

I haven’t felt this bad since Dylan Anders. This feelsjustlike Dylan Anders. Eden isn’t dying. Eden is going to be fine. I know that. I repeat it like a mantra. But that doesn’t change my feelings. The feeling of inadequacy. The fear of making a mistake.

I remember the look on Hazel’s face. The fear on Wyatt’s.

Things didn’t go wrong.This time.

I walked out of Wyatt’s house so sure that I had given the right advice about Eden, and I was wrong.

I was wrong, and I nearly hurt the person I care about most.

I was wrong because I was thinking only about her.

I was wrong, and I can’t do this again. I can’t.

Wyatt deserves better. My patients deserve better.

I can’t do this again. Notagain.

“I’ll get an Uber,” I tell Fatima as my stomach curdles.

CHAPTER 39

WYATT

A nurse gets us settled into a room, wheeling a sleeping Eden in her grim little bed. As horrifying as it is to see her there, her chubby limbs connected to tubes and wires, a tiny, faded hospital gown pooling around her, I have to admit that her color has improved just in the short time we’ve been here.

“This room is nice,” Libby says, sitting down on one of two chairs. Hazel takes the recliner beside Eden, her worried eyes never leaving her daughter.

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