Page 50 of Boulder's Weight

This is a new phone, a burner that only Tara knows about.

Unless...

My breathing becomes ragged, the edges of my vision darkening.

I slump against the wall, sliding down until I'm sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to my chest.

This is just like in Billings.

I can't go through this again.

I can't run again.

But I can't go back either, not after what I've done.

"Kelsey?" Astra's voice seems distant, though she's right in front of me, her face riddled with concern.. "Hey, breathe. You need to breathe."

I can't.

My lungs have forgotten how to work.

My body is betraying me, shutting down from pure terror.

Astra demonstrates, her voice calm and steady. "Kelsey, focus on my voice. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Come on, with me."

I force myself to follow her lead, dragging in a shuddering breath, then releasing it.

Again and again.

Slowly, the world comes back into focus, the dark spots in my vision receding.

"I'm sorry," I gasp, embarrassment flooding me now that the panic is subsiding. "I don't... this doesn't usually happen."

"Don't apologize," Astra says firmly. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

I shake my head quickly. "No. No hospitals. I'm fine, really. Just... I have a heart condition. Sometimes it acts up when I'm stressed or tired." The lie comes easily, but I am so tired of lying.

Astra doesn't look convinced. "Kelsey, if you need help?—"

"I don't," I cut her off, more sharply than I intend.

I soften my tone. "I mean, thank you, but I'm okay. Just need to take my medication when I get home."

As I speak, my mind drifts back to my childhood, to Benji—not as he is now, hard and cruel, but as he was before—my big brother who taught me to ride a bike, who helped me with homework, who stood between me and our father's rage on more than one occasion.

Everything changed when Mom got sick.

Cancer, and it was terminal.

Benji was fifteen, I was twelve, Craig thirteen, and Sam only seven.

Dad retreated into his ‘work’, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Benji stepped up, became the parent none of us had anymore.

But after Mom died, something in him broke.

Or maybe it was always there, dormant, a seed of our father's cruelty waiting for the right conditions to grow.

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