Page 91 of Feels Like Coming Home

“Nothing, I swear!” I defended myself but a little too loudly and Piper was quick to shush me. I lowered my voice and spoke again, “Nothing. I swear, Piper.”

“Then why the fuck did my best friend just have a complete and total meltdown? I haven’t seen her have an anxiety attack this bad since the first week after she lost Connor.Clearly, you did something!”

“She had a panic attack? Is she okay? I need to go see her.” I stood from the swing but Piper grabbed my wrist and yanked me back down.

“To hell you are. You aren’t going to go in there just to set her off again. I will sooner kill you and throw your lifeless body into the ocean to become fish food before I let you go in there and see her.”

“Piper, I swear to you, I didn’t do anything. We were walking on the beach, having a good time. We were just talking, and then suddenly she was upset and stormed off!” I waved my hands in front of my face as I explained what happened.

“What were you talking about?” Her posture hadn’t changed and I could tell she was on the offensive. Ready to gut me like a fish as soon as she figured out where I had slipped up and caused Haley so much pain.

“We were talking about the end of the trip and how you guys only had two more weeks here. She mentioned heading back to Wilmington and I mentioned going home too, back to Charlotte. I was about to ask her if I could stay with her in Wilmington for a few weeks when?—”

“Wait, you mentioned going home?” Piper cut me off.

“Yeah, I said that I would be heading home too since you guys are leaving. I was only staying here as long as you guys were, but your trip is about to be over which means I'm going to head home too. When I said that, she totally freaked out.”

Piper suddenly relaxed in her seat and pushed her hair out of her face with both hands. She looked up into the dark sky and let out a long, deep exhale. I wondered if she picked that up from Haley. She looked at me for the first time since letting me into the house.

“She thought you were leaving her, instead of just leavinghere, didn’t she?” Piper spoke so matter-of-factly.

“Yeah…how did you know that?”

“Because Camden,” another deep breath, “I know my best friend. And for the last two months, all she’s worried about is you leaving her. So, when you said you would be going home, I’m sure she took that to mean you were leavingher.”

“But I’ve told her so many times that Iwon’tleave her. I’ve done everything except tattoo it across my forehead. I don’t understand why she doesn’t believe me. I don’t know what I need to do to get her to believe me.” My words sounded exactly how I felt, exasperated and confused. “That also makes no sense. Why would me talking about going home mean that I was really talking about leaving her?”

“It doesn’t need to make sense to you, Camden. It makes sense to her, to her anxiety. You said ‘I’m going home,’ and she heard ‘I’m leaving you.’ It doesn’t need to make sense to you for it to feel very real to her.”

What was she talking about? Haley doesn’t have anxiety…

“What are you talking about? What anxiety…?”

Piper took a deep breath and stood up for a moment from the swing causing it to move slightly. She reached out to steady it before sitting back down, tucking one leg underneath her as she did. She was fully facing me now, her arm wrapped around her knee that was bent in front of her. She looked at me with understanding and sadness.

“Camden, Haley isn’t the same girl you used to know growing up. Losing Connor…it changed her. It planted a seed of doubt and worry in her that wasn’t there before the accident. That seed has now bloomed into anxiety. Full-fledged, hard-to-manage, deeply-rooted anxiety. She does a really good job at covering it up, but it’s there. I see it every day, running around behind her eyes.”

My mind started to race, suddenly picking up on cues that I’m sure were her anxiety peeking out when I thought they were just new, weird quirks she had picked up during our time apart. The breathing, the long pauses before saying anything, the chewing of her lip.

“That’s part of the reason she’s in therapy,” Piper continued softly. “When she lost Connor, she didn’t leave her house for almost a month. Shit, she didn’t even shower for almost two weeks and she only did when her mom practically stripped her down and forced her to. Has she told you that she hasn’t even slept in her bed since Connor passed?”

“No…” I had no idea Haley was hurting like this. She hadn’t told me and I felt like a complete ass for not asking. For not noticing how much she was still struggling.

“So when you said you were going to be going home…”

“She thought she was going to lose me too,” I finished Piper’s thought. She nodded her head slowly and pursed her lips together. “Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.” Piper looked at me for a long moment before moving her eyes to the water. The sun had set completely and it was well past nine. It was dark out near the water but you could still hear the waves crashing into the shore.

“So tonight,” I started after a few silent moments. “She had a panic attack?” The thought of Haley being in this kind of pain made me want to hold her close and protect her at all costs. I was angry at myself now that I knew the pain I had caused her and sad that she was struggling in this way. She didn’t deserve to suffer like that, especially because of something I had said.

“Yeah, a big one too. She hasn’t had one this big in months.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“Does she have them a lot?”

“Not recently she hasn’t. She hasn’t since we’ve been here actually. She’s almost seemed…like her old self again. The Haley we knew before losing Connor. But back home”—Piper took a breath and looked back out toward the water, her mind going somewhere else, to a memory—“back home, she was struggling. She had them a lot after losing Connor and they take everything out of her. She’s exhausted once she comes out of them and usually sleeps the rest of the day.”

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