Page 6 of Until You Found Me

She doesn’t realize she’s hyperventilating until the hold on her own stare breaks and she slides to the ground against the wall. Until she can’t breathe without tasting the worms she coughed on and she’s certain that she might actually die right here with a view of stained grout lines. What a shitty way to go when she managed to survive so much worse already.

Is this something that happens to her all the time? Does she often lose her ability to function after staring in the mirror, or is this new? Maybe this is just who she is as a person, she thinks with an almost manic laugh that comes out as strangledas she looks. Anything is possible now since she doesn’t have a clue who she is. A first name doesn’t count.

The panic of uncertainty only worsens her suffering. Footsteps echo from the hall and she expects the nurses to come and carry her away, restrain or sedate her. Instead, it’s the man who found her like a wet cat in the middle of the road.

“Tessa? Are you okay? What happened? I’m gonna get Audrey—”

“No!” She has no reason to fear the doctor but wants to sit here on the cold tile for as long as she’s allowed instead of being poked and prodded again. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t look fine,” Logan replies, lingering in the doorway before taking a step closer. “Want some help getting up? Need to go lie down?”

“No, no, no, no.” She holds up a hand, silently begging him to stop. Don’t touch her. Don’t move her. Don’t do anything. “I’m okay, just got scared and a little dizzy.”

It’s a flimsy explanation, spoken in broken syllables. She expects he’ll ignore her request and fetch the staff, but he slides down across from her instead, sitting with bent knees against the sink, two arms lengths of space between them.

Embarrassment shades her terror until it all mingles together, fluttering out on her ragged exhales and curling her fingers to burn crescent moons into her palms. She asked him to come back and the first thing he sees is her having an out-of-body experience on the bathroom floor. That is not how she expected this to go, not that she expected him to return at all.

“Sometimes it helps to pick something to focus on. To stare at, like that towel on the rack or the rubber duck on the tub’s edge.” He tells her.

It must be left over from a child in this room, she thinks, looking at the little yellow duck with faded color around its beak. Did she have a child who liked to play with rubber toys in the bath? Are they still with whoever did this to her? Her mind races and her skin prickles hot, the fluorescent light scorches her eyes, and all at once, her lunch comes up in a rush that nearly misses the toilet bowl.

Her stomach lurches and that ashy taste of ground dirt fills her mouth again, even if it’s only her imagination telling her she tastes it.

When she finally sags backward, Logan’s standing up as if he wanted to hold her hair back but the touch never came. He looks stricken with the effort of doing nothing, but she’s grateful for his restraint. Doing anything at all would be worse.

He crouches down beside her, his voice quiet and calm, the only thing worth hearing in the storm. “I used to try to say my ABCs backward when I’d get stuck. Sometimes that helps, too.”

It sounds silly, but she’s desperate. In the dim room, she quietly whispers letters, suddenly realizing he switched off the overhead light, leaving only filtered sun from a curtained window.

She stumbles at first, having to restart her ABCs more than once, gasping through them backward while her nerves tingle and burn, but somewhere around the seventh try it’s easier to breathe than it had been a moment ago.

On the eighth try, her fingers uncurl to lay flat on the porcelain tile where the cold offers something to ground herself in.

On the ninth effort, the taste of dirt disappears, replacedby the acid of her vomit, and on the tenth, she can finally open her eyes without the room spinning. Can speak without dying. Can exist without assuming every second to come next might be her last.

He gets up to run the tap, returning to squat in front of her with a wet hand towel and a plastic cup of water.

“Thank you.” She accepts the offerings, but the shame in her tone is even clearer now that a dozen other emotions aren’t competing with it. “You can go now. I’ll be okay.”

“Just got here,” he says quietly.

“This isn’t your job. You don’t even know me. You’re not obligated to stay.”

He stands up with a sigh and there’s a little clench in her chest that comes with knowing she’s pushed away the only person who’s come to see her. The only one who seems to give a single shit about what happens to her.

He only holds out a hand instead. “Don’t feel obligated. Come on, lemme help you up.”

His palm is warm when she slips her cold one into it. The tug he gives to pull her to her feet is strong but gentle and she has the unwelcome thought that he probably gives good hugs. Those thick arms would offer protection from the outside world, and fuck does she ever want some protection and safety right about now? So much so that she would take it from a virtual stranger.

Letting go of his hand, she walks into the next room, creating distance to resist the temptation of taking what he isn’t willing to give. It’s hard to look at him in the daylight and she sits on the bed with her face burning, wishing he would have left after all.

“Hungry?” he asks, taking up the chair at her bedside.

“Actually, yes, but I don’t like the food here. That sounds terrible, I know. I’m grateful for anything they give me.”

“Tastes like bleach, right?”

She tilts her head. “Yes, how did you know?”

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