Page 16 of Poinsettia Lane

Everly wallows. She is truly astonished with herself and is having a hard time figuring out what exactly happened. Now that she’s calmed down a bit and can think more clearly, she suspects she had a panic attack. She can hardly even remember getting back to her car, and it’s nearly an hour later than she thought it was, indicating she lost quite a bit of time between running away from Asim and entering the coffeehouse. Everly pulls out her phone, types into the search bar and sure enough, she experienced most of the symptoms on the list.

Now that she knows what happened, Everly feels a little less idiotic, a little more concerned instead. She’s been seeing Carrie for almost a year now, and overall her anxiety has gotten much better. She makes a note in her phone to talk about it during their session next week. This leads her to question how she can be herself without her anxiety getting in the way. As she’s contemplating this dilemma, Frankie shuts down the coffeehouse again and pulls a chair up next to her.

“What’s wrong?” They waste no time on pleasantries.

“I think I had a panic attack.” Everly’s voice cracks on the last word.

She can’t help but be confused about what her emotions are trying to tell her. They feel all tangled up, and she’s not sure how to sort them out.

“Are you okay? I didn’t know you had panic attacks.”

“I don’t.” Everly shakes her head slowly. “Or at least, I never have before. This was the first one.”

“How about some tea? We’ll do decaf, green tea doesn’t have much caffeine anyways, but I know even a little can make it worse.” Frankie is truly the best person she knows; they get up and grab a pot of hot water andriffle around the tea drawer for a particular tea bag, dropping it into a mug on their way back over. “Better to be safe.”

Everly takes it gratefully, already feeling comforted having the warm mug in her hands and her friend at her side.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” they ask. “We can also just sit if you want. Or I can distract you, I’m pretty good at that.”

“I don’t know. I can’t even get my thoughts straight right now.”

“Distraction it is.” Frankie launches into a story about their nemesis at the grocery store who keeps trying to steal their beans. This has been slowly escalating for a few months now, where the local grocery store owner has been hinting at and verbally tiptoeing around the mystery of where Frankie gets their infamously delicious coffee beans. Over recent weeks though, he’s become more forward and demanding. At first, it’s the same old story—he said, they said, he did, they did—but then Frankie leans forward and smacks their hand on the table.

“THEN,” they say, “he had the audacity to threaten to report me to the city council!”

Now, Everly is fully invested. This may not seem like a big deal, but in their small town, the city council rules everything.

“He did not!” Everly gasps as her eyes widen.

“He absolutely did. Of course, I asked what on earth he would report me for, and he actually came up with something. He said, and I quote, “You’re in violation of business hours.” and he was so smug about it, too.” Their lip curls up in distaste.

“Wait, you’re in violation of business hours?”

Frankie leans back and rubs a hand across the back of their neck, glancing toward the wall of windows facing the street. “Well… you know how you’re always getting on my case about closing down at all hours of the day?”

“Uh, yeah. Terrible business practice, but I don’t see how that’s a violation when you own the place.”

“It is, actually.” Frankie grimaces. “The city council passed it a couple years back: that any business on themain strip downtown has to maintain regular business hours “within reasonable expectations” whatever that means.”

“And he’s accusing you of not maintaining those regular business hours,” Everly surmises, “because you’re always closing shop in the middle of the day.”

“You got it.” Frankie sighs, and Everly turns her head toward the door where the word “open” is facing inwards, staring right at her, instead of facing out as it should be.

“You need to open back up. If he’s threatening you… You can’t keep closing like this Frankie.” Everly implores them to listen, and Frankie nods in acquiescence. They stand and walk over to the door, flipping the sign before returning to their seat.

“If he does go to the council, you’ll let me know? I don’t have a lot of sway, but I do have some. They were all tight with my parents and since their passing, they always make a point to offer me whatever help I need. I can call in a favor. I’ll help however I can,” Everly says.

“Thanks. I don’t want to ask that of you, but if it comes to it I will.” They sit in silence together for a few moments, reflecting on the strangeness of their lives right now.

“Okay, I think I’m ready to talk about it,” Everly whispers. Frankie nods and puts a gentle hand on her knee, waiting for Everly to continue. The soft touch helps to ground her, and she appreciates that Frankie knows and remembers this. “I ran into Asim, and I don’t know, he started talking to me and I just panicked. I ran away and ended up back in my car and I think I was there for a while but I can’t really remember.”

“That sounds kind of scary. Do you feel uncomfortable around him?” Frankie asks, doing their best not to bristle.

“No, I actually really like being around him.” Everly thinks about it for a moment. “I think it’s because I wasn’t expecting to see him. I was already feeling stressed being out, and then my plan to be social was failing so I was even more stressed, and then running into him so unexpectedly just really threw me off.”

“That makes sense to me.” Frankie reassures her, andthey settle back into their seat.

“I’m not sure what to do now though. I made a complete fool of myself.” Now that she reflects on it, she is feeling rather embarrassed about the whole situation. Her reaction was so out of the blue.

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