Page 55 of Not Our First Rodeo
Jade snorts and moves the pile of clothes from her lap beside her to the bench. “Good luck with that.” She pauses for a moment. “Have you talked to Cheyenne…since everything?”
I smooth my hands down the legs of the jeans I’ve been trying on, avoiding her gaze and looking at my reflection in the mirror. “No. I don’t know how everyone feels about me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her expression soften, and I don’t love it. I don’t like feeling pitied, and it immediately makes my hackles rise, but I force myself to push them back down. I’m working on being vulnerable more often.
It sucks.
“Els, the Jenningses could never be mad at you,” Jade says, catching my gaze in the mirror.
I swallow, my throat feeling thick, and force myself to hold her gaze. “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve always been a part of their family, and you’ve never done anything to jeopardize that.”
I wish my voice didn’t sound so small, that she couldn’t decipher how much this has bothered me.
“You haven’t done anything to jeopardize that either,” she says softly. “You have to know there’s nothing that you could do to make them not love you.”
All at once, my patience feels frayed. I’m hot, and these pants are both too tight and too loose at the same time. There are so many thoughts in my head, all vying to push to the forefront, and I feel like the room is closing in on me.
And then I realize what’s about to happen. That familiar, cloying anxiety clenches at my spine and grips my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Jade’s eyes widen, concern etched in every line of her face. “Elsie, what’s wrong?”
I don’t remember moving, but suddenly, my back hits the wall, and I slide down it, clutching at my chest that feels too tight. Beside me, Jade drops to the floor, her hands all over me.
“Elsie,” she says, sounding panicked enough to clear the fog closing in on me, just a little.
“I’m okay,” I manage to get out. “Panic attack.”
My breath comes in loud, horrifying gasps, and I force myself to close my eyes, to let the darkness comfort me.
“What can I do?” she asks, voice high with worry.
I shake my head, unable to form any more words, and let the shaking take over. I was so hot a moment ago, but now I’m freezing, my teeth chattering. I force myself to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to calm my breathing.
Still, nothing is working.
But then Jade wraps her arms around me, holding me tight. She doesn’t say anything, but she rocks us back and forth on the dirty dressing room floor. And something about the tightness of her grip, the gentle swaying of our bodies, cuts through panicked haze. I don’t know how long we sit like that, but slowly, my teeth stop chattering, and the uncontrollable shaking of my body eases.
I’m left with that hauntingly familiar hollow feeling in my gut, my head pounding. But I don’t feelalone. Just like the time Beau was with me, when he sat with me in that doctor’s office parking lot, I don’t feel the aching loneliness.
Jade eases back from me, her green eyes assessing me. They remind me of the trees outside, the ones that stay green even during the harsh Montana winters. They’re steady, constant. Jade is like that, too, and just like I did with Beau, I’m wondering why I hid this from her for so long, why I didn’t lean on her when she’s like those trees outside, steadfast and unmoving.
“You okay?”
I nod, and the movement makes the pounding in my head intensify.
She watches me closely, and I think she knows my answer was partly bullshit by the way I wince when I nod. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
Jade stands first and helps me up, and to my surprise, she helps me out of the fugly maternity pants and back into my leggings, the only thing that’s fit me for the last few weeks. I’m still shaking as she does it, but it’s more of a chilled, weak sort of shaking, the kind that always follows my panic attacks.
She gathers our stuff, and I follow her out of the dressing room to where she drops off all the stuff I’m not purchasing and then out of the store. The sunshine immediately warms my chilled skin, and I stop, just wanting to bask in it for a moment, my face lifted to the sky. Jade doesn’t ask what we’re doing, just stops beside me, her shoulder pressed against mine, her face also lifted like a sunflower arcing toward the sun.
We stand there, side by side, until my breathing finally returns to normal and the sun eases the last of the cold lingering on my skin.
When I finally turn back to Jade, she’s watching me, but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it did in the dressing room. It feels strangely…comforting to know that she just saw me at my worst and isn’t acting any differently.
“Ready?” she asks.
I nod, then I follow her to her truck and we hop in. The second she turns it on, Chris Stapleton croons from the speakers, and I settle back into my seat, rolling down my window. I’ve never felt like this after a panic attack—safe. And that’s how I feel now, riding down the road in Larkspur with the windows down and my best friend behind the wheel, the smell of wildflowers and grass and mountain air filling the cab.
