Page 61 of How Not to Be A Loser
At seven o’clock that evening, Nathan met us at the Brooksby Leisure Centre door. I eyed his trainers and tracksuit with a questioning eyebrow.
‘I’ve got a change of clothes in my car.’
Speaking of cars… yep – there it was. Skulking in its usual corner. I wasn’t surprised. At some point in the past twenty-eight hours, my head had clicked two connecting thoughts together like Lego bricks: mysterious fancy car, often found loitering in the leisure centre or outside my house, plus a scout scouting out my son. The car was stalking Joey. Full on stalking might seem extreme to those who haven’t lived inside the world of ultra-competitive sport, but I knew different. If a big-time agent wanted a new client, they would be thinking about sponsorship, endorsements, celebrity appeal. They would be asking who this athlete was – did they have a stable family life, were there any unsavoury secrets that could pose a problem in the future, were they susceptible to taking performance-enhancing drugs – or party-enhancing drugs? Were they constantly getting into trouble with authority?
If it was a big agent, and they were doing their research, they would surely have connected Joey Piper to Amelia Piper.
Joey was thirteen. Even if he joined the Gladiators and looked set to make it to the national squad, I’d be insisting on no agent for a long while yet. If ever. And come the Easter bank holiday, my cover was blown anyway. All I had to do was stall this scout until then.
For now, getting a decent look at him would suffice. From the inside of the leisure centre, which is where I presumed he was, given that the car was empty.
‘Right. Let’s do this!’ Joey grinned, pumped that his mum, the ex-world champion swimmer, was seeing him train at last.
‘Yes,’ I said. Or tried to say. It came out more like a dying chipmunk’s final breath.
‘We’ll see you in there,’ Nathan said. ‘Your mum might need to take her time.’
Joey frowned, reluctant to go in without me.
‘Don’t worry, I promise I won’t let her run off. She’s coming in even if I have to carry her.’
I flapped my hand, anxiety sign language for ‘what he said’, and Joey nodded once before jogging inside.
‘Amy – you need to breathe,’ Nathan said.
‘The smell, though,’ I whispered, using as little breath as possible.
A woman pushed open the door to leave, releasing another blast of warm, wet, chloriney air that churned up a tornado of nausea and dizziness, while sweat popped out from every pore on my body. My hand groped blindly behind me for the entrance railings, as the all too familiar panic clamped down on my chest.
Don’t fall, Amy.
‘Of course you’re going to fall,’my anxiety screeched. ‘You can’t breathe. Your heart is exploding. You’re about to collapse and smack your head on the concrete and a whole crowd of people will gather round to watch you bleed.’
If I could only reach the railings, grip onto something. Anything…
And then my flailing fingers brushed something solid. And warm. And soft and strong all at the same time, and whatever it was wrapped itself around my hand and held on tight.
And, hallelujah, Iwasthinking. And breathing. And my heart was decelerating to a pace where I could distinguish the individual beats again. Because I knew that hand. I was learning to trust it, almost as much as I liked it.
‘I’m not dying,’ I croaked.
‘Nope,’ Nathan agreed.
‘Just feel like crap.’
‘I sort of picked up on that.’
And then it hit me.
This feeling – which to be fair, was overpoweringly horrendous to the point that it genuinely did seem as though I was dying – was it. There was nothing terrible inside the leisure centre. The monster I feared wasthis. Was here. Inside me. I was panicking because I was afraid of a panic attack. Afraid that the panic would make me collapse, or throw up, or act hysterical, or not do something I needed to do, like show up and act normal. A fear that was justified, considering in the past it had made me do all those things.
But it was thefearthat made me do it. Not the place, or the people, or the chemical smell or the echoey tiles or the squeak of a swim cap.
And I couldn’t feel any more afraid than I had thirty seconds ago.
And I was not going to let afeelingstop me from keeping a promise to my son.
I slowly straightened upright, lifted my head so that I could see more than my shoes. Wiped the perspiration-snot-tear combo off my face with a tissue and adjusted my woolly hat.
