Page 144 of Cerulean Truth
He sighed. "I know how you feel, Emma, just don't give up on this."
I shrugged my shoulders and muttered, "Like I have a choice," under my breath. But he heard me, and it seemed to strike a chord with him.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded, his tone fairly aggressive.
"Well, I don't have a choice, do I?" I retorted, matching his aggression. "You tore me away from a world where I was the best, where I was made for greatness. You ripped me from it against my will and better judgment, only to thrust me into a world where I'm at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom ofsomething I don't even understand!" I practically screamed, my frustration boiling over.
"Against your will? Against your better judgment? Damn, Emma, aren't you being just a tad dramatic today?" His words were like a match to gasoline.
"Dramatic? You want to see dramatic? I'll give you godsdamn dramatic!"
And then it all spilled out. It wasn't fair to him, and most of it was frustration directed at myself, but I couldn't keep a lid on it any longer.
“Thisis allyourfault!Youtold me I was special!Youtold me I couldn’t go back to my normal life and that this would have to be my new home. Well, guess what, mister 'I'm always right about everything,' you were wrong! Dead wrong! And it cost meeverything!”
I continued yelling as James grew very still, his demeanor quiet, perhaps even shocked by my outburst. He kept staring at me, absorbing every word of my explosive accusations. In that moment, he was the source of all my pain, and I had no qualms about making him aware of it.
"You didn't risk everything you worked for your entire life! You didn't stand to lose everyone you ever cared about. I did! Idid!"
Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably, but I didn't care. It all just had to come out.
I knew my jealousy of Justine was fueling every other emotion I was experiencing. Deep down, I was mostly hurt and scared. Scared of falling in love with James, scared of the possibility that he might not love me back. I was terrified that I had left my wonderful life behind for nothing, scared that I had burned my carefully built bridges over nothing but emptiness and failure. Fear consumed me from head to toe.
Closing my eyes, I tried to catch my breath, feeling as though a heavy weight was pressing down on my chest. I was acutely aware of every breath leaving my body. It felt like I was suffocating. I was having a full-on panic attack.
“I…I…” I stumbled over my words, gasping for air.
My heart raced as if it were trying to escape my chest, pounding so loudly I could hear it in my ears. The room felt like it was closing in on me, and my breaths came in short, erratic gasps. It was as if there wasn't enough air in the entire world to fill my lungs.
My palms were clammy, and a cold sweat broke out across my forehead. The world around me blurred as my vision tunneled, and I struggled to focus on anything. Thoughts raced through my mind, a chaotic whirlwind of fear and confusion. It was as if a thousand thoughts were shouting at me all at once, and I couldn't make sense of any of them.
The ground beneath me seemed to shift, making me feel unsteady and off-balance. A sense of impending doom washed over me, and I couldn't shake the feeling something terrible was about to happen.
My chest tightened, and I clutched at it, hoping to ease the pressure. But it only intensified, a vice-like grip, threatening to suffocate me. I found myself gasping for air, but each breath felt inadequate, as if I were breathing through a tiny straw.
I was breathing too fast.
The panic swelled, reaching its peak, and I couldn't escape the overwhelming sense of dread. It was a tempest within me, tearing through every fiber of my being.
But right before the lack of oxygen suffocated me, out of nowhere, slowly, like a passing storm, the panic began to subside. My breaths, though still shaky, became less labored. The tightness in my chest gradually released its grip, and theworld started to come back into focus. It was only then I realized James was holding me in his arms, calming me down.
“You’re having a panic attack, Emma. Calm down. You’re fine.”
It took me another few minutes to regain complete control. The warmth of James’s body left a lingering chill when he released me, and I almost cried at the loss of contact.
I lifted my eyes to meet his, but I couldn't discern any warmth in them. His stare was as cold as his voice had been when uttering those words I had clung to in order to crawl out from under the panic.
As I observed him standing there stoically, devoid of all emotion and care, the realization hit me like a punch to the gut—I had pushed him too far.
I wanted to apologize for my outburst, but he didn't let me. He looked away, dryly instructing me to clean up my mess before turning around and leaving the training room.
All my anger, all my frustration, had been directed at him. Though I knew I was in the wrong, his reaction was more painful than any fear or anger I was feeling—he didn't even care.
THIRTY-EIGHT
JAMES
She had no right, absolutely none, to lay the blame on me for allherfailures. I had consistently done right by her, dedicating all my time and effort solely to her training. I had been nothing but supportive. So much time I wasted researching every possible cause of her “malpractice”, as we called it (a private joke with a wink to her past).
