Page 48 of Protect Me
Why was I panicking? Vikram being around an interested girl was hardly news.
I couldn’t be having an attack.
Not here.
Timothy wasn’t in sight. I felt safe. Plenty of lights and people and . . . why did it feel so suffocating?
So . . . frightening?
Because Blanca was a deft reminder that Vikram didn’t live the life I wanted. Commitment made him laugh, or scoff. I’d let myself fall even harder for a man that I couldn’t capture. It’s like I brought the pain to myself.
The constriction around my chest increased, like a ratchet twisted from the inside out. The bathroom doors slammed open when I shoved through, found a stall, and locked it behind me. The cool metal pressed against my cheek reoriented me. I screwed my eyes shut.
“Vini,” I whispered. “Vini. Vini. Vini.”
Focusing on my best friend, my stable star, brought me out of the sheer panic. Deep breaths, low and slow and filling, helped the wild edge abate. Sense returned a half-breath at a time, until all my fragmented thoughts slowed.
Vikram may not be the committing type, but neither of us had asked for commitment. Besides, I’d been in love with him all my life and survived. How could now be any different?
I pressed my back to the stall and closed my eyes.
“Get it together,” I murmured. “Go back out there, smile, go home with Vik, and go to bed. This won’t look so bleak in the morning.”
After a few more long breaths, I slipped out, splashed some cold water on my face, and pulled myself back together. Vikram could talk to all the women he wanted—former lovers, dates, friends. It wouldn’t matter to me anymore.
Until Vik said the words,I want you to be mine,then we would remain what we’d always been.
Friends.
And I could learn to accept that.
Heart heavy, I returned to the foyer. A subdued Vikram lounged against a wall, forehead furrowed in deep lines. I squared my shoulders.
Reminders.
That’s what happened tonight.
Blanca was a good reminder that playing with fire led to getting burned.
The rigid walls of the Pineville grocery store surrounded Dahlia and me with baked goods and canned jellies, some tied with a blue-ribbon reminder from a county fair ten years ago. A “business meeting” with a woman named Priyanka had drawn Bastian away until who-knew-when. Without him constantly haunting the corner of the Frolicking Moose, full-force Dahlia bounced around the shop and my love life.
“So . . .”
Dahlia peered at me, eyes wide. Her long, dark lashes blinked, fanning against her cheeks before opening again. Eagerness filled such a gaze.
I sighed.
“You want to talk about Vik.”
“Yes!” she cried, so loud it was almost a scream. “Please! Can we please talk about this? Leslie won’t admit it, but she loves being the barista. She can run it while we get milk and ice and chat.”
“The only reason I’m entertaining this conversation,” I said with a long tone of warning, “is because your boyfriend isn’t walking across the street with us.”
She squealed, clapping. “Spill it! Tell me from the very beginning of when you met him to now.Everything.”
We headed toward the dairy section at the back of the grocery store. I canvassed the room, spotted all the visible people, and kept going without a hitch. If there was any skill I had fully adopted, it was scanning an area for potential threats.
Rule nine: never unaware.
