Page 274 of Ominous: Part 1
I’m fucked up too.
I’m just like you.
I wonder if he’ll recoil. A monster wants an angel. An Adonis of any gender. Not a reflection of his wrongs. Not Narcissus, a mirror of his tainted beauty.
But he doesn’t back away.
He says, “Tell me what you need. Tell me how to help.” The plea sounds like an echo. A performance of something he’s rehearsed or heard before.
My tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth. The taste of marijuana is thick like cotton, edging even around my teeth.
Eli reaches out and brushes a stray hair behind my ear and I’m shivering. But I’ve stopped rocking.
When I don’t answer him, he carefully pulls back the top sheet, knocking off a pillow to the floor as he does. I don’t look for Dominic, but I hear him sigh or groan or both.
Eli slides into bed, leaning against two stacked pillows, then he’s lifting me from under my arms, pulling me to his chest. I’m on my knees to help him, and after adjusting elbows and hands and thighs, I’m in his lap, my head resting on his shoulder, arms twined around his neck.
I thought I’d hate this. I thought I needed to be alone to breathe.
I don’t hate it. I don’t want to move.
“I can feel your heart beating through your back.” It’s not sweet, the tone he uses. I’d like to think it’s fear, or worry, but it sounds more reverent than both. “It’s so strong,” he says, where I might have used “wild” or “dangerous.”
I bury my head against his collarbone, his chin rests on my hair. My knees are pulled close to my chest like his arms hold me to him. Me curled in on myself, him curled into me.
I keep seeing it in my head. Not the past. A future action. Getting off the bed. Walking to the balcony. Grabbing the rails. Hauling myself over the side. It’s like a call. A summons. A beckoning.
It’s like I’m haunted or possessed. Over and over and over, my brain plays out my fear.
There’s a noise. Constant and jagged.
It’s hard to breathe as is, and I want the sound to stop. I turn my head into Eli’s skin, my nose along his clavicle, hoping his familiarity will calm me.
I’m breathing and breathing, and I realize… the noise is me.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dominic’s words as I hold in air, trying to get the terrible wheezing to cease. “Should we call someone? Do we need to—”
“She’s having a panic attack.” Eli speaks calmly. Loudly. Like maybe he’s talking to me more than Dominic. His fingers brush down my hair, drifting over my skin. He shifts his head and presses cool lips to my temple. “You’re having a panic attack,” he says, and I know.
I do know. Logically. But it’s brought on by the weed and I think it’s more like a bad trip or something or…
“How long will this last?” I keep my eyes closed as I speak against his chest. “How long?”
His arm tightens around my back, hand resting over my hip. “Not long, Eden.”
I like when he says my name. Better than anything else he could call me, I like when he says my name best.
His lips touch me so softly, it’s like the whisper of a breeze. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
My heart doesn’t slow. My mind doesn’t stop spinning, but it’s everything I need to hear. I drop my fingers to his chest, flexing them against firm muscle, my face pressed over his heart.
“Do you want to talk?” he asks softly, still grazing his hand over the back of my neck.
My lips stick to his skin as I speak, my words muffled, but I don’t pick my head up. “I… Yes.” A distraction. I need a distraction.
“Okay,” he says slowly, not stopping the way he touches me, tracing patterns on the nape of my neck, my hair swept to the side. “What do you want to do tomorrow? For Halloween?”
I keep breathing, and my breath echoes back to me as close as I am to him, warm puffs of air along my mouth. “Let’s go downtown.” I don’t want to think, I just speak, throwing something out. “Let’s go into the ocean. Maybe after, a road trip. A haunted house.”
