Breaking Through

Chapter 14

14

Hilary

Jimmy and Hannah laid me on the sofa, and Hannah pulled a blanket over me. I was still shaking, but I didn’t tell her it wasn’t from the cold. It was the remnants of the panic attack.

Jimmy retreated to the door and Hannah followed him. They exchanged a few words, all whispers, then he left and she knelt beside me.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, concern written all over her face.

“I just need to rest and calm down.”

“All right.” She looked me up and down a few times. “You’ve got a bruise on your shoulder.” She pointed to a bright red spot on my shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

I was still numb. Nothing hurt. The only things I felt were mortification and exhaustion. “Not yet.” Remembering I had hit more than just my shoulder, I lifted my T-shirt and saw the reddish mark on the side of my waist too.

“What do you remember?” my sister asked, her voice gentle, cautious.

I didn’t really want to think about it anymore, but I also had a few questions. “Hm, I’m not sure. The panic started and I tried to run. I didn’t want Gui to see me like this,” I muttered, embarrassed. “But I ended up falling inside the round pen. By then panic had already consumed me.” I didn’t want to tell her I had seen Eric … I wouldn’t. “How did you get there?”

“I was coming back early from a private lesson with two young sisters. I hadn’t seen anything until Gui called me. He was holding Belle back. I handed off the girls to Jimmy and rushed to the round pen. Then Gui told me you had fallen. He wanted to help you, but because you were already having the attack, he wasn’t sure if touching you was the best way to go or not. Before he could decide what to do, Belle got spooked and he held her back until I arrived.”

I sucked in a long breath. “How long was that?”

“Accordingly to Gui, it was about thirty minutes.” Her tone was low, careful as if she didn’t want to admit that to me.

Oh my gosh, Gui held Belle back from me for thirty minutes? No wonder he looked so strained and tired when I came to.

I buried my face in my hands.

“Shhh.” Hannah rubbed my back gently. “It’s okay, Hil. You’re okay now.”

Taking a deep breath, I looked into her. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “For being there, for snapping me out of it somehow, for carrying me in here.”

She waved her hand, dismissing my thank you. “So, are you hungry? Do you need anything to drink?”

Hannah would be over me like a mother hen until I gave her something to do, so I lied. “Yes, I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?” she asked. I hesitated, not sure what to ask. What would buy me some time to be alone? She filled in the silence for me. “How about a loaded grilled cheese? And some iced tea?”

“Sounds good,” I lied again. Not that I didn’t like her loaded grilled cheese and iced tea. I liked them, but right now, my stomach didn’t want anything.

“I’ll also bring ice for those red marks. They look like they will hurt soon.” She jumped up. “Be right back.” She marched to the kitchen.

Sighing, I laid my head back and closed my eyes.

The brief memory of the terrors of my panic attack rushed to the front of my mind, and I stifled a sob. A single tear escaped my eye. Then another. And another.

The front door opened, and I sat up, wiping away the tears.

Gui stepped inside, his baseball hat in his hands. His brown hair was damp from sweat, I realized. He stayed by the door, eyeing me with worry.

“Hi,” I said, feeling mortified by what he witnessed.

“Hey.” He still stood by the door. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I guess so.” A new batch of tears made their way to my eyes, but I wiped them. “I’m sorry about my reaction. Somewhere, deep in my mind, I knew it was you beside me. I knew you would never hurt me. I knew there was no reason for me to panic, but I couldn’t help it. It was stronger than me.” The tears won, and a couple ran down my cheeks. “I kept seeing his face and there was nothing … nothing I could do. I’m—”

“Hey, hey.” Gui took two steps toward, but stopped, his frame rigid. “It’s okay. I know that. Don’t worry about me.”

Again, I wiped my tears away as if I could erase all from my mind. “I’m sorry.”

“Hil, it’s okay. I swear.” His knuckles were white around his hat. “Just tell me if you’re okay now.”

For some reason, I couldn’t lie to him. “I’ll be okay.”

Gui stared at me for a minute, his eyes shining with worry or …caution? He was probably afraid of getting close to me again, of triggering another attack.

Interrupting the awkward moment, Hannah came back from the kitchen with a tray. Looking from me to Gui and back to me, she deposited the tray with my sandwich and drink on the coffee table.

“Here you go, Hil.” With a forced smile, Hannah handed me the ice pack. Then, she stood, her hands on her back. “Gui, hmm, may I speak with you for a minute? In the kitchen, please?”

My curiosity piqued as Gui followed my sister into the kitchen, but I lay back on the sofa, holding the ice pack to my shoulder with my eyes closed, just too tired to care about whatever she wanted to talk to him about.

I wasn’t counting, however, in being able to hear part of their whispers from here.

Hannah started. “… you doing here? And her? …”

“Hil said she would help me with something for the wedding …” My sister replied something I couldn’t hear, and Gui continued, “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“…her clothes. That’s not like her.”

“I guess she wanted to get in the spirit of things.”

“What things?”

“Told you. It’s a surprise … won’t tell.”

Hannah muttered something else, and then came back to the living room. “You didn’t even touch your food.”

Gui stayed by the hallway door, his eyes cast down.

“I don’t feel like I can eat right now,” I admitted.

“All right.” Sighing, Hannah sat down on the coffee table beside the tray and leaned forward, getting closer to me. “I want to help you, Hil, but I don’t really know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“I just want to relax for a minute. I’ll be okay soon.”

She frowned, as if she was suspicious of something.

Tires crunched the stones on the entrance road, signaling an incoming car. Hannah looked out the window and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

I glanced out and saw Leo parking his SUV beside Hannah’s car. She rushed out and down the porch steps to greet him, and I turned away.

Gui walked into the living room, but still maintained his distance.

“I want to thank you for trying to help me, and especially for holding Belle so she wouldn’t stomp all over me,” I said, trying to make a joke with the stomping part. Then I remembered that was what made me afraid of horses in the first place, and worse, how Eric ended up in a wheelchair. Hannah’s horse, Argus trampled him. My stomach revolved.

“It was nothing.”

Of course it wasn’t nothing. It must have been hard to hold back a spooked horse. He was probably tired, aching, and pissed at me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

“Stop apologizing, Hil. There’s nothing to apologize for. You’re all right now; that’s all that matters.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but the determined and almost irritated look on his face made me clamp my lips again.

I looked out the window and saw Hannah and Leo talking, and Leo’s expression changing—a knot appeared in his forehead and his jaw tensed. Then, he looked up, through the window, past me. I glanced back and found Gui staring back at his cousin. Gui gave a sharp nod, then shifted his gaze to me.

“Be right back.” He marched from the house.

As Gui approached Leo, Hannah walked to the stables.

I couldn’t hear them, and from their position, I couldn’t even try to read their lips, but I could see their body language. Leo and Gui were arguing. They both pointed to the stables and to the window from where I spied on them a couple of times. They were arguing about me. I could imagine the whole discussion. Leo was telling Gui to stop being stupid and stop helping me. I was damaged and would drag him down with me. Coming to his senses, Gui finally realized he had a moment of delusion. Why was he even bothering with me anyway? But Gui surprised me. Instead of agreeing with Leo, Gui retorted fiercer and fiercer, until finally he clenched his fists, as if he was holding back from punching Leo, yelled one last time, and then stomped down the porch stairs and didn’t stop until he was inside his Jeep and leaving the property.

Leo stared at him, shaking his head. After a long moment, Leo turned to the front door and I lay down, pretending to be asleep on the couch.

I placed the hot tea mug on the nightstand and climbed in my bed. I leaned against the headboard and pulled the covers up to my waist. I grabbed my k****e from the nightstand and opened to the romance book I had started reading two days ago. I reread the same sentence about ten times before I gave up and laid the k****e beside me.

It was good to be home—Hannah had insisted I spent the night at the ranch, or at least she wanted to drive me to town, because according to her, I was too distraught to drive. Maybe she was right, but I didn’t give in. I wanted my place—even if it was temporarily rented—my bed, my stuff. I wanted to escape her scrutinizing gaze and her motherly overprotection.

So, after a long argument, Leo intervened and convinced Hannah to let me go, with the condition that I had to call as soon as I parked my car in the building’s garage.

A long bath and some reheated leftovers for dinner later, I was ready to turn in for the night. My mind didn’t agree with me, though. It kept reliving the day, moment by moment, making me nauseous, mortified, and afraid again.

I closed my eyes and tried my therapist’s trick to calm down. I conjured images of my family: Hannah’s excitement about her wedding, her telling me I was going to design her wedding dress, the girls laughing around a table during girls’ night out, my design project classes, my professor telling me I had a chance of having my work presented at next year’s exhibition, and then a new image I hadn’t really associated with happiness until now. Gui, in the ranch stable, telling me I was amazing, and then Gui seated on the fence, telling me I was beautiful.

A ding came from my phone, and I snapped my eyes open, suddenly afraid of my happy thoughts.

I checked the message and held my breath.

Gui: How are you doing?

Me: Hi. I’ll be okay.

Gui: Sorry I left the ranch without saying goodbye. Leo got on my nerves.

Me: It’s okay.

He didn’t reply right away, so I entered a text before I lost the nerve.

Me: So, I don’t think I’ll need your help anymore.

What I wanted to say was something more like “I understand if you don’t want to help me anymore,” or “I’ll save you the awkward moment where you tell me you don’t want to help me anymore, and tell you I don’t want your help anymore,” because really? After today’s fiasco, why would he still help me?

But at the same time I hit enter, a new text came.

Gui: I realized we didn’t schedule the next day we’ll meet.

I stared at my phone. Wait, what?

Instead of a new message, my phone rang with a new call.

I sighed and answered, “Hey.”

“You’re not giving up, right?” Gui asked, his tone severe.

“Well …”

“What?”

“It’s just … after what you saw today, I didn’t think you would want to help me anymore,” I confessed. There was a long pause on the other side. “Gui?”

“Are you afraid I’ll trigger another panic attack?”

“Gui … it wasn’t you. I mean, the fact that we were alone out there didn’t help, but it wasn’t just that. It was several small gestures and situations that clicked in my mind and put me in that state.”

“But it was me too.”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” I sighed. “Look, I’m just too vulnerable right now, and I probably won’t have the courage to step in the stable, let alone face a horse, for the next couple of weeks. I need to get myself in check first.” I hated admitting these things to him, but I didn’t want to lie to him. He was a good guy and he deserved to know the truth. “So, since I won’t be going back to the ranch, I won’t need your help.”

“For now?” he asked, a little bit of hope in his tone.

“For now,” I lied, knowing that I needed to erase that item from my fear-defeating list.

“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Bom, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Okay. Thanks. Good night.”

“Boa noite,” he said in Portuguese before hanging up.

I plugged my phone in the charger and left it on the nightstand. Then I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling.

My chest constricted and new tears found my eyes. I couldn’t even scratch the first item on my list off. How did I hope to go through all of it? It was hopeless.