Then Noah was there next to me, not touching me, but he made me feel like I could draw on his strength. “Breathe. Five things you can see.”
I struggled to focus, to be in charge of my hysterical brain, trying to drag air in and out of my chest. I saw his robot socks. I saw Magnus, who had come over to investigate why we were on the floor. I saw a pile of Noah’s books, the gross avocado carpet. The couch where we had been sitting.
My limbs were shaking so hard.
“You’re okay. Keep breathing. Four things you can touch.”
I dug my fingers into that carpet. I felt my soft T-shirt against my skin. The hair from my ponytail against my cheek. My shoes straining across my feet.
“Now three things you can hear.”
Noah’s voice. Magnus’s panting. My own strangled breathing. I tried hard to slow it down. To keep breathing in and out. In and out. Inhale, exhale.
“Two you can smell.”
Noah’s clean scent. Magnus’s not-quite-so-clean scent.
My stomach was clenching so hard. I was going to throw up. I gritted my teeth against it. I could beat this thing. I could be stronger than this . . . what had Noah called it? My hardwired response. I would rewire it.
“One you can taste.”
“There’s nothing to taste,” I told him, finally able to catch my breath enough that I could talk. “Maybe my bile in a second after I puke.”
“I’ve definitely never caused that reaction before. My reviews tend to be more on the positive side.”
He was trying to make me laugh. I wished I had the lung capacity for it. “Are you Yelping out your kissing? Are there online reviews?”
His smile was enormous, and I both saw and felt his relief that I was able to joke with him. Magnus seemed to sense my lingering distress, and he leaned in to lick my face. Noah got up and left the room but came back quickly to sit down next to me on the floor again.
Noah commented, “You know, as much as that dog of mine loves his own vomit, it’s a safe bet he’d enjoy yours, too. So it would probably be better if you didn’t throw up, because neither one of us needs to see that.”
“But if I puked on this carpet, how would you even be able to tell?”
He laughed. “Here.”
I heard a crinkling sound and looked up at the Snickers bar he was handing me. He said, “The next time you’re thinking of a taste, think of something you love. Like chocolate.”
My stomach had calmed down enough that I wanted to take a bite. My fingers were shaking so badly that he had to help me open the candy bar. I took a bite, and that sugar rush actually soothed me. Why hadn’t this ever occurred to me before? “This chocolate thing works. Like in Harry Potter.”
“I hope I kiss better than a dementor.”
OMG. He spoke nerd. If I didn’t know what the end result would be, I might actually consider kissing him again. It took a few minutes to calm down, for my body to realize we weren’t about to die and that things were okay. That I had panicked, once again, over nothing.
But Noah didn’t seem to view this as a failure. “You did it. It was hard and scary, but you got through it.”
“Maybe it’ll be easier next time,” I said. He had really impressed me through this—how calm and gentle he’d been, how encouraging. The research he’d done, the way he’d memorized the steps to help keep me grounded through the attack. He was definitely the right guy to help me get past this.
He looked surprised. “You want there to be a next time?”
“I do. I want this to get better.” Another guy would be running for the hills, arms flailing like a maniac. But Noah sat next to me, helping me eat my chocolate.
My heart warmed, and I didn’t recognize what I was feeling. There were too many things racing around in my body for me to figure out what it was.
He asked, “Do you want to stay and hang out? We could watch a movie that doesn’t have me in it.”
My anxiety attacks were exhausting on so many different levels. I was going to crash soon. “Maybe another night. These things wear me out.”
“Understandable. How about tomorrow night?”
“Yes. Let’s try this again tomorrow.”
I sat on the floor and finished my candy bar, with him sitting right next to me. Supporting me, being close.
After I was done eating, he said, “You’re really brave, do you know that?”
“It doesn’t feel like bravery. You shot at people and got blown up.”
“I only ever shot at targets,” he corrected me. “And I think you doing something that terrifies you is very brave.”
“I feel more like an idiot than a hero.” I shoved the candy bar wrapper into my pocket.
“You’re not. That was amazing.”
“Okay. Now you’re just saying stuff to make me feel better.” I put my hand on the wall, intending to get up, and he immediately stood, offering me both of his hands.
When I got to my feet, I swayed toward him, my head still a little woozy. We stayed there, close together, while I regained my bearings.
“I’m okay,” I told him, letting go of his hands. I was going to take a step back but realized that I was good where I was, standing so close to him. Now that I’d done it, kissed him, and knew that I was going to do it again, some of that fear had been mitigated. Maybe some of that also had to do with his kindness and respect, but I welcomed not feeling so terrified.
“I should get going,” I told him.
I saw his Adam’s apple bob, and he nodded. “Yes. Do you want me to take you home?”
“You’re not planning on calling a car, are you? I’m just over at Gladys’s house.”
“No, I meant, do you need help? Do you want me to carry you?”
If another man had said this to me, I probably would have laughed, because I would have imagined that particular feat to be impossible. But with Noah? I totally believed that he could pick me up like I was some dainty feather and carry me all the way back without even breaking a sweat.
I got hit with another new feeling I didn’t quite recognize. Something that appreciated his masculinity and strength and how him having those things made me feel more feminine. Which wasn’t a feeling I had experienced before.
I liked it.
“I’m okay to walk. I’ve been fortified by a Snickers bar, remember?” I wanted to say something else, something to let him know what tonight had meant to me, but I couldn’t find the words. So I settled on, “I’m sorry about all that. My reaction. But I did warn you.”
He held up both hands as if he meant to put them on my shoulders, but he let them drop back to his sides. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I feel like I’m the one who should be apologizing to you, for you having to go through that.”
“This is so not your fault.” Well, a licensed professional might think it was a little bit his fault, since it was his face on the pillow that had started all of this. “I wanted to do this. I want to keep doing this. If you’re okay with it.”
“I told you, I’m all in. That hasn’t changed.”
“Not for me, either.”
“Then it’s decided,” he said with a nod. “Let me walk you out.”