The bus ride seemed to last for hours before we finally reached my stop. I hurried into my building to find another vase in front of my door despite the larger note I’d left with extra tape. I didn’t bother with the junk mail or the flowers. I just stepped over them in my rush to get inside.
Usually, closing and locking my door was cathartic. My space was my haven. I didn’t have to be ON in order to fit in or fear raising red flags. I could just be myself.
Not right then.
The stress of the day didn’t melt away. There was no decompressing. No peace.
No sanctuary in my solitude.
Tension and panic and anxiety filled every inch of me, leaving my extremities numb and tingly. Turning on the TV, I tried to sit, but it was a futile effort. The buzz vibrating through me had me bolting back upright to pace. Needing an outlet for the itch and burn that crawled under my skin.
My gaze landed on the stupid flowers in front of my TV, and I narrowed my eyes to glare at them with misplaced anger.
They aren’t even mine. Why are they my responsibility? Why should I take care of something that doesn’t belong to me when I can’t even take care of myself?
Snatching the vase off the entertainment center, I was planning to march it out to the lobby or dump it in the garbage. But my frustration at the flowers, the responsibility, and life bubbled over to mix with the buzz of anxiety.
Like a full bottle of vinegar had been dumped into a container of baking soda, I exploded.
Hauling back, I barely choked back a scream as I launched the vase across the room.
It hit the wall and shattered into a million tiny shards, dropping to the floor. The fading sun hit the droplets of water just right, making the matte black shimmer like deadly confetti.
Pretty and damaged and useless.
Just like me.
Whatever release I felt from the fit of anger and destruction was momentary. When the burning under my skin returned, it was tenfold, growing the longer I stared at the sharp glass.
My legs moved before I could tell them to. They kept moving even when the little voice in the back of my head pleaded with them to stop. I chanted my mantras. I practiced my breathing. Mentally, I followed the steps and protocols, but physically, I dug around in the back of my closet with a desperation that seemed to fill the room with its acrid stench.
My fingertips brushed across the coarse glitter, and a semblance of peace edged in for the first time all afternoon.
I stood like that for a while. Not looking. Not moving. Just touching.
It was enough.
For then…
Chapter Nine
Giddy
Briar
For succulents, sucka
DREAD COURSED THROUGH me, as if my blood had been replaced by poison.
It wouldn’t be the first time toxins and rot had flowed in my veins.
But my dread wasn’t from that. It was because I had group again, and I didn’t want to go. Well, I never wanted to go, per se. I went because I’d promised Aria and because, without the nominal help it offered, I feared I’d do something that would destroy her.
But that week the trepidation was worse. I couldn’t shake the feeling everyone knew I’d been unraveling. That someone had spent the week watching me and hearing my thoughts.
I couldn’t get over the… premonition, maybe? The sense of foreboding that there’d be pity and exasperation and judgement as they called in the docs to haul me away.
As if my guilt was written on my face in permanent marker, I kept it tipped down and focused on my feet as I made my way into the center.
Everything was going smoothly until I rammed into the back of someone.
“Shit, sorry,” I yelped, looking up.
Of course.
Of fucking course.
Bodyguard guy was already grinning down at me. “I’d say we’ve got to stop running into each other like this, but that wouldn’t be as much fun.”
I lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I guess we’re even now.”
Shaking his head, he pointed out, “I don’t carry a purse for you to knock all over the ground, so I still owe you.”
“And throwing your wallet on the ground probably doesn’t have the same effect, huh?”
His grin grew. “Probably not.”
He started walking toward the elevator. Usually, I’d have hightailed it to the stairwell to avoid awkward small talk or equally awkward silence. But with the way I was feeling—vulnerable and exposed and paranoid—I decided being around someone was preferable to being alone.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I followed him into the elevator, pressing the button before he hit a different one. I didn’t even have time to feel pressured to speak when the doors opened at my floor.
I stepped off, trudging to my judgment day, when he called, “Hey.”
I turned back to see him holding the doors open with an outstretched arm. He ran his other hand through his dark hair—leaving it attractively disheveled—before shoving it in his pocket. He was the picture of casual and cool, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen someone so ridiculously good looking.
His attractiveness shot off the charts when he offered me another charming smile. “Maybe next time we run into each other, it can be planned ahead of time. And happen at a restaurant.”
It took me far too long to comprehend what he was saying.
A date?
The tall, insanely hot, and very normal bodyguard was asking me on a date?
And, even crazier, I wanted to say yes.
For all of two-point-five seconds.
Then reality crashed in.
“Good afternoon, Briar.”
I jumped at the voice close behind me. Proving I really was out of sorts, I hadn’t heard Derrick’s approach.
Who am I?
Derrick didn’t apologize for startling me, but pity was clear in his sad eyes. “How’re you today?”
“Good,” I lied, a hint of panic in my voice and manic in my smile.
“Great. Heading to group?” he asked, completely unaware he was interrupting something monumental.
It was as if bodyguard guy was so out of my league, it hadn’t occurred to him we’d be talking.
And he wasn’t wrong. We shouldn’t be talking.
That, along with the mention of group, was the slap in the face reminder I needed. I couldn’t date that hot guy. Or anyone, really. I came with an airport’s worth of baggage, including things I couldn’t hide and had zero interest explaining.
Especially since any explanation made it clear I was all sorts of fucked up.
Every fiber of my body screamed at me to turn and run. Since that would earn me a boatload of bullshit from Derrick, I acknowledged his question with a quick nod. But I did completely ignore the hot guy as I hurried away from him without another glance.
When I got to the therapy room, I gave a small exhale. Everyone was in attendance, and more people meant less focus on me. An even bigger exhale wheezed out, making my head swim with relief, when I saw no one was paying attention to me. There were no whispers or sidelong glances my way.
It was all in my head.
I can make it through the next hour and go home to…
I can go home.
Derrick followed me in and kicked things off. The usual story topping started from the get-go with the occasional legit issue in between.
I preferred to remain silent, but my paranoia demanded I talk to keep people off my case. The best defense was a good offense, right? Or was it the other way around?