“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 wheel chair. 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 Kindle 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 kindle 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.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t think you should erase that fear from your list,” Dr. Walker said. She was seated on her chair, notepad in hand.
I crossed my legs on the chaise long. “I don’t want to just erase that item from my list. I want to throw my list away.”
After wallowing in my apartment almost all day Friday, I finally gave in and called my therapist Friday night. She rebuked me for not having called sooner and scheduled an appointment first thing on Saturday morning. And that was why I was at her office, confessing my embarrassing panic attack in front of Gui and Hannah at 7:30 in the morning.
“Why would you give up this easily?”
I snapped my head at her and gaped. “Easily? I tried. I really trie
d and even had a freaking panic attack!”
“You had panic attacks before and you didn’t give up.” She set down her notepad. “How many panic attacks have you had this year?”
I counted in my head. The one from two days ago, then the one in May during a final exam, another one in February when Evie’s husband showed up for the first time at the women’s center and threatened her and me. And before that, one in December, but that didn’t count as this year. “Hmm, three.”
“By this time last year, how many panic attacks did you have?”
I rummaged my mind, but couldn’t remember the exact numbers. “I don’t know, four?”
“Seven,” she said. “I think three is an improvement from seven, don’t you think?”
When she put it that way … “It doesn’t matter. Obviously, this is the wrong way to go about my fears.”
She leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen on her notepad. “Explain.”
“I already did. I tried and I had a panic attack.”
“So you’re giving up.”
“No. We just have to find another way.”
“There aren’t many ways to go about this, Hilary. And the list is a great way to progress. You just have to stick with it a little longer. Take some time off from it. Don’t go to the ranch for a couple of weeks. Avoid talks about horses and whatnot, but once you’re feeling better, once you’re sure you can’t feel a panic attack around the corner, try again. You owe it to yourself to try again.”
I sighed. “The old don’t give up meme.”
“Yes. It’s old, but it’s true. You know you won’t succeed if you give up now, but there is a good chance you might succeed if you try again.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, not really feeling it. But I had to say it, otherwise she would bother me about this for a long time.
“Good. Meanwhile, I want you to visit the women’s center. Try to make more friends there. Some of them need more help than you do.”
“Like Evangeline.”
She nodded. “Like Evangeline. Help her and that way you’ll be helping yourself too.”
***
Leaving Dr. Walker’s office, I made a mental note to go visit Evangeline sometime during the week, but as soon as I got back home and looked around—and still had no clue what to do for my design project for school—I decided there was no better time than now.
So, I called her, intent on asking her to go to the movies with me or meet me for coffee, but my heart hurt a little when I found out she was at the women’s center. Again.
Without thinking, I just turned around and drove there. I stopped by reception to ask about Evie, when a nurse came over from behind the desk and gave the receptionist some fliers.
“Please, hang these up somewhere,” the nurse said, before turning on her heels and marching away.
I stared at the fliers as the receptionist set them aside. It was about self-defense classes that would be taught here at the center. That was new. I wondered if Evie would like to take those. It would come in handy if things got too ugly with Mike. I groaned; things were already too ugly with Mike.
Finally, the receptionist turned to me.
“Evangeline is in the garden,” she said.
Of course.
I found her seated on one of the benches hidden among the flowerbeds in the garden. Her eyes were swollen and red as if she had been crying.
I sat down beside her. “Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, and then sighed. “I don’t know.”
“It’s all right,” I told her. “We can talk about something else. How’s work?”
She groaned. “Not good. I’ve been arriving late and sometimes missing an entire shift, because …”
Okay, not a good topic. I remembered she commented the other day about exercising, to take her mind off the bad parts of her life, to feel a little better. I asked her about that.
“I don’t seem to find time to exercise,” she answered.
I knew what she meant by that. It was Mike. It was always Mike. Jealous and possessive the way he was, he didn’t let her go to the gym.
Everything I could talk about involved Mike. So, instead of asking about her, I told her about me. Actually, I told her about Hannah. She already knew a lot about Hannah, of course. Everyone in town knew since what had happened to my sister and me, and to Eric, ended up in newspapers and on news channels everywhere. But Evie didn’t know much about my sister’s wedding. Not yet.
I set out to tell her about the engagement party, about the preparations, about the dress, trying to paint it as a fairy tale.
“If Hannah can find her happy ending, you can too. I’m sure of it.”
Evie looked me with tears in her eyes. “Not just me. You too.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I …”
She went on. “I know I wallow in my problems and pity myself too much, but deep down, I have to believe there is something better out there. For me.” She offered me a small, forced smile. “And for you too.”
***
The hot water in my bathtub was almost too much for my sensitive skin, but I didn’t care. I needed this alone time, this soaking time, to recharge.
Although, my sister and our friends didn’t think so.
Two minutes after settling in the bathtub, lying back, closing my eyes, and hoping I would take a late nap, my phone started dinging like crazy.
Hannah: Are you meeting us at the event? Or should we pick you up?
Bia: It’s almost parteeeeee time! This event is going to rock. What are going to wear?
Lauren: I can’t decide between three dresses! Can I send you pics and you help me choose?
Gabi: Droga, I wish I were there! I want to go to the party too!
Hannah: Hil, you’re going to the event, aren’t you?
Bia: I’m thinking a little black dress with cowboy boots. To make a statement, you know.
Iris: I love polo, I love our boys, but some of these events are just exhausting. I would prefer staying home, snuggled with my man, watching some boring movie.
Some of the messages had been sent in private to me, some had been sent to our girls’ group. Even though I didn’t answer any of them, I couldn’t help but grab my phone and read the texts with each new ding.
Hannah: Hilary, why aren’t you answering?
Because I didn’t want her to try to convince me to go. She would make me feel guilty, and I would relent, even though all I wanted to do was relax in my bathtub, then settle in my bed and read. Or design a new dress. Or work on my school project, the one I hadn’t started yet.
I understood how important this event was to the guys. Their sponsor, Jeep, was opening a new store in Santa Barbara and, of course, the team would be the special guests. The event organizers had even set up a small field with fake grass so the guys could play polo for fifteen minutes. It was supposed to be huge and reporters from the newspapers, magazines, and news channels would be there. I was happy for them. Attention like this was great. It brought money to their sponsor, to them, to their team, and they could keep playing and winning longer.
I just didn’t feel like I needed to be there. I didn’t feel like being among a crowd, cameras, and attention right now.
The next text was the one that shocked me.
Gui: Hey, Hil. You’re coming to the party with us, right?
For some reason, I wanted to reply to him. What would I tell him? That I had given up on my list of fears and had declared myself a coward who was hiding from her life? No, thank you. I preferred staying silent and letting them imagine whatever they wanted. Surely, it couldn’t be worse than the truth.
A new message from Hannah followed, again asking why I wasn’t answering. This time though, she threatened to call and, if I didn’t answer that too, she would stop by on the way to the event.
Groaning, I typed a text to her.
Me: I think I have a cold. Took some meds and I’m in bed. Going to sleep now. Hav
e fun!
Then I turned off my phone before she could call me and accuse me of lying.
Gui
I knew Hilary wasn’t coming, but I still couldn’t stop myself from looking for her in the crowd every ten seconds.
The guys and I were wearing sleek black suits and dark blue shirts, with a bluish-silver embroidery Jeep over the pocket on the left of our jackets. We looked good and everyone wanted to take pictures with us. We could barely walk three steps before being stopped by someone who quickly introduced him or herself and launched into conversation as if we had known them our entire lives. Most of the time, we didn’t.
This part of polo—the attention, the flashlights, the cameras, the interviews, the pictures—it didn’t happen often, but I always loved it.
I still did, but for some reason, my usual excitement was missing tonight.
For some reason. As if I didn’t know the fucking reason. What? Now I was going to lie to myself?
The reason was Hilary. There. I confessed. Big difference it would make. She still wouldn’t come. And it made me very, very fucking miserable. And acknowledging that made even more miserable.
I had known I was attracted to her since the first time I laid eyes on her, but when had I become the guy who held his breath every time a blond walked past, hoping she would turn around and I would find Hilary smiling at me?
I sighed.
What did I expect? That after two days she would have recovered from a panic attack. Damn it, I didn’t even know she still had them. I thought … I thought she had recovered from them. I knew she wasn’t totally healed yet, but I had no idea it was still that bad.
“Hey,” Hannah said, slipping her arm around my waist and posing for a picture. “Smile, guri.”
The mask slipped into place and I smiled, wide and happy. Nobody would never know I was considering leaving this party to go check on a girl. A beautiful, sweet, quiet girl who was growing on me.
Gathering courage, I asked in a low voice, “How is Hilary?”
Hannah’s smile faltered for a brief second. “To be honest, I’m not sure. My mother said she went to her therapist this morning, so I’m hoping she’s better. She doesn’t talk much about that, no matter how much we beg her to.”
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