Page 129 of Ask Me Something

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Brian’s expression let me know immediately that all of what I’d just heard had been true.

The blood drained from my face, and my heart rate skyrocketed.

“Sasha, it’s not what you think,” he began, pulling me further over to the side, out of view of everyone.

“Was I fired from the account yesterday?”

His silence and the grim set to his mouth were answer enough.

I tried to walk by him into the house. I needed to get away.

“Wait—” he said, grasping my elbow. “It’s only temporary. There’s a meeting on Monday that should resolve everything.”

I turned and faced him. “But if I were to call her up at this very moment, what would she say? Oh, that’s right, I can’t because her number is in my work phone, and you made up some bullshit story about needing to put our phones away for the weekend because you were burned out. But that wasn’t it, was it? It was to keep me from finding out. I thought maybe I was supporting you for a change, but no, it was all a deception.”

“Look, it’ll be fixed come next week, I promise. There’s a plan—”

“I told you the one thing—” I started to have trouble talking as my heart rate and breathing began to spiral out of control. “—not to hide anything from me,” I managed to get out some fragments.

He grimaced. “I wasn’t hiding it. I was merely delaying it until I could…”

I wasn’t listening any longer. I’d been removed from the Tryon Pharmaceuticals account on Friday morning, and my boyfriend, the one man I’d come to trust the most, had not only known about it, but had also kept it from me. He’d hidden it after I’d specifically told him how I felt about lies of omission.

Suddenly I was in a tunnel with everything becoming blurry. My heart raced, the pain of it beating so fast, it nearly doubled me over. I rushed into the house while feeling everyone’s eyes on me and not being able to do a thing about it. I could hear them whispering, see them judging. And suddenly I was brought back to sixteen years old.

* * *

My very firstpanic attack had taken me completely off guard when I was a teenager. My mind hadn’t known how to process the shock of finding out this homeless beggar woman was my birth mother and I’d been adopted. My body had shut down. I’d thought I was dying right there on the ground that day, clutching my heart and gasping for breath. Evidently, when the paramedics had arrived, they’d suspected I was experiencing a seizure. It wasn’t until twenty-four hours later and a battery of tests that the doctors had determined I’d had a panic attack.

It’s ironic that, to my parents, that had been a relief to hear. It meant I didn’t have anything medically wrong with me. But for me, personally, it had been terrible news. I would’ve welcomed a diagnosis of seizures or something else that didn’t have the same stigma. A panic attack meant I was weak. A panic attack meant I couldn’t control things.

My parents had thought by hiding the fact that I’d been adopted, they were protecting me. But in fact they’d been shielding themselves, and so was Brian. It was only fitting that my second worst panic attack in history would start with his betrayal.

But unlike the first one, on this occasion my body knew what to expect, and I could use some of the techniques I’d learned over the years to manage it. Both Brian’s and Colby’s voices came into focus, and I found myself in a bedroom. I vaguely remembered someone taking my hand and leading me upstairs.

“I’m calling nine-one-one,” Brian said, dialing his cell phone.

I shook my head adamantly and tried to speak. “No, it’s a—” Breathe, Sasha “—panic attack.”

He looked like he didn’t believe me, and then Mark was there, too. Brian’s college friend must have arrived at the party after we had. Then Brian’s mom came in, and somewhere I could hear muffled tones arguing.

Terrific, now my anxiety was rising again. “Please—need—people—to—leave.” For sixteen years I’d been able to keep this secret and now it was on display for everyone. It was my worst nightmare.

Brian knelt in front of me, grasping my hands. “Honey, how do you know it’s a panic attack? What if it’s something more serious?”

I shook my head and looked imploringly at Colby and Mark, who were hovering.

Finally, Colby, bless his heart, started telling everyone to get out. I could only hope one of them hadn’t been McKenzie. I was sure I’d already ruined her party.

“I’ve—had—them—before.”

Brian looked confused. “What are you talking about? When?”

I couldn’t begin to go into it with him, especially since he’d been partially responsible for this one. “Please go, Brian.” At least that had been a full sentence.

“I’m not leaving. Tell me what I can do.”

---