Page 42 of Falling

“Okay,” I whisper. He raises his eyebrow and I smile and say, “Okay.”

“Do you find it hard to talk about?” Miles asks. His words are soft, but he has this intense way of looking at me. It isn’t like he’s judging me or thinking of ways to make fun of me. It’s like he’s trying to understand me, and it baffles me why he would want to do that.

I shrug. “Not really. I think I’ve always been anxious since I started skating at a competitive level. When I was a kid, I didn’t really know what it was. I’d just start to feel really sick before competitions, and no matter how many times I’d tell my coach or my mom that I felt like that, they just said it was normal. It stopped feeling ‘normal’ when I was around eight and every time I felt like that, I couldn’t breathe. It just felt like I was constantly drowning, and the more I thought about it, the more I’d panic and the worse I’d feel. When it’s really bad, I throw up, which is what I thought was going to happen back there. Usually, the nausea is a tell-tale sign that I’m going to have a panic attack, but sometimes it just happens, and I can’t control it.”

Miles nods. “Do you ever talk to anyone about it?”

I shake my head. “The girls know, and I’ve mentioned it to my doctor. She diagnosed me with anxiety and depression a few months ago, so I’ve been taking medication to deal with it, but it doesn’t mean it just stopped existing. It’s hard to adjust to, but I always knew there was something wrong and I just needed to draw some real attention to it.”

“Was it because of the fall? With Augustus?” he asks, his voice low and quiet like he’s too afraid to ask me.

I nod, biting my lip. “I didn’t think it was going to effect me as bad as it did, but it really took a toll on my mental health. I thought I could move past it since it was coming to the end of the semester and summer was around the corner, but it all just crushed me. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t leave my room, and the girls had to do all the basic things for me because I couldn’t do anything on my own even though I desperately wanted to be left alone.” I take in a deep breath. “There are still days when I think about it or I get overwhelmed with everything, but it’s definitely not as bad as it was before. I think I’m getting better, but it’s not something that just goes away, and I just have to be okay with it.”

“You know you’re not alone, right?” Miles says, and it feels like a punch to the gut.

I nod, swallowing. “I know. I’ve got my girls.”

“And you’ve got me,” he says.

I smile, wishing it could just erase the last few hours from our memories. “Yeah, I do.”

There’s a comfortability about Miles that puts me on edge. He lets me talk about things without an ounce of judgment, even the hard stuff. I always found that the second I tell people how it feels to be inside my head, they freak out or act differently toward me. My mom pretends that it doesn’t exist even though she was with me when I first started taking anxiety medication when I was sixteen. It’s become such a regular part of my routine that Idon’t think about it anymore. That’s until I have moments like today or even when I look in my mom's face and she can tell that I’m not her perfect little girl anymore. She tries to ignore it because it’s easier for her to conjure up a version of me she prefers in her head. I’ve never felt so much shame for just existing when she looks at me like that. But when I look up to find Miles’s eyes on me, I have a weird feeling like he actually cares. Like he values me more than just my talent.

Our fries arrive, and sure enough, his exploded ones look disgusting. It’s even worse that he has the biggest grin on his face while I grimace at them. They’re covered in melted cheese, bacon bits, mustard, and hash brown bites. If I wasn’t so hungry to eat my own food, I would have thrown up by now.

I cover my fries in ketchup, and when some drips down my finger, I lick it off, making the stupid mistake of looking up at Miles while I do so. He smirks, and I grab a napkin, cleaning up the mess in a more appropriate way.

“I take it you don’t get to do this much,” Miles says, nodding at our meal.

“My mom would have a heart attack if she found out I was eating food this greasy.”

“Does she monitor what you eat or something?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Not really. We both know how important it is for me to stay healthy, so I’ve kinda adapted what I eat around that. It was worse when I was younger, but since I got so used to it, I don’t really think about it that much,” I say, shrugging and poking around at my fries.

He nods in understanding, not pushing it any further. He eats more of his fries before pulling out his phone from his back pocket. “Question time,” he announces.

“My absolute favorite time of the day.”

Honestly, it’s not the worst idea he’s come up with. They’ve helped ease a lot of the tension between us and are fun to talk about when we take breaks at the gym.

He breaks out into a smile. “Do you have a flaw that you think I might not be okay with? Any kinks I should know or weird fetishes would also be appreciated.”

I narrow my eyes. “Does it actually say that?”

“Just the first part,” he mumbles. “Wait. It’d be harder to point out your own flaws. How about you tell me whatmyflaws are?”

I nod. “It’s just something I’ve noticed,” I start, waiting for a reaction before I continue. He just blinks at me, still eating his fries. “You get very attached to things.” He doesn’t move, and I’m guessing this isn’t the first time he’s heard this. “I mean, you had a meltdown when we changed gyms.”

“It was a very nice gym.”

“My point still stands.”

He throws his head back and groans. I get a good look at his throat, and it makes mine go dry. What is so hot about a man’s throat? I would love to know why it drives me fucking crazy.

“What was it that you said? That I was hyper-fixating on you to avoid fixing my problems?” I nod. He shrugs, leaning his forearms on the table. “I guess you were right. It’s just something I do. But if it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be here right now. So it’s really a win.”

“It’s definitely something,” I mumble. “Okay, my turn. Tell me something horrible about me.”

---