Page 84 of The Glass Girl

Janet, the night person, is kneeling in front me. She takes my balled fists in her hands.

“Easy,” she says. “Easy. Slow. Look at me.”

Can’t focus. Brain on fire.

She’s massaging my hands. Kneading the bones.

“I want you to lie on the floor, okay, Bella? I think you’re having a panic attack. Can you do what I do?”

She leads me off the couch and down to the concrete floor,arranging my legs. “Get me that cushion,” she says to Billy. I stick my hands inside my cardigan, twisting the fabric.

He hands her a couch cushion. She puts it under my feet so they’re elevated. She lies down next to me, stretches her arms up behind her head, flat on the floor. “Mimic me,” she says.

I untangle my hands from my cardigan and stretch them above my head.

Thump­thump­thump­thump­thump

“My heart’s falling out,” I gasp.

“No, it is absolutely not, and I tell you that as a medical professional,” Janet says.

“Just give me something. Anything,” I plead.

“I can’t,” she says softly.

“I’m going to die. I can’t breathe.”

“If you’re talking, you’re breathing, dude,” Billy says. Above me, his face is worried.

“Billy, Brandy,” Janet says. “We’re all in this together. Get down.”

They both lie on the floor.

“Breathe. In, out, in, out. Slow. You can do it, Bella.”

I stare at the ceiling.

There are painted birds and coyotes and moons and stars up there. How do you do that, paint on a ceiling? Oh, yes, I remember from art class. A scaffold, like Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel.

“Damn, that’s a cool ceiling,” Billy breathes.

“I didn’t even notice that,” Brandy says. “That’s nice. What kinds of birds are those?’

“Wren, sparrow, roadrunner, quail,” Janet says. “Say that for me, Bella.”

Thump­thump­thump.I can’t focus on what she’s saying.

“Bella,” Janet says. “Try.”

My lips are dry, my voice hoarse. “Wren, sparrow, roadrunner, quail.”

Thumpthump.

Wren, sparrow, roadrunner, quail.

Looking at the sparrow on the ceiling. Little thing. That’s what I saw in the desert in the saguaro after the run with Chuck. A little sparrow cheeping at me. I think of its tiny sound. It wasn’t lonely in the desert, like me. It had made a home in a sharp and pulpy place.

Thump.

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