Page 21 of Risking it All

“But what I’m really mad at is that you allowed her to drive you home in her state. Thank God you made it home safely, but to make such an irresponsible choice…”

“Noah,” Mom said again with more force, but she was chained to the floor with Gianna, who was now ugly crying through a dry heave.

Blood drained from my face as I realized the real source of his anger. He thought I’d gotten in a car with a drunk driver. “That’s not what happened.”

“Then how did you get home?” Dad snapped. “How could you allow her to drive drunk?”

“Noah, you need to take a break,” Mom pushed. “Walk from the conversation. Now!”

Ignoring Mom, Dad continued, “How could you do this to us? After we nearly lost you, you go and make such a horrible decision that could have not only cost you your life, but Gianna’s life, and the life of whoever else she could have hit! You should have called us. You should have called your brother. You should have called any of your aunts and uncles. You should have made any other choice than this one.”

I disappointed him. Again. I disappointed Mom. Again. I went out tonight to try to make them not worry about me, to relieveall the pain I had put them through, and I failed. Plus, Dad and I were back at it again…fighting. Picking up where we had left off before February.

I failed. I failed. I failed.

My mind whirled as Dad continued and Mom yelled at Dad to stop. What could I say that would make this better? That I let some guy I barely knew drive Gianna’s car home? Dad would lose his mind because I was too naïve, not “street smart” enough. That after being stupid enough to get out of the car to talk to a stranger in February when the car bumped me from behind, I was still foolish enough to ask another stranger to come into an enclosed car with me? That would be Dad’s final trigger, and he’d literally explode.

“I drove, okay?” I yelled over Mom and Dad and Gianna’s crying dry heaves. “I drove us home.”

Silence…except for the sound of Gianna sucking up her snot.

Dad stood in front of me, unblinking, unmoving as if my words had turned him to stone. “What did you say?”

Feeling unhinged, I scratched at the welts on my arms as I shook from head to toe. I was hot, I was cold, my eyesight blurred, and my throat tightened with this surging fear and panic racing up from my stomach.

“I drove, and you can’t call Gianna’s parents, okay? You can’t. You can’t because everyone at school knows I’m the one who was carjacked. They know I was the one who was shot, and tonight, when I went to the party, everyone was happy to see me, but that’s because I was acting like me. I was hanging out with Gianna and Gianna was hanging out with everyone else. But if you call, then I ratted her out, and then what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen when she’s not my friend anymore because she’s mad? What’s going to happen when everyone figures out I don’t talk about February? What’s going to happen to me, Dad?” Those tears that I hadn’t been able to shed burnedas they filled my eyes and spilled hot down my cheeks. This time, I shouted the question so loudly it scratched my throat. “What’s going to happen to me?”

More hives grew on my arms, and it became harder to breathe. Alarms sounded in my brain. I lost control. All control. I couldn’t control the shaking or the welts or the itching or the pain or that I couldn’t breathe. I shoved up the sleeves of my summer sweater and screamed at Dad, “What’s happening to me?”

With a blink, Dad’s anger evaporated, and he closed the distance between us. He placed a hand on my cheek and wiped away the tears. “You’re okay, Macie.”

But the tears wouldn’t stop, the hives wouldn’t stop, and I gasped, unable to breathe. I shook my head as I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t say I wasn’t okay. That I’d never be okay ever again.

“It’s okay, Macie,” Dad said again as he pulled me into a hug. “It’s okay. I have you. You’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you. I swear to you nothing is going to hurt you ever again.”

The strength in Dad’s hug made me feel like a little girl. It reminded me how I once believed he could scare off all the monsters. He spoke to me as if he loved me more than anything else, and I rested my head against his shoulder. I cried and cried and cried even as Dad picked me up in his arms. He went up the stairs, the entire time still telling me I was okay, and when he laid me on the bed, I didn’t want to let him go, so Dad stayed, holding me as I sobbed.

***

When I woke, early morning sunlight fought its way through my blinds. It was the type of light that told me it was way too early to be awake for not a school day. My head throbbed, my mouth felt all dry, and when I stretched, my muscles hurt. I rolled myhead and didn’t jump when I saw Mom sitting in the comfy chair in the corner of my room. She was in a pair of purple yoga pants and a white T-shirt. Her red curly hair was pulled up onto a messy bun on top of her head, and she glanced up from whatever she had been reading on her iPad.

Since February, I sometimes had nightmares, and Mom and Dad took turns staying in my room to help if I woke screaming. It had been a few weeks since the last one, and I felt bad that she was in here again. “Morning,” I said.

“Morning. How’s my baby girl feeling?”

She called me baby girl even though I was as tall as her. “Like crap.”

“You can go back to sleep,” Mom prodded.

I could, but I didn’t want to. I rolled onto my back and stared at the white ceiling. “What happened to me last night?”

“You had a panic attack.” Mom set her iPad on my dresser and came to sit at the end of my bed.

I scooted up to sit and rubbed at my arms that had fading maroon spots from all the hives I had acquired the night before. “That’s the first time I’ve cried, and it’s weird becauseitwasn’t even what I was crying about.”Itbeing February. “I don’t even know why I was crying.”

Mom touched her chest near her heart. “You have a lot of emotion stored up in you. It’s a lot like a volcano. You can appear serene, calm, and dormant on the outside, but on the inside the emotion builds like bubbling lava until eventually the pressure is too much, and you explode.”

“Does that mean I’m cured now?”

---