Page 26 of A Fine Line

Her screen got a little bigger.

“Please, look, if you want to meet another day or you’re mad or whatever fine but this isn’t okay. I…I don’t want to think you’re hurt in traffic or something can you just say something.” Winnie was begging now. Her voice more desperate than I’d ever heard her and I made sure to stop the growing possibility of her actually caring before it took root into my brain. I’d been wrong before. So many times.

My fingers felt numb when I gripped the steering wheel further, tighter as my knuckles turned white. My voice was raspy and broken and uneven but it’s all I could muster. “I don’t know.”

The smallest hint of relief caused my finger to lighten up ever so slightly. But my brain is still pacing, trying to track exit signs and gas stations and bachelorette cars with Venmo usernames on the back and the homeless man waving people down. It wouldn’t let me just drive. It knew what we’re coming to. It was out of my control now, I was losing it.

“Are you…are you having a panic attack?”

I lifted a single hand to rub against my aching chest.

“Is that what it is?”

I sounded so vulnerable. So soft and pathetic and nothing like a man should sound like on the phone with a beautiful womanon the other side, especially not a woman he deemed impossible to impress already enough.

“I don’t know, I’m not there. Do you feel anxious? Are you having a hard time breathing and focusing?”

She didn’t need to see this. She could use this against me. When my heart rate came down and my thoughts weren’t as clouded, she could turn and taunt and shape this in any way she wanted. I knew it, there was no way- “Crew, it’s okay. Let’s breathe together, does that sound good?” She sounded so soft. I wanted to dip my fingers in her voice, wrap it up and pull it to my chest. When she spoke like that it made everything else seem so harsh, broken. Scattered. But there she was, this woman I couldn’t stand and argued never ending with, but I couldn’t let go of her. Not yet. Couldn’t miss out on that sweet tone.

What if this is the only time I get this version of her?

“Okay,” I sniffed.

“Good. I’m not an expert, but these help mine okay? They’re called box breathes, or square breathes or something like that, just stay with me.”

I nodded and I knew she couldn’t see me but it’s like she sensed it because she kept pushing forward.

“Okay in for four,” she breathed in low and slow and so gentle. So human. “hold,” she strained the voice out and was silent. I wasn’t breathing with her yet, I wasn’t holding either. Just listening to the steady pace of her voice soothing over my trucks stereo. “Out,” she sighed and the air whooshed out softly. “Hold again,” those were hushed whispers from the lack of air.

She repeated the process two more times and although I was more so listening to her voice and the steady rhythmic tunes coming from her, I did feel myself breathing slowly. In and out.

One, two, three, four.

The truck felt taller.

One, two, three, four.

My fingers loosened.

One, two, three, four.

My toes uncurled.

One, two, three, four.

My chest fell, still tight but enough where I could feel the space around me and know somehow that it would be fine. I wasn’t having a heart attack. I’d get to the city, alive and well.

My speedometer read the speed limit, finally, and my shoulders relaxed a tad.

“Helping?” Winnie paused her breathing to ask.

I nodded again. “Yes…I, yes.”

How could I face her after this? We were going to have to go separate ways. I couldn’t work with her three times a week, partner in a competition, and fake friendship with a woman who’s seen this. Weak, pathetic, impossible. The medicine isn’t working. My brain was taking over and I had to rely on square breathing exercises from a baker who I didn’t even truly like. Not really.

“Winnie, I’m gonna go.”

“Crew, it’s fine, really we don’t have to-”

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