Page 29 of Severance

“Do you need any help?” someone calls from off to the side.

I lift my head and see a store clerk in front of me. He’s my height and is probably about my age. He’s pale and freckled, and his nametag reads “Jarrod.”

“I need baking supplies,” I mumble, trying to keep my heart rate under control, even though that doesn’t seem possible at the moment.

“Aisle seven.” The clerk motions at the area I’m supposed to be headed to. He has a nice smile. He seems polite and honest and doesn’t look like someone who would start shooting at people out of jealousy.

“Thanks.” My fists in my pockets tighten because I don’t want him to see me shaking.

My phone buzzes in my purse when I’m in the middle of aisle seven, staring at the bags of flour. We have some at home, but I’m not sure it’s the kind that will work for a cheesecake.

I tear my gaze away from the shelves to check my texts and I see a message from Mikah.

i’m out of town maybe next time good luck

The heaviness of defeat pushes hard against my chest. My vision blurs and I narrow my eyes to try to bring the bags of flour back into focus, but instead, they turn into shapeless, floating blobs. The faint sound of footsteps behind me comes out of nowhere. I spin around and look at the empty aisle and the shelves stacked with food, my pulse racing. The air feels hot and sour.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Stay down! Don’t move.

I drop to my knees, my purse falling off my shoulder as my phone clatters across the tiled floor. Heat burns my chest.

On the opposite side of the aisle, I hear more footsteps and agitated voices.

“Are you okay?”

“Do you want me to call 911?”

“This is Thomas’s kid!”

“Are you Alana? Can you hear me?”

A pair of strong hands pull me off the floor, but my legs don’t cooperate. My thoughts are hazy and my body doesn’t feel like my own.

“Let me call her parents,” a man says from somewhere nearby.

I want to tell these people I’m okay and there’s no need to bother my father and mother, because if they find out I freaked out at the grocery store, they’ll never let me go back to work at Toro Bravo. But when I try to articulate the words, nothing but shallow breaths come out of my mouth.

* * *

The light inside the room is unusually twenty-karat-diamond bright. I don’t remember it being this blinding the last time I was here. Although everything, including the memories of my latest hospital visit, is a bit fuzzy.

My mother’s worried voice drifts at me from the other side of the room and I attempt to lift my head off the pillow, but all my vision snags on is the top of my father’s gray head. The dizziness drags me back down a second later.

As I lie there, squinting and wheezing, my mind spins with endless questions. Then when the doctor finally exits the room, my mother gives me her undivided attention.

“Sweetheart.” She grasps my hand carefully to make sure the IV needle in my vein doesn’t move. Her meek smile tells me the news I’m about to receive isn’t great. “The doctor wants to keep you overnight to run some more tests.”

“Why?” There’s a lump in my throat and I can’t get rid of it no matter how many times I swallow.

“Because you had a panic attack at the grocery store, Alana,” my mother says, leaning closer. Her eyes skim over my face. They’re sad and confused with a dash of fear. “How can we let you leave the house? What if you get sick when you’re driving?”

“I won’t,” I slur through the fog in my head, knowing all too well that I don’t sound very convincing right now.

She looks up at my father, perhaps waiting for some show of support, but he doesn’t say anything. His heavy footsteps move in the direction of the door and disappear into the hallway.

What remains is hot, lingering silence that drags on for an eternity, until my mother’s desperate sigh slices through it like a knife.

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