Page 98 of You Started It

First stop: the Eaton Centre. If I can’t find a dress there, then I’m more hopeless than I thought. I take the streetcar downtown, trying in earnest to stop thinking about Axel. I imagine him giving Olivia a corsage. Riding in Olivia’s BMW to the formal. Holding her hand in the elevator. Dancing with Olivia all night while everyone takes pictures of them.

Even though thinking of Axel with another girl hurts more than words can express, I don’t regret letting him into my life. I’ll take the pain of losing Axel over never having known him.

I walk into the first store. It’s loud. And bright. This is when having a friend who is into fashion would help. Or a friend at all. I don’t even know what’s “in” or “out,” or if we’ve all just given up on the rules of fashion and see it more as a construct, choosing to wear what we want. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking, since I have zero personal style.

I must be really pathetic, because none of the salespeople will even look at me. I’ll just grab a few dresses off the rack and try them on. It’s not rocket science. But it kind of feels like it is.

If I were to describe Axel’s style, I’d call it loud (and sometimes kind of hot). Ben is definitely preppy (with a side of asshole). Olivia, hmm. WhatisOlivia’s style? I know! Princess Insta-Ho…ly shit.Olivia.She’s here because of course she is. And I can’t exactly hide. My arms full of bright dresses attached to my five-foot-ten frame make that kind of hard to do.

“Jamie?” she says, turning from the mirror. She’s standing on a round pedestal and her eyes move up and down my body, stopping at my arms. She stifles a laugh. “That’s a lot of dresses.”

“I haven’t decided what look I’m going for,” I say, feigning confidence. What I really want to say is,I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and you look perfect standing there in that tight, baby-blue dress. Another image of Axel and Olivia together at the formal flashes before my eyes, and my stomach sinks.

A salesperson grabs the dresses from my arms and counts them before hanging them up inside a changeroom. I wince every time I hear the plastic hanger clang against the metal hook.

I stuff myself inside the changeroom once they’re done and pull the curtain closed. Maybe if I wait here long enough, Olivia will be gone by the time I come out and I can just forget all aboutthis stupid idea. Feeling the nerves starting to take over, I sit and practice my breathing exercises, but the changeroom starts to close in on me. The wall span is so narrow and the dresses hung on the two hooks to both my left and right feel as if they’re going to suffocate me. Why do they make the lights so bright? Why is it so hot in here? I stand quickly and rip open the curtain. I bend over, hands on my knees, trying to breathe.

Olivia steps off the pedestal, eyes wide. “Jamie.” She approaches me slowly, bending to meet my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head.

Olivia leads me to a chair and sits next to me, taking my hand in hers. “Breathe, okay? It’s all good. Just breathe.”

I nod and try to follow her lead, breathing in and out as my free hand runs up and down my thigh. In…and…out. A salesperson comes to the back and before they can speak, Olivia demands they bring me water. A moment later, Olivia is twisting off the cap on the bottle delivered by the nervous salesperson and lifting it to my mouth. I take a sip of the lukewarm water.

“See? If the water goes in, that means the air can come out. You’re fine,” she reassures me.

She strokes my back, and my breathing begins to return to its normal rhythm. I open my eyes, my cheeks completely flushed as I realize what just happened. Olivia Chen witnessed me having a full-blown panic attack.

“Feeling better?” she asks, her big brown eyes on me.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I say, wiping away the tears. “How did you know what to do?”

She smiles as she takes the bottle of water from my shaky hand. “My mom suffers from pretty debilitating panic attacks. She got into a bad car accident when I was a baby. I was in the car with her and got trapped in my car seat. It took a while for the rescue team to release me. It was pretty traumatic obviously. She’ll be fine formonths and then out of nowhere something will trigger the memory and it’s like the entire world stops spinning.”

“I’m sorry. That must be really scary.”

She offers me a kind smile, but then it falls. “DidItrigger this panic attack?”

I shake my head. “Not entirely. I just…I’ve made such a mess out of things, and I came here thinking if I found a dress that I felt good in, then maybe I could go to the formal, but then I saw you looking perfect and I got into the changeroom and just got hot and overwhelmed and…”

“Hey. It’s fine. Let me help you.”

“You already did,” I remind her.

“No.” She smiles. “With finding a dress. I’m good at shopping. It’s my special talent.” She laughs. “So…you needing a dress for the formal.” Olivia pauses, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Does that mean you’re going with Ben?”

“IfI go to the formal, I’ll be going alone.” I exhale and lift my head to meet Olivia’s gaze. “It’s completely over with Ben.I’mcompletely over Ben.”

“Wish I could say the same thing,” she says, placing my water bottle on the empty chair next to her.

“So then you and Axel aren’t…?”

“Axel?” She lets out a soft laugh. “No. Axel and I are nothing. He did apologize, though, for using me. But I guess we were both using each other to get back at you and Ben. People act in strange ways when they’re hurting.”

“I guess it didn’t help that Ben and I made it look like we were back together.”

She offers me a small smile. “I don’t blame you for putting up walls around me. I’d do the same if I were in your place. But I’m not who you think I am. I’m just a girl who connected with a guy who happened to already have a girlfriend. For what it’s worth,Ben was honest with me from the beginning about you. We tried to keep our distance, but it wasn’t easy since we worked side by side.” She sighs and looks down before her eyes lock with mine. “Did you mean it when you said you and Ben hadn’t done anything after he and I broke up?”

---