Page 73 of Hello Stranger

’Cause that was me.

And I sure as hell wasn’t celebrating.

I have no idea how long I’d been there, trying not to pass out, when I heard a voice say, “Are you having a panic attack?”

So of course I said, “No.”

“You look like you’re… not okay.”

Not okay?That was just insulting.Okaywas my whole thing. “I am always okay,” I said, to set the record straight. And then, when the person didn’t accept that and leave, I said, “I’m fine.” Then, my voice muffled against the concrete, I added, “I’m good.”

“You don’t look good.”

This wasn’t Parker, was it? She never missed a chance for an insult. But no—of course not. It was a man’s voice. One, as usual, I couldn’t recognize.

“Identify yourself, please,” I said into the roof.

A rustling beside me as whoever it was sat down. “It’s your pal, Joe,” the voice said, closer and softer now.

“Hi, Joe.” For a second, knowing it was him made me feel palpably better. But then it occurred to me to wonder if he might be filming this moment for later blackmail, and I felt worse again.

“I’m no psychiatrist,” Joe said then, “but I’ve seen a lot of panic attacks. And this kind of looks like that.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted. I was always fine—whether I was fine or not.

“Okay,” Joe said. “A friend of mine—who clearly had a totally different thing from you—used to find it helpful for me to pat her back in moments that were nothing at all like this.”

“I’m not having a panic attack,” I said.

“Great,” Joe said. “Neither am I.”

“So I don’t need you to pat my back.”

“Cool. You don’t need it.” A long pause while he let that settle. “But we could just do it for fun.”

“Fine,” I said, too busy dying to fight.

And then he really did it. I felt a hand settle between my shoulders, and then I felt it slide down my spine till it reached my lower back, then lift up a second, and appear again back up at the shoulders.

He was basically petting me like I was a dog.

But,ugh. Okay. It felt nice.

If I weren’t feeling so nauseous, I might be struggling with all my cognitive dissonance about Joe. My first impression had been so unbelievably bad. But many of the impressions that followed had been good. Had that first impression been wrong? Or was he just hiding all the bad stuff really well to my face?

I guess I’d just have to take it one panic attack at a time.

“The fact that you don’t want me to help you,” Joe said, “really makes me want to help you.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“It totally is. It’s the reason my wife left me.” Then he corrected: “One of them.”

I admit that got me. “Your wife left you because you werehelpful?”

“Yep.”

“I’m no wife, but that doesn’t seem like a thing wives normally complain about.”

---