Page 65 of First Chance

I need more room to breathe.

It’s too tight, I’m suffocating.

I burst through a doorway leading me to a balcony overlooking a garden, sucking in fresh air but it doesn’t help.

My hands fight against the fabric, pulling, tugging, and I can’t get it off. I can’t reach my zipper.

The frustration turns to tears, and I’m hyperventilating as my panic attack consumes me.

It feels like a heart attack, it feels like–

“What’s wrong?” Lochlan appears out of thin air because, of course, he does. He’s always center stage as my life falls apart.

“I can’t breathe. Get it off.” I hug myself, desperately trying to calm down, but I can’t catch my breath. “Lochlan, get it off!” I scream, and his hands find my zipper immediately.

He tugs the dress open, but it’s not enough. The shape-wear necessary for this dress is still squeezing my insidespainfully.

“What is this shit?” He grabs the spandex but hesitates.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

Ripppp.

He tears the material right down my spine and I suck in a chest full of air, dropping to my knees. I keep my head between my legs and take long drags of air, in and out.

“Hell, no wonder you couldn’t breathe, it left indentations all over your back,” he remarks, not having any idea why I’m actually falling apart.

“Why are you here? Why is it always you?”

He doesn’t humor me with a response.

“You show up every time I’m a disaster. Why are you here?” I yell.

“I saw you run out of the banquet hall.”

I clamber to my feet with unsteady knees, grasping my dress above my chest to keep it from falling off. “Just leave.”

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Go, please,” I murmur, facing the balcony.

“Jo, let me–”

“NO!” I scream into the wind in front of me. I’m so tired of taking his emotional hand out, and then it being snatched away from me.

I’m so tired of being nothing.

After a long minute of silence, his black shirt is draped across my shoulders, and it takes all of my effort to keep the sound of my cry in.

I hear the doors click shut behind him as he leaves.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jo

When the weight of life catches up to me, I have a hard time getting out of bed. Between juggling classes, work, my parents’ drama, and my other complicated feelings, I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.

It’s as if all of my energy has been depleted, and I need a day to recharge in my depression cave, as Lochlan called it.

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