Page 34 of Unworthy
“Scared,” Verity whispered on an exhale, her eyes filling with tears. I blinked. The Verity I knew hadn’t ever shown any sign of actual weakness. But anxiety and panic attacks I could deal with.
“Right,” I said, putting my phone down and taking both Verity’s hands in mine. “We’re going to sit down now, V. Okay? You with me?”
She nodded, her wild eyes fixed on mine and her chest still rising and falling rapidly. I tugged her down to the nearest chair and squatted in front of her so that our eyes were level. “Look at me, honey.” She stared straight at me as I took one of her hands and laid it on the centre of my chest. “Can you feel my heartbeat?” She nodded. “Right, okay. Can you feel my breathing? Feel my chest moving?” Another nod. “I want you to breathe with me, V. You’re safe here. You need to slow your breathing down. Close your eyes for me.” V’s breathing was evening out now as her eyelids fluttered shut. “Can you picture somewhere you feel safe?” She nodded. “Imagine you’re there now.” The tension in her expression began to fade as I spoke and I could feel her heartbeat slow beneath my hand. “Stay there in the safe space and breathe with me, okay? There is nothing but this moment. Let go of everything else.” After another minute, her shoulders relaxed, then slowly she blinked her eyes open. She stared at me before breaking eye contact to look down at the floor and pulling her hand back from my chest.
“Christ,” she whispered. “Yaz, I–” She was pulling away, so I took both of her hands in mine to prevent her retreat. “I don’t know what to say. You must think–”
“I think you had a panic attack. They’re scary and they can happen to anyone. Do you… I mean, has this happened before?”
She shook her head at first and then glanced at me before nodding slowly. “Not for years, though. Not since–”
“Not since what?”
Verity stared at me for a moment before looking back down at the floor. “It’s ancient history, childhood stuff. Best left in the past. There’s just been some… er, reminders recently. That’s all.”
“Does Heath know?”
Her eyes flew to mine, and she squeezed both my hands. “Youcan’ttell him,” she said urgently. “Promise me, Yaz. Please, don’t say anything to Heath.”
I frowned. “But he’s your brother. And if it’s childhood stuff rearing again, doesn’t that involve him too?”
“No,” her tone was sharp now, back to the old no-nonsense Verity I knew. “No, he’s not getting sucked into this. Not again.” Before I could ask her to explain, she’d rolled the chair back and pushed up onto her feet. “Heath deserves to be free of this now,” she whispered as she toed on her shoes and smoothed down her hair. There were some papers on the desk in front of her which she hastily gathered up before I could read anything on them.
“Okay, well, you know you can talk to me, don’t you, V?” I said, moving forward to her and laying my hand on her arm. “I know you think Crazy Yaz can’t deal with heavy shizzle, but I promise I’mallabout the heavy stuff.” I smiled. “And you don’t have to have the amethyst worry stone, the lavender diffuser or the reiki therapy… but you might regret it.”
Verity looked up at me then with a smile of her own. Over the years she’d made it very clear that she was allergic to anything even vaguely alternative. Once when she’d complained of a migraine at the office, I’d brought her a lapis lazuli crystal and a diffuser instead of the paracetamol she had asked for. I may not have read the room quite right at the time seeing as she was meeting with a group of high-profile property developers who’d come down from London. She threw the crystal at my head after they’d left. (“We’ll never get the job now, you lunatic,” she’d yelled. “Not when they think we’re a bunch of crazy bloody hippies!”)
Then there was the time I’d set off the fire alarm before an important presentation when I decided to cleanse the office of negative energy by burning some sage and wafting it through the space. I may have slightly underestimated the amount of smoke sage can give off. The office stank for a good week after that. On the plus side, some tasty fireman turned up. Although it turned out V was not in the mood to be set up with a fireman that day, however tasty he was. She threw the rose quartz crystal I slipped into her pocket to enhance her sex life at my head as well – which was short-sighted, seeing as if anyone needed that crystal it was Verity. Sexual repression was her middle name.
Verity laid her hand over mine and gave it a squeeze.
“You know, darling,” Verity said. “Maybe I’ll take you up on some of that.”
I beamed at her, but she rolled her eyes.
“Nobody pokes at my feet, though,” she added. “What are you doing here on a Saturday, anyway?” She eyed the rolled-up yoga mats I’d gathered and then looked back at me with her eyebrows raised.
“Oh,” I said, glancing at the mats, then back at her, offering her a weak smile. Weak smiles seemed to be the only kind I could muster nowadays, which was probably for the best – both Max and Verity had accused me many times of being relentlessly cheerful. Once I’d lugged these mats down to the van, there would be no evidence of my office invasion. I’d already cleared out the essential oil diffusers and the odd crystal I’d left about the place. It was back to its fully sanitized, bleak glory. “I’ve finally taken the hint and will be getting out of your hair.” I said this through a smile, thinking Verity would be relieved. She’d been almost as annoyed with my frequent impromptu office visits and yoga sessions as Max. But she didn’t smile back, instead she frowned and moved to block my path to the mats.
“What you mean you won’t be coming in anymore?”
“Er… well, that’s kind of self-explanatory, no?”
“But you’re part of the office.”
My mouth fell open in surprise before I quickly snapped it shut. I said my next words carefully, mindful that I didn’t want to upset a post-panic attack Verity but aware that I needed to tell the truth about how I felt. “Verity, I’m not part of the office. You and Max have made it very clear that I’m more of an annoyance than anything else.”
“But… but you can’t just walk out. Surely that’s–?”
“You don’t pay me anymore, V,” I said softly, and she blinked at me. “I’m not your employee now. I only took the reception job for a few hours a week to help the office atmosphere after the move from London. Everyone was so wound up then, Max’s stress levels were hitting the roof and he was mouthing off at all the baby architects… I just wanted to provide some light relief and chill things out a little. It humanised Max to have his little sister come in and do yoga on the office floor and take the piss out of him. But I stopped my reception hours ages ago. Didn’t you notice that I only ever did the yoga and alternative therapies here now? I told Janice to take me off the payroll six months ago.”
“Oh… well, that’s a shame.”
My eyebrows went up.
“Really?”
“Yes, of course it is,” Verity snapped. “You’ve been great for staff retention. I acknowledge that.”
