Page 6 of Hell and a Hard Place (Heaven and Hell Duet 1)

I manage to shake my head. Before I can sit on the pavement, too dizzy and weak to stand, Daniel sweeps me into his arms. He wants to take me inside the nursing home where I work, but I shake my head. “Put me in my car.”

My eyes close as my arms begin to feel numb. Things are fine. I’m not stuck in this situation. Daniel won’t hurt me. If I can’t break up with him today, there’s always tomorrow and text messages. All I have to do is get this panic attack under control, tell him I’m too tired to go out, and get away from him. I try to control my breathing by only breathing through my nose and forcing myself to slow down. It takes some time, but I manage to at least do that. Everything feels wrong and out of control as the numbness returns to tingles, my heart continues to beat erratically, and my head remains mush and useless.

As I search through my purse for the pills I take when my anxiety gets out of hand, I say, “I don’t think I can go out tonight, Daniel. I’m going home.”

“I’ll follow you there and pick up dinner. Make sure you’re okay. It’s just a panic attack, right?”

A nail might as well have run down a chalkboard. Just a panic attack? I’m not taking what I’ve dubbed my panic pills because of something he makes sound causal and simple. If I was the type of person to slap another person, I’d slap him right now; that’s how angry it makes me for him to dismiss what I’m experiencing.

“You don’t have to,” I tell him after quickly swallowing my pill.

“Of course I do. And it’s obvious now we shouldn’t break up. You couldn’t even say it without panicking about being without me. What would you do if I wasn’t here to help take care of you? You need me in your life, Idaline.” Daniel stands. “I’ll pick up Japanese food and be there shortly.” He closes my door before I can object again.

Fucking great.

Despite the wonders of my panic pill, which is supposed to calm me and subdue my panic, I’m on edge all evening while Daniel spends time with me. He pampers me and waits on me. He’s on the best behavior I’ve seen since we first met.

My phone vibrates with a text from “Fiona”, also known as FC.

FC: Did you do it yet?

Me: Tried and failed. Here now, so talk later.

FC: Try again.

Me: I will, but not today.

I’m too tired from the earlier panic attack and its remaining effects. Not to mention, I don’t care to break up with him while he’s in my apartment. That seems like a recipe for disaster. And what if FC is being overly cautious? What if Daniel was being an annoying showoff of a macho man, thinking I would like that behavior? Maybe if I talk to him about it next time it happens, he won’t do it anymore. Then I won’t have to break up with him at all.

I give FC endless chances, and he doesn’t even realize some of them. I can give Daniel another chance.

I’m cooking dinner for the wicked witch, who has had a party in the apartment every night for…I’ve lost count how many days. I’ve been tired from a lack of decent sleep for too long. It doesn’t help that every time I’ve messaged Idaline lately she’s been with the boyfriend she’s supposed to have broken up with already. The fact that she hasn’t really worries me. The moment she told me about how he reacted to harmless flirting, which she didn’t partake in, and how he reacted to hearing about me, I knew she needed to get away from him. He’s a Lila waiting to happen.

I open the oven, pull the rack out some, and reach for the pizza pan. She said she wanted dinner. She didn’t say I had to put some effort into it. The oven sits in the wall, about chest height, and I don’t pay attention when I reach for the pan. My arm is too low and it touches the searing hot rack, burning my arm. I unceremoniously drop the pizza pan onto the stovetop, close the oven, turn it off, and make my way to the bathroom.

As I’m filtering through the medicine cabinet, my eyes land on Lila’s birth control pills. As if I have no control over my body, my hand reaches for the package; my mind insists that I need to look at it. I pull the pills out. My stomach drops like a cinderblock and churns with the worst case of nausea I’ve ever had. Not a single pill has been taken.

Okay. Maybe this is a new prescription.

With a terrible feeling, I look at the date, dropping the pills to lurch for the toilet and throw up. That bitch. She hasn’t been taking her birth control for three months! I can’t… I don’t… There’s no telling how many times she was able to talk me into having sex without a condom or how many times I gave in just so I didn’t have to get kicked out and sleep in a hotel room for the night.

I flush the toilet and hear the front door close. …

She’s home. Spitting into the sink, I grab the pills and storm out of the bathroom.

“Pizza, FC? That’s the best you could do?”

“What the fuck is this, Lila?” I shove the pills in her face.

She doesn’t flinch. She barely reacts at all. “My pills. What’s your problem, FC?” she asks calmly.

“My problem is you’re a lying bitch! You told me you hadn’t missed one fucking day! These are three months old, Lila!”

She shrugs. “I’m sure the date is wrong on them.” She walks back into the kitchen to cut the pizza, as if that’s the most important thing right now.

“Pharmacies don’t fuck up the date. Not to mention, it starts on a Sunday and today is fucking Thursday, Lila! So, what lie do you want to go with? That you haven’t taken them in four days or that the pharmacy fucked up? Did you even take the Plan B pill or whatever the fuck it’s called?”

She turns to me. “Would it be so bad if we had a baby?”

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