Page 36 of Losing the Rhythm

“Can you even voice what happened?” I said in a low voice.

That got him to respond.

I didn’t mean to sound like that, but for some reason, he couldn’t even put a name to what happened to him. I finally looked him straight in the eyes. “Can you even call it what it was? Or will it only ever be that incident? That moment? That time? And that’s if anyone even bothers to bring it up.”

“Cadence,” Seth said in a soft voice.

I shook my head and wiped at my mouth. When I looked at my hand, I realized there was some blood on it. I had bitten my tongue hard enough to bleed.

I hadn’t even noticed. It was nothing compared to the dark storm swirling around inside of me.

“We talk about it, but we don’t talk about it,” I said. “What is there to talk about? What am I supposed to say? And why do I need to keep talking about it and always be reminded that it happened to me. But I can’t say what really happened to me, the gritty details. We don’t talk about it.”

“Then talk about it,” Bryan said, challenging me right then and there. He was always doing that. His upfront personality frankly pissed me off.

“Why?” I waved my hands at them. “So you can look at me like that. Like I’m some breakable damsel. So you can keep hovering around me, waiting for me to break down. What do you guys even want from me? I don’t understand.”

“Cadence,” Seth said again, this time kneeling right next to me. I hadn’t even noticed he had moved during my tirade. I was being a brat. I knew it. But every time they looked at me with any hint of pity or worry or whatever the hell those expressions were, my chest tightened. It was suffocating.

Seth pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around me. His lips pressed against my temple and he kept them there for a long moment. “Take a deep breath, Cadence. Breathe for me. Let your lungs fill to the brim with air and then release it slowly. And as you release it, imagine the chaos in your brain going with it. Calm your mind. Slow down your thoughts. If you have to, just think about one thing, over and over. Focus on it. That’s the only thing that matters right now. That one thing.”

That one thing ended up being his voice. The way he crooned softly to me. The softness in his words. The deepness. It lulled me as a haze fell over the chaos that had erupted inside of me.

I leaned into him, clutching him tighter to me, needing to feel him. He existed. I wasn’t in some weird crazy afterlife. I wasn’t dead.

I was still alive. Still breathing. Still surviving.

“Seth is a Cadence Whisperer,” Toby said softly.

“Shut the fuck up,” Bryan snapped at him.

“Feeling better?” Seth asked.

I nodded against his chest.

“Want me to let you go.”

I shook my head no.

He kept holding me.

No one said anything. No one moved. The overwhelming sound of pen against paper, or clothes rustling, or pages ruffling, it was all gone. That loudness finally vanished.

I pulled back from Seth, my cheeks feeling hot as our position finally settled in my mind. I was practically in his lap as he held me close to him.

“Thank you,” I croaked.

Seth kissed my cheek tenderly, something I wasn’t used to. “Anytime you need me, I’m there. Always.”

The truthful determination in his tone settled the ache inside of me enough to pull away from him.

“Me too,” Toby declared.

The others were nodding too, looking like they wanted to comfort me the way Seth had.

I blinked down at the table and cleared my throat. “Thank you.”

“Now, I’m going to finish my thoughts,” Toby said.

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