Our waitress had taken our order and brought us water and bread, but my eyes were glued to the bay outside the window.
“Are those sea lions?” I asked, pointing toward a bunch of floating docks.
“Yeah,” Riot said. “They came after there was some earthquake somewhere,” he said, waving his hand in the air. “Every winter more and more show up.”
“There must be hundreds of them,” I whispered, my eyes straining to see them individually.
“I’ll be right back,” Halah said, standing up quickly and making her way through the restaurant. She’d been pretty quiet since we sat down and had only been picking at a piece of bread.
“Do you think she’s feeling all right?”
He shrugged. “Hard to tell. She’s been acting kind of strange all weekend.”
My eyes wandered back to the sea lions. “When we’re done eating, can we go look at them? Like, get closer?”
“Sure, baby,” he said, kissing my cheek. “I can’t believe you’ve never been here.” He took another bite of his bread, then continued. “Marcus would have gotten a kick out of this place.”
He said the words with such ease, as though saying his name caused him no pain at all, and that made my breath halt. My chest tightened and my lungs froze. I wanted so badly to be at a place in my mourning where I could mention his name in passing, think about him and smile, but when Riot said his name, the first thing I did was panic.
Marcus would have loved this place, would have loved looking at the sea lions and riding the carousel we walked past on our way to the restaurant. They were all things he’d never be able to do. The weight of grief came to rest on my shoulders, holding me down, pressing me farther into that dark spiral I’d been trying to avoid.
“Hey,” Riot said, his hands coming to cup my face, forcing me to look at him. “Hey, hey, hey,” his words were coming faster, his eyes moving over my face frantically. “What’s happening, Kal?”
I took in a deep shuddering breath, but couldn’t say anything. I just felt the pain in my lungs, the pinching in my throat, and the tears welling in my eyes.
“Babe, you need to breathe.” He’d started to sound panicked. His face became a little blurry, but I managed to take in another breath and tried to blink away the haze. “Good. Now breathe out slowly, Kal.”
My heart was pounding, hands were shaking, but I managed to wrap my fingers around his wrists while his hands were still holding my face close to his. It took a few minutes of Riot telling me to breathe and listening to him count to ten before my body seemed to calm down.
Halfway through the ordeal Halah returned to her seat and I heard her concerned voice whisper to Riot about calling someone or getting help, but he assured her I was getting better and just needed to calm down. In the back of my mind I was mortified that she was seeing me that way, but there was nothing I could do to keep the panic away besides breathe through it. So that’s what I did.
Finally, when I felt like the vise had loosened in my chest, I let out a deep breath and leaned against him. I was shaky, clammy, and exhausted.
“Is she all right?” Halah asked, obviously worried.
“I’ll be okay,” I managed, even though my words were rough and low. Riot held me for a minute more before I felt strong enough to sit up on my own. I pulled away from him and reached for my water glass, suddenly thirstier than anything.
“Wow,” I finally said, my eyes darting between Riot and Halah. Riot was studying me fiercely, looking as though he was ready to take me away at the drop of a hat to protect me, even though he couldn’t protect me from my own mind. Halah just looked worried and curious. “I’m really sorry. That’s never happened around other people before.”
“It’s happened before?” Riot asked, his previously soothing voice now laced with a touch of anger.
“A few times,” I answered meekly.
Halah reached over and rubbed her hand over mine. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I gave her a weak smile. “There’s not much to talk about. My brother died a few months ago and sometimes it’s just hard to deal with.” My eyes turned to Riot. “I don’t usually spend a lot of time with people who say his name. It must have triggered something.”
“What was his name?” she asked before Riot could apologize. I could see in his eyes that was all he wanted to do. But I shifted my gaze back to Halah.
“Marcus,” I whispered. Then I cleared my throat and said a little louder, “His name was Marcus.”
She gave me her beautiful smile, patted my hand one last time, then leaned back in her chair. “That’s an awesome name. How old was he?”