She pressed her hands to her chest, trying to force in a breath, when no one was behind her. But still her lungs failed her. Her eyes started to water and pain started at her temples, shooting fire bolts behind her eyes. She knew she had to sit down. She knew she should press her head between her knees. She knew that she couldn’t force her body to do either of those things.
Brynna let out a choked sob as an unassailable fear washed over her. There was someone with her in that locker room, someone watching her struggle to breathe, someone watching her shiver and cry. Someone who had no intention of helping her.
Brynna saw her knuckles go white as she gripped the open door of her locker, her wet palm sliding down as her knees gave out. She landed with a hard thud on her butt and pulled her knees into her chest.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Blood, like ocean waves, crashed through her ears.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Her thundering heart pounded against her thigh.
There’s no one else in here. There’s no one else in here. Breathe.
Brynna had almost convinced herself, was almost breathing normally, was feeling the slowing, normalizing pace of her beating heart.
“There’s no one else in here,” she whispered to herself.
Finally, using the lockers behind her for leverage, she stood, walking on shaky legs toward the bank of sinks at the front of the locker room. She rounded the corner when she heard one of the automatic sinks start flowing, the water rushing so hard into the basin that it splashed a fine mist onto the concrete floor. There was no one in front of the sink.
It snapped off as Brynna approached it.
Swallowing hard, she peeked into the basin where a single tube of lipstick lay, cap off, the bright red color leaving streaks on the white porcelain. Brynna didn’t need to check the label to know what color it was or what brand. It was Erica’s color, Erica’s brand.
Across the mirror, written in the candy-apple red that Erica adored so much, were the words, I haven’t forgotten you, Brynna.
A starburst of heat exploded in front of her eyes. Her whole body went rigid. She doubled over and dry-heaved, the image of her sneakers below her swirling and blurring with her tears.
“I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here!”
Brynna crossed the locker room like a shot, at some point having enough presence of thought to snatch up her bag and continue to breathe. She burst through the double doors and peeled through the now-crowded halls. All around her, kids were talking and laughing and yelling, but it all faded to a cacophonous din in her ears. She walked with purpose but aimlessly, as the halls of Hawthorne High bowed in different directions. Everywhere she looked were faces she couldn’t recognize, faces that clearly didn’t recognize her. The crowd, the walls, all started to close in on her until she burst through the double doors that led to the back quad, doubling over and desperately sucking in huge gasps of air. Pinpricks broke out along her fingertips and palms, and Brynna closed her eyes, feeling a single bead of sweat drip down the center of her back. Her chest was tight. Her heart slammed against her rib cage so hard that she was sure it would crack.
“Panic attack,” she whispered to herself. “I’m having a panic attack.”
She heard Dr. Rother’s voice echoing in her head: “Concentrate on your breathing, Brynna. Focus.”
Focus, Brynna commanded herself. Focus on your breathing and your shoes and the cement in front of you and not the sand, not the churn of the surf that seemed to always crash. Concentrate on the here and now. You’re here, at Hawthorne High, and Erica is dead.
That last word—dead—echoed in Brynna’s mind, and she couldn’t concentrate. She fisted her hands and stepped forward, trying to focus on something, some stupid rote action that would free her mind from the panic cycle. She took another forward step then started a slow jog toward the football field and the back forty, concentrating only on her footsteps, only on covering ground.
She climbed up the bleacher stairs and pinned herself into a corner, the high walls of the structure guarding her against the wind. She crumbled, letting the tears fall rapidly now, not caring when her soft cry went to spastic hiccupping.
Why would Erica do this to me?
The sound of muffled laughter and someone coughing snapped her back to reality. Heat washed over her cheeks, and she used the heel of her hand to wipe away the tears that were already drying. Muffled voices went around again, and bile climbed the back of Brynna’s throat—was she really going crazy?
When a snake of cigarette smoke wafted up from the open slots between the bleachers, she glanced down, her heart speeding up as she noticed a group of kids sprawled out on the hard-packed earth, smoking. One was holding a water bottle that Brynna knew wasn’t water. The girl took a large swig and passed it to the guy next to her who mumbled something and took a swig of his own.
Brynna glanced down at the broken face on her phone while her mind shattered into millions of images—all of them Erica, all of them her and then not her—one minute laughing, splashing, the next minute, gone.