“No, no,” JD said, closing the distance between them. “Don’t do that. Don’t panic.”
But the walls were closing in. Everything was getting darker, pushing against her. She clawed at her chest, at her neck. Oh God, she couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. I should run, she thought. I can turn around and open the door and run.
Riley did her best to turn around. She knew the door was there—it had to be there.
Tighter. The walls. Her breath.
Suddenly, there were arms around her. JD crushed her to his chest, pressing her head into his neck. She felt his lips at the part of her hair. She felt his feet pushing hers as he spun her around, yanking the tiny rectangle window open.
Riley tried to push back. The window made it worse. The screen was a tight metallic mesh that mocked her, assured her that she’d never get out. When she saw the blade, her panic had consumed her, was paralyzing every brain cell and synapse.
She was sure she was moving her lips, sure she was asking questions, but the blood thundered through her ears, blocking everything out. JD’s arm went over her shoulder, the blade tight in his fist.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage. Her lungs burned, desperate for her to breathe. She watched the glistening steel blade slice through the window screen, making an X through it. Somewhere, the knife clattered into the sink, the screen was torn away, and Riley was pushed toward the now open window.
“Breathe, Riley,” JD commanded.
She did as she was told, sucking in a huge gulp of outside air that inflated her lungs but still made them burn. It wasn’t enough.
“It’s OK, Riley. You’re OK. You’re OK. Keep breathing.”
Another tortured breath. A slow burn.
She turned to JD, her eyes huge and glassy. He immediately pulled her into him, his lips against her ear.
“It’s OK. Listen to my heartbeat. Do you hear it?”
She nodded dumbly, unable to do anything else.
“OK,” JD whispered. “Think about that. My heart. Your heart. Now take a breath.”
Riley did as she was told, the action becoming rote.
“That’s right. In, out.”
It was becoming easier to breathe. Riley’s lungs opened up and the weight on her chest lessened. Pins and needles shot through her extremities, and she slowly unclenched fists that she didn’t remember making. The walls stopped their slow drift inward. She sprang back from JD, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, dragging the back of her hand against her cheeks.
“Don’t be. Panic attack, nothing to be ashamed of.”
Claustrophobia, Riley thought, unwilling to correct him. She cleared her throat.
“Didn’t you get the memo? This is high school. We’re supposed to be ashamed of everything.”
JD grinned. “I forgot you were kind of funny, Spence.”
Riley shoved JD aside and squinted out the paperback-sized window, now void of a screen. “We’re at the university.” She spun toward the door. “We should go before—”
JD shrugged. “You can go whenever you want.” He pulled a black backpack out from somewhere and grinned that stupid smile of his, that smile that was somehow familiar and calming, then shimmied around her. “Bus is empty.”
Riley grabbed her bag and hurried behind him, still whispering. “How do you know it’s clear?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Six-hour ride and the Marlboro man without a smoke? It’s as clear as it’s going to get.”
A wisp of smoky air curled in through one of the open bus windows, and Riley felt her eyebrows go up. JD knew his stuff.
The train station was directly across from the university, and Riley tried to mimic JD’s nonchalant gait, even as her blood pulsed through her body and her heart thudded in her throat. She glanced over her shoulder just before she and JD reached the station, just before she pulled open the door. Behind her, the university greens lolled and college students hung out with books and friends, looking Norman Rockwell–wholesome. Riley gulped heavily and felt her skin tighten when a black-and-white police car pulled in front of the stopped bus, doing a slow crawl around the U-shaped drive.
She wondered if her mother called them.
She wondered if they were looking for her.
Then Riley wondered absently which mother was looking. The thought was errant, out of nowhere, but stabbed Riley in the gut.
I’m Riley Allen Spencer, she reminded herself, and I’m being a total drama queen.
Her own inner voice sounded off. Riley Allen Spencer sounded like a stranger. The realization hit like a fist in Riley’s gut, and JD eyed her. “You OK?”