Gabe grinned. “Yeah, we are. He’s a good guy. He’s always had my back.”
“How about your parents? Are they here in Delta?”
“No, in Denver. Dad’s a software engineer, and Mom teaches middle school. Dad is still furious that I turned down my scholarship to Stanford, so I haven’t been back home for a while.”
“Rosie told me about that. Why didn’t you go for it?”
“I suppose I just wanted to see the world a little before I made that kind of commitment. Nothing more to it than that.” He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes staring out at the horizon. “How about you?” He turned to look at me. “Did you ever go to college?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have the option because I kind of messed up my exams.”
“Why? What happened?”
I took a deep breath and told him about my panic attack. “At the time, it was like the end of the world, you know? But then, life just carried on, and I landed this amazing position at See! Sydney—they’re an award-winning publication. And I’ve learned so much since—more than anything a degree could have taught me. I’m a lot further ahead in my career than I would have been if I’d done it the regular way.”
“I guess it was a blessing in disguise, then.”
“It was.”
“So what are you planning to do now?”
I told him about Angie and the opportunity to have my work published.
“Wow, Annie Otto, that’s huge!”
“I can’t believe something that big fell into my lap. But now I’m scared shitless, and I can’t make the words do what I want.”
“It’s just performance anxiety. You’ll get past it in no time.”
“I hope so.” As I gazed out at the picturesque scene, I felt suddenly upbeat. Gabe was right; it was just performance anxiety, nothing more than that. As soon as the nerves settled, I would write like I used to, and the stories would come rushing onto paper.
“In the meantime, just sit proud and think of how much you’ve accomplished.”
I grinned. “You know, life isn’t all that different from a snakes and ladders game, is it? A ladder appears out of nowhere, and all of a sudden you’re that much closer to the finish line.”
“But it works the other way too.”
“It does,” I said, thinking back to my breakup with Rad. “Everything was going so well for me, then it was like a slippery slope. My best friend, Candela, went AWOL, my relationship ended, and I just couldn’t function. I left my job, which was a crazy thing to do. There are hundreds of grad students who would kill for my position, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I needed to be somewhere different, forget the real world for a while.”
“I think you’ve been pretty brave, coming out here all by yourself.”
“It was hard the first few weeks. I felt like I had made a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t go back home, not after telling everyone this was my dream. I couldn’t face it, so I stuck it out in that shitty motel. But now, as each day goes by, it becomes clearer to me that I did make the right choice. I don’t have anything solid to go by; it’s just a feeling.”
“It’s good to get out of your comfort zone. All my life, I was book smart—your stereotypical nerd.”
“You, a nerd?” I laughed.
“Yes, a full-blown nerd. We’re talking glasses, braces, Dungeons & Dragons—the works. I even went on this game show called Battle of the Brainiacs. I was the chubby, happy-go-lucky kid who aced all his exams and cleaned up at the chess tournament. All my life, I’d spent so much time inside my head. One day—it was only a few weeks after I sat for my SATs—it was almost like I snapped and my brain wanted a vacation.”
“Snapped?”
“Yes, a panic attack. Similar to yours. One minute I was wolfing down enchiladas with some friends at our favorite hangout; the next I was on the floor, clutching my chest and thinking I was having a heart attack.”
“But you’re the most stable and level-headed person I’ve ever met.”
“I wasn’t always like this. It took a lot of work for me to get there.”
“How did you do it?”
“My parents sent me to a see a guy. He recommended that I start running, so I did. Once I started, it became an addiction. I’d spent so much time developing my mind I had neglected my body. It was starved for attention. So the second I put a little focus there, my body lapped it up like nobody’s business. That was when I realized how important it was to find a balance between the two. So now I run and hike as much as possible. Sometimes I go kayaking or mountain biking, and as you know, I recently learned to swim. I was never any good at sports—I didn’t think I could do those things. But the more I got into it, the easier it became. Now it’s as natural to me as breathing. And it all started one morning when I laced up my running shoes and went for a jog around the block.”
“That’s amazing,” I said, feeling suddenly inspired. “At home, I barely did anything physical. I walked to work and back—that’s about it. But when I got here, I walked a lot because there was nothing else to do. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, walking was making me stronger not just physically but mentally as well.”
“That’s what I mean about getting out of your comfort zone. That’s where you learn the most about yourself.”
We were quiet for a few moments, watching the sun creep upward, painting the sky a cotton candy pink.
“So you don’t ever get panic attacks anymore?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“Well, you know what Hunter S. Thompson said about the ‘edge.’”
I nodded. “Only the ones who have gone over know what it’s really like.”
“Exactly. Once you cross over, you can’t go back. It never goes away completely. You just get better at dealing with it.”
“My therapist gave me this.” I pulled back the sleeve of my Sherpa jacket to show him the rubber band around my wrist. “Whenever I feel anxious, I just snap the rubber band against my skin.”
“Does it work?”
“It does, most of the time. It definitely helps to have it there.”
“Do you know what I do?”
I shook my head and let him continue.
“I picture a ship tied to a mooring. I imagine the rope between the two is made of this indestructible material. It’s impossible to break. Not even an atomic bomb could sever it. And as I picture this infallible piece of rope, I imagine the ship is my mind and the mooring is my body.”
“I like that. I might have to borrow it sometime.”
He grinned his good-natured grin. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
He reached into his backpack. “Do you like peanut butter and jelly?”
“Absolutely,” I smiled.
A few weeks later, I spoke to Lucy via FaceTime and brought up Gabe for the first time.
“I’ve made a new friend. His name is Gabe.”