In the Span of a Breath

Chapter 8

After the fiasco of the last time Paige came around Erin tiptoed around his father anytime they were in the house together. He kept his head down and avoided eye contact. He knew it made his mother rather awkward sometimes but even she could not stave off the funk his dad was in after finding Paige, not only asleep in his son's bed, but his son wrapped around him. Mostly Erin just avoided being in the house since his mother lifted his containment to their backyard. He liked to sit out there on days his mother was tending her garden, she hummed softly but too lost in what she was doing to talk.

Every chance Erin had to be outside he took it. The autumn evenings were still nice without being too cold. More importantly the quiet of the outdoors allowed him time to think. For the past few days he'd been poking the memories of that night with a figurative stick, a little bit at a time without triggering panic attacks. He was pretty proud of himself but kept it private. He was not willing to tell anyone until he could make larger improvements to his triggers. He'd developed a system, after watching some documentary about exposure therapy on TV, to conquer each trigger at a time. The first one were his actual memories.

He had a breakthrough several weeks into his self-imposed therapy. Early on he began venturing outside while his mother was inside, then when she was gone. He got himself to a place where he could sit outside alone with just the sounds of outside as a soundtrack. Just being alone with nothing to distract him was a huge improvement but it wasn't enough. The thought made him frown slightly.

"Okay, there is nothing to worry about..." a murmured pep talk and a deep breath later, Erin was closing his eyes and taking deep even breaths as he recalled that night.

He left Paige's house, walking across the yard and into the orchard. A flash of bristly fur and bright canines threatened to break his even breathing. Erin furrowed his brows in concentration willing himself to continue. He was running, hot breath on his neck. Then Paige's face before the hot white pain of the monster's claws-- He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly, breathing heavily.

"Just a little further." He told himself. Paige lunged at the dark distorted memory of the beast. And everything erupted into a violent flood of images, tainted red. Erin was helpless as he watched Paige being thrown to the ground, him being attacked... a sob retched its way out of Erin as he sat there shaking. He realized his eyes were open and he was staring at the ground. His hands unconsciously moved to cover his face and there were tears in his eyes. Yet the most amazing thing was even though he was breathing heavily and trembling and terrified he wasn't spinning into a panic attack. The realization had him huffing in relief. He grinned to himself while using his hands to help push himself straight back up. The healing skin pulled unpleasantly as he shifted but he remained fine. He was fine!

"HA!" He grinned so wide his face began to hurt as he slid into a relieved laugh. A huge weight lifted off his shoulders as he leaned his head back onto the chair and grinned up towards the sky. For the first time in roughly two months Erin felt like everything was eventually going to be alright. He looked up at the cloudless blue sky and released a deep breath still smiling.

"Erin! I'm back! I brought lunch, and a surprise!" His mother's voice filtered out from in the house. She sounded excited or something so he stood and ginned again when his stitches didn't cause pain. He walked in through the back door right as his mother came into the kitchen carrying takeout boxes from her restaurant. He took them from her with a kiss to her cheek and set the containers on the counter with a smile.

"Oh!" His mother's surprise made him smile even bigger. "You look, happy..." She said hesitantly.

He nodded his head, "Yeah, I feel great. I really do." He looked towards her and she saw her Erin breaking through the depressed, scared boy he'd been recently.