Limelight

Chapter Twenty-Three

~~Confessions~~

"Xavier, what's the problem?"

When Aaliyah got to the Red Room, she saw him pacing the room, squinting down at the ground with his thumbnail in his mouth as he bit down on it anxiously. Aaliyah didn't see Xavier as the type to get anxious, much less have anxious habits. She felt her heart weigh with more dread, Aaliyah didn't think she was in the mood for more stress today. Today was supposed to be easy, today was supposed to be her day off from work and stress, at least until later tonight, but not only had she been humiliated and unable to even defend herself, she also had to deal with an anxious Xavier. A very new experience for her.

Xavier snapped his head up when he heard her come in, and he glared. "What took you so long?" He snapped in an agitated voice.

Aaliyah didn't think she was in the mood for his attitude. "Do the math, Xavier," She snapped back barely containing her anger, "It's lunchtime in Manhattan, you're lucky, Blair has no regard for road laws."

Xavier stalked up over to the soundboard, unplugging his headphones from its jack, and then played a track, which Aaliyah quickly realized was the backing track to Four Walls. Aaliyah frowned listening to it, wondering what his point was until the slow piano solo intro was brutally cut off right into the crescendo where the bass guitar and drums clashed together, and she jumped realizing what just happened. She looked to Xavier, not entirely sure what to make of this, she could feel herself beginning to tremble, "What," She started through gritted teeth feeling herself on the verge of exploding yet again. She was happy that she told Blair and Jenny that they didn't need to follow her up here and that she would be back in a moment, she didn't think she wanted them to see her on the verge of yet another breakdown today, "Happened?"

Xavier raised his hands up before locking his fingers behind his neck as he started to pace the room again. "You tell me," He replied frustrated, "I hadn't been out of this room for five minutes and when I get back to continue working on the track, I find that over half the song had been wiped off entirely."

"Oh my God," Aaliyah breathed out. She pressed her fingers to her temple to quell her growing headache. Her heartbeat felt irregular and it was as though she was quickly running out of breath, the whole room seemed to close in on her and she could recall a time back in San Diego in the three months after Malcolm's discovery when she felt as though the world was toppling on top of her and she was helpless against its destruction. That had been an almost usual occurrence back then. Her throat would close up. She'd break out into a sweat and pain would wrack through her body like her body was forcing itself into her 'fight or flight' mode. Even though there was no external reason for it, it was like a sense of impending doom settling on her chest, so she could barely breathe.

She remembered what Lauryn had once told her about panic attacks that, apparently when you hold your breath for long enough it would stop, but she couldn't find herself being able to calm down again. She held her breath for a long moment trying to contain her trembling. She could have sworn that today had started out as an okay day, but it seems as though the time that she had been thanking Mrs. Brodeur this morning had been a century ago, "That was weeks worth of work. How could this happen?"

"No idea," Xavier said breathing out exasperatedly, not even noticing her mental breakdown, he seemed almost oblivious, calm but almost not. She tried to focus on his voice, if she could hold onto something to anchor her, she'd stop spiraling, "For fuck's sake, I hardly ever leave my door unlocked. And it's very convenient too because Uriah came by earlier to let me know that we were supposed to update him on our progress tomorrow morning. After all, if we can't get the song released by the end of the year he's hoping for at least early in the new year. With the sing messed up, that doesn't seem likely at all."