Four letter word

32. The party.

AJ ran down the empty hall as fast as she could. She pushed open the bathroom doors and quickly scanned the place to see that it was empty and once she made sure, she crushed into the wall with her back and slid down onto the floor, pressing her hand on her heart.

"Breathe... just breathe... please..." she kept mumbling through the short breaths, trying her hardest to calm down. Everything around her was spinning and didn't feel real. She felt like she was high or something. Where had all the air in the world gone? Why couldn't she just breathe?

She pressed harder onto her heart as if that would help and tried to wipe her own tears with her other hand, but it was useless and the tears were blurring her vision whenever she managed to open her eyes. Oh god... just breathe... everything was going wrong, everything was bad. She was alone, she would always be alone... just make it stop... just let her breathe... it seemed impossible.

"You okay, Harrison?" AJ heard a voice speak. She wasn't sure if she imagined it at first. But she tried to open her eyes enough to see who it was. A tall girl. No. Two tall girls. One standing near the door and the other quickly bending down and appearing next to AJ. She couldn't make out their faces. Everything was so blurry and she could only focus on her breath.

"Does she look okay to you?" The girl that had knelt down next to her spoke as she put her hand on AJ's shoulder and started rubbing it. No, no, that was all wrong. AJ wanted her to stop touching her. It felt suffocating and no one was supposed to see her like this. Who were they? Did she know them? 'Help! No! Leave! Please, help! Don't look! You can't see me like this!' Her thoughts kept rushing.

"What can we do, AJ? What happened?" The girl closest to her spoke again and AJ heard the other one let out an annoyed groan.

"She's not gonna answer, she's having a panic attack for fuck's sake" the other girl said and came around to AJ's other side and knelt down as well.

"Well excuse me for trying to help" the first girl snapped. This really wasn't helping. It was just making AJ more freaked.

"Please leave..." AJ whispered through breaths. She felt like she was going to faint.

"Look, it's okay, AJ. Just breathe with me, okay?" The second girl said, now also rubbing her shoulder lightly. AJ was finally able to make out who she was. Riley. And the other one must have been Dana then. Fuck. Nononono these were the last two people that were supposed to see her like this.

"Come on, just breathe with me. Inhale, 1,2,3,4, exhale, 1,2,3,4...." Riley started breathing with counts and after a while AJ followed, trying to mimic the same pace. She didn't know how long that went on, but it worked. She took her first breath and her body relaxed a bit.

Until the whole thing hit her. Dana and Riley were standing on two sides of her, both looking down at her while she probably looked like a whole mess. Oh, god, no, no, no. She started to panic again, this was not supposed to happen, no one was supposed to see her like this, looking like this. It was all so overwhelming.

AJ burst into tears, feeling embarrassed and pathetic.

"I'm sorry.... I don't know what happened... I was fine one second and then..." she tried to speak.

"Oh, honey, it's okay" Dana spoke, her hand still on her shoulder.

"No, no, it's not... I'm sorry" she said. The whole week had been so overwhelming for AJ, she hadn't even realized how much stress she was under. The play, the party planning, the exams, it was all too much. Too much socializing, too many people, too many activities all at once, she hadn't realized how heavy it her made her feel. It's like she had been putting all that anxiety away for later and now later had come. And it had come during an important seminar. That was just her luck.