call it what you want

Chapter 22

Ameeriah

When Jackson comes back into the room his face is a bit paler than usual.

He was gone for a pretty long time that we already switched games.
We're playing Trouble now.

"Was that your mom?" Max says as he rolls the dice, not looking up from the board game.

I try and discreetly look at him to voice my concern but he won't look at me. He's just looking down and fumbling his hands together quickly as he sits back down on the carpet beside me.

"Jackson are you okay?" I whisper to him.
He doesn't reply, just looking at the floor.

"Jackson," I say.
Still no reply.

"Jackson," I say as I put my hand on his thigh and he abruptly turns to look at me.
"Hm?" He says, sounding like he was just suddenly brought out of his daydream.

Whenever he looks into my eyes, I really see how much he's just not okay.

His face is pale but his cheeks are flushed, like he needs some cool air on him.
The eyes aren't big brown eyes looking back at me, but small and have a slight red rim around them, like he's holding back tears.

"What's wrong?" I ask, my hand still on his thigh.
"Hm? Nothing. Nothing's wrong, I'm good," he replies back quickly and tries to fake a soft smile back at me. What the hell kind of phone call did he just have?

He moves his head back lower and I know that I need to get him out of this room.
The other people in the room are too enthralled in the board game so I figure they won't notice if we leave.

"Hey," I whisper as I put my hand the side of his arm. "Let's go get some fresh air, yeah?"
He nods his head and we start to head outside. Everyone inside is preoccupied so I'm sure they won't realize we're gone.

As soon as the cool air outside hits us, I see Jackson start to pull at the neckline of his sweatshirt.

"Dude can you talk to me? What's going on?"
He gulps, but doesn't reply.

"Jackson," I plea as I step in front of him to stop him from continuing to walk.
He takes a little breath in. "It's my fucking dad," he gulps. "That was my sister on the phone fucking hysterical because she saw messages on his phone that he's cheating on my mom."

Oh fuck.

I feel an immediate stab to the heart from secondhand heartbreak, because holy fuck I know how that hurts. And I can't even imagine how it would feel after marrying someone, sharing a life, children.

"Oh Jackson.." I say as I try to comfort him, "I'm so sor—"

"I mean I guess technically they're going through a divorce now, but my sister said the messages happened a long time before he did."

He gulps.
"And it's with my high school best friend's mom."

I sigh and look up to him to look into his eyes.

He almost looks like he's about to cry but the sadness quickly turns into slight panic and worry as he reaches for his neckline again.

"I feel like I can't breathe, this fucking shirt," he says as he continues to grasp at the neckline of sweatshirt.

"Let's go to your apartment, yeah?" I say because I quickly realize that we're in the middle of a mostly dark parking lot in the middle of the night.
Adare told me earlier that her and Wes aren't coming back until tomorrow so I know it'll be empty.

He nods and we start to walk to his car, and without hesitation he gets into the passenger seat and I drive his car. He has a newer car so it unlocks and starts without it needing an actual key in the ignition, it just needs to be nearby and since the car started, I'm assuming it's in his pocket.

Once we park, we get out and  the whole time he doesn't say a word.
He alternates between grasping at his neckline and fumbling his hands together.

As soon as we get to his floor and start walking towards his door, I suddenly hear a sharp inhale.
When I turn to look at him, there's just sheer panic running across his face.

When he looks at me it's like he's looking through me, not at me.

I think he's having a panic attack.

As I hold his hand and pull him down the hallway, he's gasping for breath the entire time.
"Jackson we're almost to your place dude, just breathe Jackson, deep breathes," I try and say quickly because he's gasping for breath and his hand in mine is sweaty.

I've had a couple of panic attacks before so I know that anything I say really isn't going to help, it's just gonna have to move through him.
It fucking hurts to watch though.

When we make it to his door I realize that we need his keys to unlock it.
"Keys, where are your keys?" I say to him.

He picks up his hand and it's shaking as he tries to reach into his pocket.
I move my hand into his sweatpant pockets and grab the keys and quickly unlock the door and pull us in.

"Okay, okay," I breathe once we're inside.
All of the lights are off except for the one kitchen light that shining a dim light.

"I can't—" he gasps, "breathe, Ameeriah—" he sharply inhales again as he tries to take in a breath. "I can't breathe."

I watch him with wide eyes as he starts his shake his hands.

"My chest—" he swallows, "hurts—" he mumbles as he reaches to start patting his hand on his chest.

"Jackson, hey," I say as I reach to hold his hands in mine. "Look at me."
He looks at me with the most scared eyes I've ever seen as it breaks my heart.

"Hey, I'm here, okay? I can't stop this Jackson, but I'm here. Just look at me. I want you to look at my eyebrows," and looking into his eyes, I can see his gaze shift.

"Okay now look back to my eyes," and he does. "Look at my nose...okay now my lips...now look at my eyebrows again...okay now look back into my eyes."
With every gaze shift as he listens to what I'm saying I can see him start to slow down a little bit.

He takes as breath as he's still looking into my eyes. He still looks so fucking scared.

I feel him trying to shake his hands again, so I let go slightly, but as soon as I do he widens his eyes even more and grabs onto my arms and I feel him shaking against me as he tries to hold them.

"Please don't leave, stay with me. Please stay with me, please," he begs quickly and I think my heart completely shatters.

"Hey," I exhale. "I'm not going anywhere," I say to him as move closer towards him and wrap my arms around him.

He quickly wraps his big arms around my waist and moves his head into the side of my neck and all I feel is the weight of him on me and soft crying after that.

✧∘* ೃ ⋆｡˚.
Thanks for reading!

These chapters are always pretty hard to write and I know panic attacks and anxiety is SO widely experienced but there's still so much stigma around it. I also struggle with pretty bad anxiety and panic attacks and I'm here to say YOU'RE NOT ALONE. One of the reasons I really enjoy writing panic attack scenes is to be able to kinda show the tiniest insight of how terrifying experiencing a panic attack can be. Of course, this is only my experience but there are SO many other symptoms and experiences. Thank you for reading!!
-m