But There's More To You

1.5 | Born with purpose

Despite the overly elegant bathroom being absolutely deserted with nobody other than herself inside, Cynthia felt as though she could not breathe, as though there hadn't been enough air inside the bathroom to supply her humanly needs. She was panicking, she was sure she was having a panic attack, but she chose to ignore it again, she chose to play the clueless one despite her eyes tearing up on their own and her clear polished nails turning a sickly blue. She tried to avoid the embarrassment of leaving the bathroom to catch a breather and possibly having someone see her in that state by pacing around, but the more steps she took back and forth, the faster her heart was starting to beat and the tighter her chest got, so when a few long seconds passed and she still couldn't catch a decent breath in, Cynthia slammed the bathroom door open and stumbled outside with a disgruntled whimper and ragged breaths.

"Oh my...are you alright?" a voice spoke and it had been oddly familiar, but the state Cynthia was in prevented her from recognizing the person owning it, only focusing on the way her breathing was unstable and her heart beating in her throat and now that she had an unwanted audience watching her body shake and her fingers clench, she was on the verge of breaking into tears.

This could not be happening.

Not right now.

Not at all.

No.

No.

No.

"Hey? hey, breathe, it's okay."

A pair of warm palms melted against her shoulders, grounding her, squeezing gently at the thin layer of flesh beneath them, allowing Cynthia to feel anything other than the feeling of the lack of oxygen in her body. "Breathe slowly, not this fast. You're alright," and again, the voice guided, hands of it's owner still tightly over her shoulders but slowly moving to slide down to grasp her arms in their hold, thumbs rubbing against them carefully, but Cynthia's eyes were strictly glued shut, way too scared to even dare to part her eyelids, opting to remain clueless to the person's identity.

"You're alright."

It took a couple of long seconds for Cynthia to gradually slow down her breathing, following the voice for a guide, but when she was finally able to breathe well on her own without feeling any restriction, she finally decided to open her eyes, wanting to avoid appearing rude when the person holding her was the sole reason as to why she was able to function properly at that moment.

The first thing Cynthia saw the moment she parted her eyelids had been a pair of shoes. Expensive. They were expensive shoes, the leather still perfectly shiny and new. She thought they were Prada, perhaps, she didn't exactly know, and she didn't quite care about which designer brand they had been, but she knew her brain was trying to run away from the confrontation, urging her to focus on useless details. She blinked, eyes moving upwards, following the fitted pants and the fancy embroidery on the white button down she was currently running her eyes over before they landed on him.

Rosy, Cupid bowed lips, defined cheekbones, high nose bridge and shiny eyes.

The same glistening eyes that enjoyed feeding into her, reading her out loud to the crowd, stripping her of her privacy, consuming her till nothing of her was left behind by simply maintaining eye contact with her.

"Do you feel better now?" Jade asked the moment their eyes met after a few seconds of silence, the hands holding Cynthia's bare arms tightly loosening their grip till they slipped and fell by his sides. His eyebrows were pulled together into a soft frown and his head was slightly tilted, eyes raking over Cynthia's body to make sure she was no longer panicking, that she could finally breathe well on her own, that the rise and fall of her chest had been consistent yet not too fast nor slow, that the tremor in her hands had calmed down, that her nails were no longer a bright blue but instead melting into a slightly warm pink, that she was okay.