Impossibly His

Chapter Sixteen

"We need to talk about this," he said, his eyes boring intensely into me from across the table.

"No we don't," I mumbled, mindlessly stirring my latte to the point where I couldn't even remember why I was doing it in the first place.

"Yes, we do, Clare."

"No, we don't, Reth," I mocked him.

"Clare," he said more forcefully. "You can't expect me to let it go after what happened this morning. Can you please just talk to me?"

"What's there to talk about?" I said, finally looking up at him with a glare. "I had a nightmare. It's not a big deal."

"You woke up screaming. It is a big deal." I kept quiet, and he huffed a deep breath.

This had all started when I had woken up at eight-thirty that morning, screaming and gasping for breath as a panic attack threatened to take over. Reth's solution for our situation the night before was to share the bed, so he was more than startled when I had nearly leapt off of the mattress, waking up the entire house as I screamed my lungs out.

"Clare," he had said urgently, taking my tear stained face into his hands. "You're okay, it was just a nightmare, you're safe."

Violently shaking my head, I had frantically tried to push his hands away from me. His bedroom door flew open with a crash, revealing an out of breath and worried Rixton who looked from me to Reth in a panic, but before he could even take a step towards the two of us Reth was yelling for him to leave.

"What's going on?!" He yelled back at his brother.

"I'll take care of it, Rixton, get out!" Reth shouted before he turned his attention back to me. I hadn't noticed that I had been scanning my arms in horror, still searching for the bruises that were no longer there. My breathing was quick and shallow, air barely reaching my lungs, and tears continued to run down my cheeks. Reth caught my hands in his as I frantically began to clutch at my chest from the lack of air that I was receiving, holding them tightly in his as I fought his grip on me. "Clare, look at me," he said urgently.

My eyes snapped up to meet his, and the desperate expression that marked his face brought me back to reality. I was hyperventilating, my whole body trembling as I fought for air and my vision going blurry, showing that my consciousness was failing me. The realization hit that this was quickly becoming an emergency, and finally, I spoke.

"In-inhaler-" I wheezed, gripping onto his hands tightly.

Immediately springing into action, he began to look around the room. "Where is your bag?" He asked me, before his expression changed and I could tell that he remembered that I had left it in his car. Leaping up and off of the bed, he had sprinted out of his bedroom door, leaving me alone in the room. I laid back down on the bed, curling into myself as I pulled up my knees and clutched them tightly to my chest, tears still streaming down my face. It felt like forever before I heard thudding footsteps coming towards the bedroom, them stopping inches away from me and a gentle hand tried to turn me over.

"Clare," I heard Reth say urgently. "Clare, sit up, please...look at me, Clare."

Slowly, I forced myself into a sitting position with his help, my vision so blurry I could barely see. "Look at me," he was repeating, and I felt him place a small object in my hand.

"I-I can't s-see-" I gasped, trying to figure out what he had given me. "I-I can't-"

"It's your inhaler, Clare. Tell me what to do so I can help you," he begged.

"I can't-" I cried, beginning to feel faint. I didn't notice that I was falling forward until I was suddenly in his arms.

Everything went out of focus for a while. Somehow my airways opened up, allowing me to breathe again, and a soft voice spoke to me, but I couldn't make out what it was saying. What felt like ages passed before I could finally process what was going on around me.