So in this chapter, I basically described how I was feeling when I've had an anxiety/panic attack (which has been rare, but they've been pretty rough when I've had them). Don't read if mentions or depictions of panic or anxiety attacks bother you.
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Chapter Twelve
Her heart was racing. Her breath was loud and deep, but strangled at the same time.
That day would have been the day Lydia would turn seventeen. She would have been the same age as Talia that exact day. She had spent so many of her own as well as Lydia's birthdays with that girl, and now they never would again.
It was all because of the gang, and the boy, and the way Lydia felt the need to deal with all of her issues on her own. She was dead because people hurt her and because she couldn't bear it. What if the same happened to Talia? What if they came for her too? What if she died? Or worse, what if her friends or family did? What if the Black Hood found out everything she had done and the people she had threatened?
She hadn't saved her best friend from the reaper when she had the chance. In her mind, that was the greatest sin of all.
She had gotten a taxi to Sunnyside trailer park, feeling the anxiety and panic in her blood rise and rise until it felt as if it had reached the tip of the mountain which was her willpower.
He wasn't there. He wasn't home. Jughead wasn't there, and other than Toni, he was the only one who knew. They were the only ones she could talk to. She needed to see them. She needed them.
Talia ran to the Whyte Wyrm, and upon finding people standing outside, she ran to the back instead. She didn't want them to see her. She didn't want to feel the need to explain to anyone but Jughead and Toni.
A thousand different thoughts spun in her head like smoking gears. She could not find a single calming thought and all of the pain and sadness and rage and fear came crashing down on her all at once.
She pulled out her phone and managed to find Jughead's name, and called him. She put the phone to her ear, trying her best to ignore the shaking of her hand.
"Hey, Tal," he answered, and though she couldn't see him, she knew he was smiling.
There were voices in the background, and she vaguely recognized those of Toni and Sweet Pea.
"J-Jug," she whimpered.
He immediately asked, "Are you okay?"
She didn't answer him with a full sentence, but instead just said one word: "Lydia".
"Where are you?" his worried voice seeping out as she heard the voices of those he had been around begin to calm and die down.
"Outside," she replied. "Toni?"
"Toni? You want Toni too?" he asked, but didn't wait for her to answer. "Toni!" he called out. "Come on! We gotta go!"
She heard the sounds of his feet hitting the floor roughly when he began to run out of the bar with Toni right behind him.
Talia slid down the wall in a slightly crouched position, her breath feeling like it was becoming more and more shallow. She didn't feel like she was taking in enough air. She kept thinking about the leader's son. He was the one who hurt Lydia and he was the one who would come for her.
She put her head in her hands and her fingers pulled roughly at the roots of her hair as tears of frustration, fear, and agony spilled down her cheeks. She wasn't brave. She wasn't strong. She didn't have the power, the boy did. The Black Hood did. The gang did. She didn't and she never would.
She was so weak.
Hands went to her shoulders and then to her hands, making her pull them away. Then those same hands went to her cheeks and forced her face up to look at the person in front of her. She opened her eyes only to find them completely blurred by the tears which immediately threatened to fall.
Jughead was crouched down in front of her, and Toni was sitting beside her and holding her left hand in both of hers.
She didn't hear him saying her name at first, but she could see his lips moving and knew that was what he was saying to her.
"Tal, you need to calm down, okay? I know it doesn't feel like you're breathing but you are, now make it nice and slow, okay?"
She only whimpered in response, shaking her head. She couldn't do that.
She heard multiple pairs of loud and heavy footsteps coming from the right but didn't look at them. She only stared in front of her over Jughead's shoulder. Her mind was slipping away into a daze, her body fighting the panic and anxiety.
She heard them say certain words and phrases and finally did put them together. They were phrases like, "is she all right?", and "what the hell happened? Who did this to her?"
Then Jughead moved. She immediately wanted to scream and beg him to come back but he left to be beside Toni and someone else replaced him.
She knew this voice. She knew these hands that touched her arms and then her shoulders and then the sides of her face. She knew those brown eyes and that fearful face. She knew him.
Sweet Pea spoke to her in a calm voice, then when she didn't respond to him and only stared into his eyes like they were her only saviour, he pulled her to him.
He had pulled her up to a standing position and had his left arm around her body and pulled around her shoulder blades. His left hand reached around to touch her left shoulder and his right was on the back of her head to hold her steady.
Her head was buried in his chest, and her arms were limp at her sides. Then she gained feeling and stood on her own, and her arms automatically went around his waist and clutched her to him. It felt like he was giving her the air to breathe and the sedative to calm the chaotic hurricane which swelled in her mind.
His jacket was balled into her hands and her brow was pulled together. Her eyes were shut and all she could see was a cold and unforgiving darkness and yet, all she could feel was light and warmth. Her breathing calmed and her thoughts died down from the worst of emotions to the warmest and calmest. Not a single thought was in her brain at that moment, except for the thought of him. Her mind decided to savour this, this feeling.
It was pure need. She needed him in every way possible because he made her feel still in a world which raced around her wildly.
He was the only thing keeping her steady in every sense of the word. In that moment, she escaped it. There was no denying it.
She was falling in love with a Serpent. She was falling in love with Sweet Pea.
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Back To Life ✧ Sweet Pea (DISCONTINUED)
Fanfiction"The first time she saw Sweet Pea was the night she pointed a gun in his face." ----- In which the Northsider with a gun didn't know she was dying until he made her feel alive.
