The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter One

The crack in the wall is getting bigger. In a minute, I'm sure it will open up and swallow me whole.

I must be imagining things

It's just an ordinary crack in an ordinary wall.

Breathe, Piper. You're okay, you can handle this.

I count to ten, trying to focus on the pop music playing in the next room, impressively loudly considering the walls that muffled the sound. I close my eyes and recite my favorite stanzas from The Lady of Shalott, mouthing the words silently to myself.

I open my eyes and force myself to look at the crack again, telling myself that it can't really be growing. The wall wavers in front of me, mocking me for my fear. There's a dull roaring in my ears, and I feel hot and sick. The music is too loud, the repetitive sounds beating upon my brain until I can't breathe. I gasp for air, and a weak wheezing sound comes out.

I need to find somewhere safe.

The closet is bigger than I expected in a dorm. I grab all the pillows and blankets off of the unmade bed, dragging them into the closet and laying them on the floor. I get inside and shut the door behind me, eyes closed, trying to calm my breathing. With my back against the wall and a nest of pillows around me, I feel almost safe. Nothing can sneak up behind me, and I can't see the crack in the wall anymore. I can see the door, nothing can get in without my knowledge. I know, deep down, that I'm no more or less safe in here than I was out in my bedroom, but the tight space fully under my control feels better, somehow.

It's weird enough being the girl who's had panic attacks since she was five. It's just icing on the freak cake that I feel safest in small confined spaces, the kind that would make even a normal person feel cramped and anxious. When I was a kid, in the first house we lived in, I used to calm myself down by sitting with my back pressed into a corner. So long as I could see all the ways into whatever room I was in, and there were no windows behind me, I felt safe.

At the time, it probably had to do with the fact that my older cousins were always sneaking up behind me and scaring me, and with my enormously sensitive startle reflex, what was a fun game to them was my own personal hell. I guess I picked up the habit of using corners to keep them from scaring me, and as I got older, it just became one of those things that made me feel safe. Some kids have security blankets, I have corners and closets. Lucky me, right?

This is not how I wanted to spend my first night of college. I can hear my roommate out in the shared living room, laughing and having fun with friends she met at orientation. She seems so confident, and I kind of hope her friends will decide to be friends with me too. I'm not sure how much hope there is for me, though. It's hard to make friends with your back braced against a wall, clutching your phone like a lifeline.

Shining the flashlight on my phone around the closet, I try to think about how I'll organize my clothes once I unpack. Focusing on anything other than my panic is hard, but I don't want to let the panic build until it makes me sick. It would be so humiliating if I threw up on my first night here, and everyone would know that I'm not cut out for this. They don't exactly tell you at orientation what to do if you're a freak who's had panic attacks since she was six and don't know how to be on your own. If there were a brochure detailing how to hide your all-consuming terror from your peers, I would have it laminated for safe keeping.

Eventually I hear Nina and all her friends leave, and I shakily stand up, emboldened by the knowledge that at least now if I puke, there won't be anyone around to hear it. If a freshman has a nervous breakdown and there's no one around to hear it, does it still make a sound? I crack a smile at my own joke, feeling incrementally better than I did minutes ago. The worst part of a panic attack peaks within five minutes; I remember this from reading my older sister's psychology textbooks for fun a couple of summers ago.