Standing By

SpongeBob Squarepants

(Tim)

I looked up at Avi, still fighting the tears, wiping at them absently. OK, Avi, what do you want me to do? Chance's words were encouraging and had instilled some home in me, but I still felt small and helpless, vulnerable. I swallowed, throat dry, eyes wet. "Wa-water," I requested.

"Water," Chance told Adam.

"Water," Adam told Austin, who spun around to Rob. He was wearing his own oxygen device on a finger.

"Water, Tim wants water," Austin told him.

"I would, but somebody here stuck an oxygen finger clip on me," Rob said, eyeing Mitch. "Mitch, Tim wants water."

"Well, you were over here hyperventilating; what was I supposed to do?" He threw his hands in the air. "Avi, Tim wants water."

"So I've heard," he said dryly. "Would somebody please get him some water?"

"Kirstie, make yourself useful and get some water for Tim," Scott ordered.

She paused, squinting at Avi. "Avi, give him your water."

"Huh?" He looked at her blankly.

She plunged a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a small bottle of water. "Can he have this one?"

"Oh!" Avi laughed. "Forgot I had that! Sure, he can have it."

I downed that tiny water bottle in no time flat and he grinned at me. "Remember that?"

"Remember...." I tried to pull up a memory of a water bottle but couldn't come up with anything.

"We blew out the ambulance speaker," he reminded me gently. "Remember?"

Ohhh, right! I could feel my lips start to turn up in spite of myself. "Yes.... your A1. And my G0."

"See," Chance said smugly. "I told you that you could sing. Most people couldn't hit that note with a ten-foot pole."

Yep, definitely grinning now. "I know I can sing. It's performing on stage. In front of people. And having a panic attack."

"Tim, you are the last person in the world to have a bout of stage fright," Adam told me dryly. "You love being on stage."

"I love being on stage and performing. I would not love to be on stage and have a panic attack," I clarified.

"You never had a panic attack on stage," Rob argued with me. "Never."

"I've never had a panic attack, period, until tonight," I pointed out.

"OK, think. What precipitated these panic attacks?" Adam reasoned.

I bit my lip. "Worrying about Austin."

"No need to. Doc said forty-eight hours maximum," Austin said briskly. "OK, next."

"Twenty-four hours," I corrected him. "Forty-eight if something goes really wrong."

"Man, I got thirty milligrams of codeine running though my veins right now; I think I feel better than you do," he remarked. "Not an ounce of pain. Not dizzy at the moment. No blurry vision, nothing. I am feeling great right now."

"But something could go wrong," I argued, fighting back the butterflies that were taking up residence in my stomach again. "What if—what it—if you, I dunno, went, what if—"

"Tim," Avi told me calmly. Do not play the what-if game. It never ends well. Just don't even go down that road."

"Ugh," I groaned, putting my face in my hands. "Whyyy is this happening to me? What is wrong with me?"