The Witch of Anima

Chapter 12

Pain. That was the only emotion written on my mother's face when I said that. Pain and slowly guilt before she could put up a wall to keep her emotions in check.

Slowly, she looked down at her hands before she looked back at me, gathering herself for whatever explanation she could throw my way about how and why she acted the way she did. She opened her mouth to say something before she closed it and cleared her throat.

No one said a word, and all eyes flickered between my mother and me while she gathered herself. The air grew tense while we waited, and it started to get harder and harder for me to breathe.

I could sense Xander looking at me and see him from the corner of my eye, but I did not look at him. I couldn't while I tried to keep my composure and my emotions in check before I freaked out.

The air grew stiffer and stiffer with each passing second, and it felt like it was suffocating me, dragging me down into a pit that I had no idea how to get out of. It was tense, waiting for something to happen, and I had no idea if it was waiting for me to have a mental breakdown or for my mother to say something finally.

Stray thoughts from others started to get past my barrier while the tension filled the room, and I placed my hands under the table while I tried to get them to stop. They were whispers of what people were thinking, barely enough for me to understand, but it was enough to send my whole body on alert.

My breathing became uneven while panic settled throughout my system. I could feel myself growing paler and paler with each passing second underneath the people's gazes at the table.

My wall slowly started to break more and more with each passing second until their thoughts and actions bombarded me. Most of the thoughts were of worry for me, but some questionable ones came from the man that Xander hated.

However, I couldn't hear what they were saying. They all were mushed together, their voices louder than what was being said. They pushed my thoughts away, and I couldn't even hear what I wanted to hear, couldn't think of what I wanted to think, and I had no idea how to control it when it got this bad.

"Excuse me," I let out in a breathless whisper, jumping up from my chair and having it crash to the floor behind me. I turned around and ran up the stairs, ignoring the calls of people wanting me to come back and talk through what I was feeling.

However, I couldn't. I couldn't go back, not like this, not when I was freaking out and being bombarded by the voices of so many. I couldn't let them see me go through a panic attack, something that had happened more times than not.

I couldn't let them see me as weak, not even the male with gray eyes that helped me in my dreams.

***

I sat down on my bathroom floor, taking in deep breaths and trying to calm myself to no avail. My whole body was shaking as panic twined its way through my body because I couldn't breathe, nor could I stop the others' thoughts in the same house as me.

"Please," I whimpered, grabbing my head tighter while my whole body grew tenser and tenser with each passing second. I closed my eyes and took in another deep breath while I tried to pull myself out of the panic attack. "Stop. I don't want to do this. I don't want to go through another one after we stopped having them altogether." My voice shook and sounded different in my ears, and I had no idea if it was because I couldn't get myself out of the panic attack or not.

However, my mind didn't listen, and it kept pounding and pounding me with the thoughts that I didn't want. It pulled me under until I was drowning in them, and I had no idea which way was up and which way was down.

Gentle hands touched mine, but I didn't move them from my head. The person tried to say something, but I couldn't hear because all I could hear was the thoughts that were in my head, the voices that were not spoken out loud, not even mine, which was strange in itself.

The person removed my hands from my head, even though it was a struggle because I did not relent; I did not give them control to remove my hands from my head. They lifted my head and placed their head against mine, and after that, the voices just stopped as if they had never been there and were just a memory.

There was no panic, no fear, nothing. No emotion filled my body that was negative, and I had no idea if there was anything positive at all. It felt as if my emotions were turned off, leaving me feeling numb and robotic.

"Syn?" his voice asked, bringing me out of that state and gasping for air. He held onto my shoulders while I lurched forward, feeling nothing but relief. "Syn?" he asked again, the worry filling his voice. "Look at me."

I turned my head and looked at my savior, the man that saved me from my emotions, and saw eyes of gray. "It's you," I breathed out, studying the eyes that I knew from a long time ago. Hesitantly, I reached out and touched my male, rubbing his cheek and having him put his hand over mine and burying his face into it.

His breath and gentle lips tickled the inside of my wrist, but he didn't kiss. His eyes were closed, and his eyelashes touched the bottom of his eyelid, the long lashes making some females jealous.

I bit my lip, and a wave of emotion crashed over me, both happy and sad, while I stared at the male before me. A lump appeared in my throat, and I cleared my throat and licked my lips. "You're real," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "You're actually real."