Leap of Faith

23:55

Anonymity.

That had been the deal. That had been the one condition that I agreed to do this under. Without it, I would never have opened up like this. I don’t think so, anyway. Now, Theo had pulled the safety net out from under me and I was freefalling into that blackness again.

I felt my heart go first, beating as if it were going to rip itself out from my body like that alien from that movie Georgie made me watch. It pounded inside me, the frequency matched only by the haggard breathing as my chest rose and fell unevenly.

I gasped for air, knowing full well what I must sound like. For the purpose of satisfying my masochistic side, I once recorded myself having a panic attack, and I know that I do not crumble beautifully. The complete opposite, in fact. I am an ugly panic attacker.

I hitch in another breath just as I felt a warm pair of hands cupping my face.

“Breath for me, baby,” Theo begged. I noted the slight tremor in his voice, but everything was over taken by the fact he called me ‘baby’. “Please, Catherine.”

Another gasp of air followed, allowing me to speak. “Keep…” Deep breath. “Talking…” Deep breath. “Distraction.”

Deep breath.

“What?” He seemed a little lost, but then seemed to catch on to what I asked of him. “Sure, ok. Well… Do you like random fact? Weird stuff like that?” I nod into his hands. “Ok, here goes. Have you ever had that problem when you know what to say, but you have trouble saying it? Well, that’s called ‘Expressive Aphasia’.

“Uh, what else? The average person laughs twelve times a day. It takes seventeen muscles in your face to smile, but it takes forty-three to frown. Therefore, you should smile more often. Not that you probably don’t smile enough but… A moment, in an old time-unit system, is classed as ninety seconds.

“Say if the human heart beats at seventy-two beats per minute, it will beat approximately two and a half billion times during your lifetime.”

I laugh at that last fact. Whoever had worked that out had obviously never seen me in the middle of an attack like this. I swear my heart beat that many times in only ten seconds.

“Tongues have a unique print, much like your finger prints,” Theo muses, the disgust clear in his voice. “Do you know what a shape with twenty sides is called?”

Funnily enough, I do. Eventually finding enough strength to speak, I answer. “An icosagon.”

“How’d you know that?” Theo sounded surprised by my answer.

“I’m good at math,” I shrug.