Echo on the shore

Little Ghost

I was woken up by a wave of terror, Jack was still asleep, wrapped around a blue soft blanket.

I took his arm off of me and got up carefully, and ran to the bathroom, I locked the door.

And so I let it came, the unexplainable and irrational fear that made my body shiver, sweat and tremble every time I had sex. I used to disassociate, just like it happened that night, but it stopped and it evolved to rather brutal panick attacks. I could control them a bit so they happened some time after and not at the exact moment but they still came and I could not stop them. I sat on the bathroom floor, I couldn't breathe, my heart felt like it was going to explode, I felt I was going insane, like I could hear everything, feel everything, like I was going to die. I started crying while covering my ears but trying to be as quiet as possible.

The only thing that soothed my attacks was a drug called Alprazolam, or Xanax, how it's known in America. My mom is a psychiatrist so she started prescribing it to me when I was younger and had mild social anxiety. She didn't know about what had happened after I moved out, she didn't know I was taking Xanax again, but it helped me, and I didn't want to give explanations, I didn't want to have deep conversations about how I felt. If I concentrated on work I'd be fine.

Whilst sitting on the cold bathroom tiles I remembered I had my pills on my bag, that was out in the living room, next to the couch, next to Jack. I didn't want him to see me like this, but I also felt like I couldn't move, my whole body was shivering. This whole issue made my panic worsen even if it was a stupid situation, I just had to get out, but I couldn't, my legs where not mine, my hands were weak. I cried even more; then, suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from the kitchen. I took a couple of breaths to recover some of my voice and yelled:

"Jack!!!"

"Kaiku??, what's wrong?" His voice sounded sleepy, and muffled for the distance.

"Can you pass me my bag? It's on the floor of the living room"

"...yeah, sure" he sounded a little confused, but I heard him walk faster and grab my stuff. He knocked on the bathroom door.

I reunited all the forces of my body and felt everything hurt when I got up to open the door.

I unlocked the door, grabbed my bag and closed it in less than a millisecond, to make sure he didn't see the mess I was.

I took my pills and sat on the edge of the bathtub to wait for them to hit.

"...K, are you ok?"

"Yes Jack! Girl problems that's all, don't worry, go to sleep." I replied with a higher voice to pretend a better state.

"Oh, alright then, I'll be in the bedroom" He said

"I'll be there in a minute"

Some minutes passed, I felt heavier, mi limbs started feeling less tense, I could breathe again. I got up and looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes where still swollen and my nose was red but I had been in the bathroom for too long now, so I finally got out.

The couch was empty, as Jack had moved to the bedroom. I thought for a moment about going there and sleep by his side, but this had been our first official "date" and I was not going to little spoon with him just yet.

I decided to stay on the couch, I also realised I had been with only panties all this time. I found Jack's t-shirt on the couch and put it on, I wrapped myself on the blue blanket and fell asleep in a very similar way of when you're drunk, I felt like a rag doll by then, my heavy eyelids surrendered and I dreamed very vividly of Jack climbing a demolished apartment complex in Detroit.