Invisible String

Chapter 14 - Look What You Made Me Do

The man got into the front of the car and drove me to the airport without saying a word. He could've been kidnapping me for all I knew. But at that moment, I didn't really care. I was more distraught then I would've cared to admit.

The drive to the airport was quick, and when we arrived, the man parked the car up at the front of the airport and practically kicked me out of the car, then he left. I stood at the front doors, hesitant to go in. I'd be in there alone with all those people.

My chest began to slowly heave, and I got lightheaded within seconds. I walked to the outside wall of the building and leaned against it, searching my purse for my pills. It took me what felt like forever to find them, and when I opened the bottle, there were two left.

"Shit!" I forgot to get a refill. I haven't had to get one in a while. But that would be because I've barely left my apartment in the last six months.

I popped both pills into my mouth and chewed them slowly, with my eyes closed, and my hands clenched tightly around the handles of my luggage.

It took a few minutes for them to kick in, but once they did, I began to feel slightly less freaked, and close to calm. But my heart was still speeding at an above-average rate, and once I entered the front doors of the airport, I felt woozy all over again.

I dragged my luggage quickly around the numerous amounts of people and went straight for the check-in. It took twenty minutes to make it to the desk. The lady was nice enough, but I had no idea what to do. I presented her with my I.D. and told her I should have a ticket, hopefully under my name, already paid for. She nodded and gave them to me, then directed me to the terminal.

It took me an additional thirty minutes to finally get through security and to my flight. I made it to the terminal where my plane was boarding, and I quickly scanned the crowds to see if Alex was there. He wasn't. I briefly hoped that he might be on the plane, but I quickly found out that I was on this flight, without him, in first class.

At least there were fewer people now.

The flight felt like forever. I made it to New York by midnight and raced through the airport to get to a cab and get the hell home before I died of a panic attack.

It was one in the morning when I got home, and I unlocked the door, tossed my crap inside, locked the door behind me, and collapsed on the floor. I curled up into the fetal position, wheezing and crying. I probably looked ridiculously pathetic, but I honestly didn't care. It's not like anyone was witnessing this. This certainly wasn't a movie. Those tears of mine were not beautiful single drops down my face. They were mixed with mascara and soaking into my floor. My eyes were puffy red, there was snot running down my lips, and I was crying so loud that I must've sounded like a dying moose to any nearby neighbors.

It was not the absence of Alex that left me a heaping mess on the floor. No, boy-trouble never left me like this. The only thing that ever caused an attack of this proportion was my anxiety–anxiety of people, crowds, or being alone in them. That's what's left me needing an oxygen mask and a shot of adrenaline in my heart.

I fell asleep briefly on the floor like this, then woke up an hour and a half later and crawled over to the couch and covered myself in tons of nearby blankets, and fell back asleep until late in the morning.

When I woke, I attempted to resume my nearly everyday routine; breakfast, a glass of wine, attempt at writing, a glass of wine, lunch, a glass of wine, more struggling with the writing, then another glass of wine. Except, this time, I ran out of wine after the second glass, and I wasn't really struggling with a story this time. The writing bug was in me, and it was flowing through to my fingers, and by the time it was seven at night, I'd written thirty pages of a new book. And I'd only eaten breakfast and taken two bathroom breaks. I considered that a win.