Hypothetical Heart (Farewell Fairwood #2)

Chapter 6

6

Flashback: 4 years ago

“ W hat do you mean you’re leaving?! Let us out!” I kick the wooden door, not expecting it to budge, just trying to gain their attention. “This isn’t cool!”

I can’t see in the dark of this closet, but I know Logan is giving me a pointed look.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be right back!” Genevieve shouts.

“Yeah, we’re just going to get food!” Eloise says, sounding far away.

For the first time, Logan stands from his seated position on the carpet, banging on the door with me. “Let us out!” His voice booms louder than mine, and for a moment, I’m hopeful that it will make more of an impact.

It doesn’t. The door stays closed, continuing to trap us within its depths.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” Then we hear the footsteps trail through the room, signaling that we’re now alone.

W e have no idea how long we’ve been left in here. Only long enough to know this ‘master plan’ is not working. Just like we had told them it wouldn’t when they first shoved us in here.

Genevieve and Eloise want us to go to homecoming together. They think because it’s our freshman year, it’s time we start to admit we have feelings for each other.

It’s unlike them to meddle, and yet they feel so strongly about the idea of Logan and me going to homecoming together.

That’s what they told me, at least. I have no idea what they said to Logan before they lured us in here and slammed the door behind us.

“Have you guys come to any agreements?” Genevieve asks through the door.

“Evie, let us out!” I yell back.

“Come on, Winnie, you know you want to,” Eloise teases.

“GUYS!” Logan shouts even louder. “Let us out! This is stupid!”

“Winnie, do you have something you want to tell Logan before we let you out?” Genevieve yells back.

“Guys, please.” I’m not above pleading for them not to make me humiliate myself in this tiny closet.

“That’s not exactly what we’re looking for,” Eloise says, laughing.

This closet can’t be bigger than six feet, going in each direction. I have even opted to stand most of the time because when I do sit, Logan and I’s knees topple over one another’s.

“Are you okay?” he asks as I lean against the door.

It’s October in Connecticut, probably snowing outside, and despite all that, I’m breaking a sweat.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

“You can barely breathe. Why don’t you sit, I’ll stand.”

Logan’s hand juts out, holding onto my shoulder. “Sit, Win.”

“I’m fine,” I mumble. I don’t feel like I'm moving myself any lower toward the ground, but the next thing I feel is my butt hitting the floor.

“God, you’re sweating fucking buckets.” He sounds like he’s about to start panicking, and if he starts panicking, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

“Don’t you want to be a doctor?” I question sharply. He quietly replies with a hushed yes . “You need to learn not to panic so much in stress-inducing situations, then.”

“Do you think I’m going to be pushed into a dark closet with a critical patient and no supplies?”

“Critical? Logan, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!” There isn’t much room, but I think he’s pacing.

I just hold my legs to my chest, laying my chin against my kneecaps, desperate not to fall over. “Logan, I think I’m going to—” My body starts to slump.

Suddenly, a hand grabs my face. “Do not!” Logan warns. The closet is dark, but his finger is pointing close enough to my face that my vision can somewhat focus on it. “Do not pass out, do you hear me?”

“I’m trying not to!” I widen my eyes, struggling to sit up straighter.

Logan sits next to me. “Good.”

He wipes the sweat-covered hair out of my face, using a hair tie to tie it back into a low ponytail.

Why does he have a ponytail? Are there other girls?

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

“Get what?” I point to my hair. “I took it off your wrist.” Question solved.

“I feel like I’m going to vomit.” My head was lulling back and forth.

“Please, not on me.” How reassuring .

All of a sudden, the heavy, hot oxygen that I was breathing in is gone, leaving me gasping for air.

My eyes widen as they water. I become acutely aware of how little space there is in this closet.

“Winnie.” I feel a hand on my cheek. “Winnifred!”

I’m still gasping. One of Logan’s hands is still holding my face, the other scrounging around the closet, looking for something, anything, to help.

Through my panic, I can faintly hear him cursing under his breath.

“Win, look at me.” He stops rushing around, both his hands on either side of my face now. “Look at me, Win!”

My eyes snap open. I can barely see through the tears welling in my eyes. My lungs are barely taking in any air, and I’m wondering how I haven’t passed out yet.

“Breathe.” He demonstrates. “Breathe with me.”

Still nothing. My arms come up from my sides. They’re flailing around, clashing into his chest, and begging him to do something because I can’t.

This feeling is so unfamiliar, and I can’t grab hold of it. I can’t figure out where it’s coming from or why it’s happening.

He grabs a hold of my hands, his hands leaving my face. “ Hey, hey, hey.” I look at him again. “You’re okay, Win. Calm down for a minute.”

Finally, I’m able to take a steady breath.

My arms drop back down to my sides, and one of my hands comes up to hold at my chest.

My whole body collapses forward, falling into Logan’s.

“I’m trying to stay awake, I promise,” I whisper softly.

Logan’s hands are in my hair. “It’s okay, Winnie. You don’t have to stay awake anymore.”

“Are you sure?” I try to look up, but his hand on the back of my head stops me.

“I’m sure,” he answers. “I’ll catch you if you fall.” And with that, my body gives out, and my vision goes black.

T he next thing I remember is waking up in my bed. It must not have been long since I fell unconscious that we got out of the closet, because the sun still hadn’t gone down.

It’s a good thing I notice my surroundings. That means I’m not in the hospital or the morgue . I didn’t even come close to dying. Go me!

“Hi honey.” Dad smiles lightly from where he sits in the chair in the corner of my room, a book in his hand.

“You’re home?” Usually, he’s on call weeknights, and there are not many nights that he’s on call and doesn’t get called in. People need heart surgeons.

“Yeah, I just got here a bit ago.”

I sat up, rubbing my eyes to adjust to the sunlight coming in through the window. “Who called you?”

“Logan’s mom.” His answer doesn’t shock me.

“Do you know what happened?” I’m more asking so he can tell me because I have no idea what transpired after I fell asleep.

“Eloise and Genevieve got you and Logan out of the closet because Logan told them you had passed out,” Dad tells me as he stands up and takes a seat on the edge of my bed. “From the way Logan explained to me, it sounds like you had a panic attack.”

“I’m mad at them right now,” I say, more to myself than my dad.

“Eloise and Genevieve?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. The two of them are the reason I’m in this position. I mean, what were they thinking?

I look at him, searching his face for any type of indication of this severity. Of course, his facial expression shows nothing but fatherly concern.

Most people would assume that growing up with a doctor for a dad means that he would constantly be concerned about my health. As if I grew up drinking vitamin C packets and green smoothies and didn’t have birthday cakes or sweets.

In all reality, my dad is certainly more laid-back about sicknesses than most other parents. That’s because he knows exactly how to handle it, and he’s been around it so much that it doesn’t scare him.

“Why?”

“Usually, panic disorders have some type of trigger.” He places a hand on my back. “Was there something that made you panic?”

I try to remember the moment I started to feel the panic take over, and I can’t. It didn’t seem like it was one moment that set me off. It was a combination of them all.

A tear drips down my cheek. I didn’t even realize I was crying. “I felt like I was trapped.” I was trapped. “Then my chest started to feel tight because I couldn’t get out, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Were you scared because the closet was so small?” Dad asks as he uses a finger to wipe my tears.

“No.” I’ve hidden in smaller spaces when playing hide and seek and never been afraid. “I was scared that I couldn’t do anything to get out.”

“You didn’t like feeling like you weren’t in control.” He puts the pieces together, and I nod. “That’s common, honey.”

“What do we do now?” I ask when he hands me a tissue. I use it to wipe my tears before blowing my nose.

“We’ll talk about it if it starts happening more. Right now, it’s not a problem.”

Part of me wonders if he would say this to his patients—try to ease their fears—or if he’s only sugarcoating something to his daughter so I won’t freak out.

I hope he is telling the truth and everything is going to be fine.

Maybe it was just a one-time thing; maybe it won’t happen again. That’s all I can hope for.

End of flashback

As I got older, I knew that it wouldn’t just be a one-time thing.

Every time I’ve gotten stressed and started feeling the air tightening in my chest, I was taken back to that time in the closet.

Panic comes naturally to me, more naturally than math or ballet. It’s a reflex built into me, waiting for some type of trigger.

Whenever I feet out of control, like there’s something I can’t fix, I panic.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, honey,” my dad told me when I came home from school after a bad test, crying until I couldn’t breathe.

“Lots of people experience this. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said when I fell out of a turn at my ballet recital. I felt like a failure.

“It will pass. Just try to breathe,” Dad cried with me as I broke down in the hospital when my mom died. I didn’t want to breathe because when she died, part of me wanted to die too.

When I was sixteen, he asked if I wanted to go on medication.

When I was seventeen, I became so depressed he told me it would probably be best if I got off the medication.

This cycle has been endless my entire life, and I know it’s never going to end. Nothing can permanently take my worries away. There is nothing to change the way my body naturally reacts to any sign of stress.

Now, here I sit in the car with Logan after I ruined everyone’s night. Nothing feels right.

But Logan squeezes my hand. The same way he did after my ballet recital and at my mom’s funeral, and I knew everything would be okay.