Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Anna's felt panic like this before. It feels like it's the standard for her now. There's nothing strange about it any more. She's completely in control. She's completely in control.

If she repeats it a few more times, it becomes true. That's the rule, after all. She's just got to repeat it a few more times, and it's true. After all, she decides to panic, she can decide to be in control.

She tries to breathe again. Tries to hold it. Nothing's working. It feels like something's sitting on her chest. She should call Linda. She should call Linda. Then she'd be able to get some explanation of what to do next. Linda would tell her how to calm down.

When Josh gets here, they'll figure out what to do about Ava. They'll figure out a next step. Together. Until then, she needs to calm down. She can't let someone see her like this. Especially not Josh.

A laugh escapes her lips, in spite of herself. She claps her lips shut as if that will help. It won't. She'll open them again when the panic needs a release valve. Everything is going to be fine.

It's totally normal, when people are panicking, to have a little giggle like that. Nothing weird about it. She's not weird. She's completely normal. She's just panicked. Nobody would blame her. Someone just took her daughter.

She almost hears it all in Linda's voice, right in her head. She's not doing anything wrong. She's done everything she's supposed to do. She's not unfit. She didn't do anything that endangered her child. Ava was as safe as anyone could possibly make her.

There's nothing else she can do except to try to hold herself steady and get everything in a straight line. Try breathing again.

In, one. Hold. Out, two. Hold. Everything that's happened these past few days has all been her fault. She'd brought all of this down on her head, on her parents' heads. On Josh's head.

She has to start counting again. In, one. Hold. Out, two. Wait. In, three. Hold. Nobody would be mad at her, would they? Josh isn't mad at her. He's going to be here any second.

"Fuck." Her hands are shaking. She closes her eyes.

Start again. In, one. Hold. Out, two. Wait. In, three. Hold. Out, four. Wait. In, five.

Her shoulders start relaxing. Her mind starts to slow. A shiver runs down her spine as the tension in her body starts to slip a little bit. She starts to relax. Her mind keeps slowing down until she can finally grab onto individual thoughts and hold them in her head. In, nine. Out, ten.

The door ringer goes off. She buzzes Josh in without a second thought. He's right on time. Only a few minutes since she texted. He must have left in a hurry. If he's feeling any amount of concern, though—and she knows he is—then he probably would have left in a hurry.

She unlocks the door and leaves it open an inch or two for him. The open door digs its claws into the back of her mind. She shouldn't leave the door open.

Anna ignores it. There's no time for anxiety right now. She's got to keep herself under control, now. She's got to make sure that everything is alright. That she's being smart.

She's got to look like she's got herself under control when Josh arrives. He'll figure out what to do, and she'll have plenty of time to figure out what to do next when he gets there.

Deep breath in. Hold, two three four. Good. Her head's slowing down even more. She's backing off the edge. It's getting easier, now. It's getting easier to feel like a human being.

Anna can hear the footsteps outside. Josh coming up the stairs. Coming down the hall. For a moment the fear threatens to overtake her again. The sheer, raw panic. What if she's wrong? What if it's someone else?

She takes a long step back to the door and pushes it shut with her shoulder, with all her strength. Then she puts her eye to the peephole.

Detective Meadows stands on the landing. He looks a little breathless from the rapid walk up the steps.

"Is everything okay in there?"

He shouldn't raise his voice. It's in the evening. If someone has to work early in the morning, they might be just going to sleep.

Anna lets out the breath she doesn't realize she's been holding. That doesn't stop the burning feeling in her chest, though. Doesn't help her to have her breath back under control. Her heart has jumped back up to a million beats a minute, and she can feel her pulse pounding in her neck.

"Sorry, one second," she says. She opens the door. Josh is standing there. His eyebrows have a deep furrow of worry between them.

"What happened?"

Anna steps away from the door and lets him inside. He follows her in. His hands are in his pockets, but he looks anything but casual with the way that his shoulders are raised high, the look of concern practically stapled to his face.

"I don't know. I was there, and then a minute later, they were—"

"Slow down, Anna. Sit down. You want me to get you some water?"

She knows how wild she's feeling. She needs to slow down. He wasn't here. He can't know what happened unless she tells him. Simple and easy.

Water, though? She can get her own water. She could just step right over to the fridge, and… she takes in a deep breath, closing her eyes. She tries to put all her effort into calming down for a fraction of a second. Everything else can come back from that, but right now she's got to get away from the brink.

"A water sounds really good right now."

She settles into the couch. She can't afford to let her nerves show. She's got to look normal for Josh. She's got to look like she's in control of herself, somehow.

He opens up the fridge. Anna keeps a half-dozen or so bottles in there, chilling. They should all be cold. He grabs one and pulls it out.

"Are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No," Anna answers. Her voice sounds wrong. She should be in control of herself. She should be able to decide how her voice sounds. But she sounds nervous and panicked and just as bad as she must have the first time they'd met. Maybe worse.

At least that time, she'd had time to, you know. To figure it out. This time she was just… Jesus. Slow down. A laugh escapes her lips, and Anna claps her hands around her mouth.

"I'm sorry."

Josh looks worried. She's worrying him. She shouldn't be letting him worry. She needs to get herself under control, before things go wrong. Before he loses interest in her, before he leaves her, too.

"Don't be sorry, Anna. Just. Take your time, okay? Tell me what happened. Where were you?"

"I was, I was, I was—" she tries to get the words out, but they won't come. She closes her eyes. Tears threaten to start coming, too, along with the giggles. Then she'll be a real God damn mess. "I was at my parent's apartment. We were eating. Ava was having a nap."

"Okay. Good. Don't freak out. We're going to get through this, okay? What happened next?"

"Uh. Knock at the door. My mom. My mom. Shit. My mom answered the door, and there was a lady at the door. Dark suit, and a badge, and she said she was from Child protective services and they were taking custody of Ava until—"

The dam broke and she started sobbing. She shouldn't have been crying. She should have been telling Josh everything he needed to know, in order to help. But that wasn't what she was doing. She was just crying, and she couldn't stop no matter how hard she tried.