The definition of genius is one who has exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability. And where do they collect geniuses?

Mensa.

I tested into the high IQ society when I was only eight, scoring in the whopping hundredth percentile on a standard IQ test. I was written about in textbooks, secured a corner of the local paper, and was called upon by university heads and scholars to visit their facilities. Once there, I was given math problems, science theories, legal hypotheticals and other categories in which they quizzed my knowledge. My brain was studied through MRI machines and CAT scans; medical professionals wanted to try to pinpoint the source of my intelligence. Said they’d never seen anything like me.

For all of the travel and voluntary testing I went through, we were compensated. Very well, actually. One university had given me a grant that would fully fund my college studies when it came time. Another paid my mother a lump sum just to have me sit in on lectures for a week and give my theories, of which fascinated the professors who attended.

It wasn’t until about puberty that the headaches and anxiety came on. Doctors could never find the answer, or the cure, to why my brain seemed to overload itself. One second I would be fine, doing my homework at the kitchen table, and another I’d be doubled over in pain. Cluster migraines, they’d diagnosed, that seized my cranium, temporarily took my vision, and left me down and out for a week.

They always came on around times of testing, and I started to notice a pattern.

So today, as I’m studying for midterms at Asher’s house, and my hand begins to shake, I can’t help it that I drop the water glass I’d been about to drink from.

The glass shatters on the hardwood of his living room floor, and he jumps. “Are you okay?!”

He looks surprised, worry creasing his handsome face, but I can’t move. My heart rate shoots up like a nonstop elevator to the top floor. I can feel the familiar pressure crawl up and over my chest like a lion ready to pounce, and the breath wheezing in and out of my lungs. My hands shake, the back of my neck becoming cold and clammy. The only word that I repeat over and over in my head is no.

“No, what? Nora?” Asher practically leaps off of the couch where he was lying down reading, and crouches next to me on the floor.

I must be saying it out loud, but I can’t stop. I rock, willing the beast of anxiety to get off of my chest, to let me go.

“Love, what’s wrong? Do you need … should I call your mom? An ambulance?”

His hands come up to frame my face, and his warm touch helps to ease a bit of the pressure from my lungs.

“Anxiety … attack. I … I get them.” I concentrate on breathing through the words, still rocking as he positions his body protectively around mine.

“What can I do? How do I—”

Asher sounds helpless, and his fear only makes the attack ripping through me get worse. My vision starts to spark and dim at the corners, so I grab his arms, throwing myself against his body. I’ve never tried the weight technique, would never let Mom spend the ridiculous amount of money it costs to buy one of those special blankets.

But I don’t have my mom here, or my normal medicines. And if I get up and walk out on unsteady legs, he’ll only follow me.

So I do the one thing I have at my disposal. I use him. “Hold … me.”

As if he’s a surgeon jumping to work, Asher’s arms lock around me. His legs lock around mine, putting us in a pretzel twist as I sit shaking in his lap. Squeezing as hard as he can, his lips comes to my ear.

“I’ve got you. I’m right here, Nora.”

He’s anchoring me to the ground, keeping me from trying to rip out of my own skin as the anxiety ripples from my brain to my toes. The weight of his body around me as my nervous system goes haywire actually feels … calming.

Slowly, I can feel the air begin to fully fill my lungs, the feeling in my fingers where they clutch Asher’s shoulders tingles back to life. I exhale, laying my head in the crook of his neck, my brain settling down and all of the thoughts that left me stranded in the dark go back into their black box of doom.

He loosens his grip, gently rubbing circles onto my back as I wipe away the tears I didn’t realize were falling.

“If you wanted to get in my lap, you didn’t have to fake an anxiety attack to do it.” His voice is a whispered smile as he continues to hold me.

I can’t do much but smile back into his shoulder. That was possibly the most embarrassing thing that has happened between us thus far, and he’s joking about it while comforting me. Rather than running in the opposite direction as I melted down before his eyes, Asher stayed.

“Do you need anything? Need me to call anyone?” He had yet to move from the position we were in.

I cleared my throat, finally feeling confident enough to speak. “Some water, maybe. But … just another minute.”

I didn’t want him to let go.

“What … how do they happen? If you want to tell me.” His lips pressed to my forehead.

I kept my head in his neck, smelling his unique, sophisticated scent. “My brain … well, I think you know that it’s … different. The only explanation that doctors could ever come up with is that because I can digest so much information, my system, it kind of overloads. All of the information, all of the knowledge, just kind of gets me so worked up that I can’t control it and the anxiety hits me like a full on tidal wave.”

Asher holds my neck but slowly eases me out of his chest so that those jewel-like green eyes are staring straight into mine. “Well, I’ll keep you anchored. I’m good with boats, if you didn’t know.”

Internally, my nerves are shot. I can’t believe that actually just happened in front of him. It begins to sink in just how bad that attack could have gotten, and all of my past insecurities come to the forefront.

“You’re not … freaked out?” My voice is small and embarrassed.

This is really the reason I never let anyone get too close. It was bad enough that the kids back home, from the time I was accepted into Mensa until I left for London, thought I was a freak. I hadn’t been good at masking my intelligence at first, and through elementary and middle school was a bit of a know it all. It wasn’t until high school that I realized I was utterly alone because my peers were suspicious and paranoid of me. I was too this or too that for my own good, and they wanted nothing to do with me.

If they had known about the breakdowns too? I would have been a bigger pariah than the mayor who had been caught embezzling from the food bank.

Someone finding out about my attacks and migraines was my biggest fear. They left me so exposed and raw, I never thought that anyone besides my mom would accept me after watching the way my body broke down.

Yet here was Asher, being the exact opposite of the person I assumed him to be. He’d slashed all of my opinions about the kind of man he was. My heart spun with the realization, and for the first time in a long time, I felt the hard concrete around my heart fall away.

“Why should I be? It’s not like it’s something you can help, love.” He pushes a lock of hair away from my face, and kisses my damp brow.

He was right of course, but my condition had always made me feel defective in a way. “Thank you for just … helping me through it.”

“This is why you freaked out on me that day in class when I told everyone how many answers you’d gotten correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I’d forgotten my blow up at him.

“I never did apologize for that. I’m sorry for being a wanker, it was an arse move. If I had known what came along with being able to just click that well with academics, I never would have done it.”

Reaching up, I placed my hand on his strong jaw, feeling the rougher skin there from where he’d shaved. My lips found his, plying at them and nibbling like he’d taught me to. My stomach dropped into my feet as I felt him start to swell where I still sat in his lap.

My brain knows that the weight of his body pushing against my skin was the healing technique that helped me come down from the attack. But my heart, the organ that seemed to turn to mush anytime it was around this boy nowadays, never wanted to survive another episode without him.

I was beginning to rely on Asher far too much. And though I was smart enough to know I shouldn’t, I couldn’t help the skyscraper fall I was taking for him.

The comfort of his arms made me sure of the path we were going down, and I was afraid that if either of us asked for more, I wouldn’t be able to say no.