By the time she hit her bedroom, the walls had been crowding in on her, and her breathing was nothing more than a futile attempt to pull air into oxygen starved lungs. Spots started to dance in front of her eyes. This was one of her more severe attacks. She tried to get to the nightstand where her inhaler lay. It would force her lungs to work. Only, her knees buckled well before she got that far. Crawling, she made her way across the floor, praying she didn’t pass out.
There was a knock at the door and she panicked more. Dimitri couldn’t see her like this. She felt embarrassed and ashamed of her anxiety. Dimitri didn’t know anything about it. She’d hidden it from him as much as he’d hidden his illness from his fans. As she tried to claw her way up the nightstand, she finally understood why he didn’t want anyone to know. He had to be as embarrassed as she felt right now.
“Becca, are you okay?”
He sounded concerned. She opened her mouth to try to form the words to reassure him, but only a loud gasp struggled its way out. Becca knew she’d black out soon if she couldn’t reach the damn inhaler. It had only happened once before, and thankfully she’d been at her shrink’s. It was the last appointment she’d ever gone to. From that point on, they spoke via Skype for her therapy sessions, and she refused to leave her apartment.
Dimitri showing up on her doorstep, demanding she go because he trusted her, made her anxiety hit the boiling point. She did want to help him. She wanted to be able to go to his signing with him, smile, help where he needed her to. Because they were friends, and friends did shit for each other.
But she couldn’t do it. Her anxiety wouldn’t let her. And she hated it. Hated herself for not being able to do something this simple without the panic gnawing at her.
She fell, unable to find the inhaler from her half-crouched position on the floor. This was so bad. If he came in here and found her like this, it would lead to questions—questions she didn’t want to answer.
To her horror, the door opened and Dimitri walked in. She couldn’t see him, but she heard him walking toward the bed. “Becca?”
When he found her lying on the floor, barely breathing, she saw the panic on his face. He rushed to her and dropped down. “What’s wrong?”
“Inhaler,” she managed to wheeze out and pointed to the nightstand.
He found it, and then helped her sit so she could pull the lifesaving medicine into her lungs. Almost instant relief. Her lungs opened and she started to drag air in. Dimitri hauled her up so they were both sitting on the bed, his hand stroking her back in soothing circles as she worked to breathe.
“What’s wrong, Krasivaya?”
“Panic attack.”
Dimitri wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. A panic attack? What the hell caused her to have a panic attack? He had no clue they were like this. He’d heard of them before, but he’d never witnessed one. It was jarring, to say the least.
“What can I do?” He felt helpless, another thing he wasn’t used to, but was being forced to accept, thanks to his legs.
She shook her head. Not knowing what else to do, Dimitri sat with her and rubbed her back for over an hour. It took her that long to finally calm down. Her head landed on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Want to tell me what brought that on?”
“You.”
“Me?” What the hell had he done to cause her to have a panic attack?
She tilted her head and looked up at him, incredulous. “You’re not serious?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.”
“You really are dumb sometimes.”
Dumb? She really just called him dumb?
“Dimitri, I told you I couldn’t go with you. This is why I can’t go. I get panic attacks even thinking about all the crowds, the people…I meant it when I said I can’t go. This is what happens to me.”
Well, damn. He was a dumbass. Not once did the thought of him asking her to go cross his mind. No wonder she’d quit. This was serious shit.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go. I do, really, I do. If I could help you, you know I would, D. That’s why this attack was so severe. I felt guilty about not being able to help, and that made everything worse.”
Now he really felt like a shithead. He’d been arguing and trying to make her feel guilty, but he’d had no idea this would happen. He wasn’t going to make her do anything. Neither of them would go.
“I’m sorry, Krasivaya. I didn’t know. We won’t go.”
“Just because I can’t go doesn’t mean you’re not.” The fire was starting to come back into her, and he was relieved. He hated seeing her in any kind of pain. It ate at him.
“Yeah, Becca, it means exactly that. I can’t go and risk someone finding out about my legs any more than you can go and have a serious panic attack. Will you tell me when these started? You’ve never said anything before.”
She sighed and fell backward, unaware that her nightshirt had ridden up and all that gorgeous pink lace was on full display. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from it. The urge to slide a finger along the top nearly choked him.
“It’s stupid, really.”
“It’s not stupid if it affects you like this.”
He hoped she’d sit up because he’d soon have to sit on his hands to keep from touching that damn lace. God, when had she developed a body he wanted nothing more than to explore?
“I was three. Got lost at the mall.”
“And?” he prompted when she stopped talking.
“No one found me until the next day. My mom forgot she’d taken me along. Forgot about me entirely until my dad came home the next day. He’d been out drinking all night. Went looking for me, and when he couldn’t find me, well, he beat the shit of my mom and came and found me. I’d crawled under one of the tables in the food court.”
How the fuck did someone forget about their kid? Dimitri’s fists clenched. He didn’t even want to think about the physical violence she’d witnessed and maybe been a victim of herself.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” He stretched out beside her on the bed so he could look at her instead of that damn lace.
“My mom had problems.” Her voice went quiet. He knew she was struggling. Without thinking, he grabbed her hand and held it tight. “She was bipolar and had a serious cocaine addiction. Some days she forgot to eat, forgot to bathe, forgot everything. Forgot me. There were good days and bad days. She’d be the most amazing mother one day, and the next I’d come home to the cruelest person alive.”
“She hit you?” Dimitri’s entire body curled with the desire to hit something himself, anything. How had he never known this? Why hadn’t he taken her home? Picked her up for school? He wanted to scream with fury at himself for letting his best friend suffer when he might have been able to help her.
“No…well, not much. My mom did believe in the old adage, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child, apply the rod and save the child.’ I was rarely on the receiving end of a belt. The one time my dad found out, he went ballistic. He used the belt on her. It was the last time she ever hit me.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
He jumped up, not trusting himself. He walked over to her window and braced his hands against the windowsill. Her freshman year.
“There’s nothing you could have done, Dimitri. Don’t blame yourself for things that weren’t your fault.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was harsh, and Becca cringed.
“Shame? Embarrassment? Take your pick, D. No one wants their only friend to look at them in pity. I handled it.”
His shoulders heaved. Becca couldn’t tell if he was just breathing hard, or if he might be more upset than she thought. It was something she never told anyone about. She still dealt with her mother. The woman wasn’t addicted to drugs anymore, but she still went weeks without taking her meds. When her dad passed away from a heart attack a few years ago, she’d found a place that specialized in mental illness. It wasn’t a hospital so much as a retirement community with a staff trained to deal with the mentally challenged.
“Tell me, Rebecca. Tell me all of it.”
She didn’t know if she wanted to tell him. Her shrink grilled her enough on it. Dimitri was the one person she had who didn’t know anything about her dysfunctional family. He never judged or pitied her. He accepted her.
But then, he didn’t get to know the real her, did he? Only the person she let him see. The person she let everyone else see. She didn’t let anyone in, not even Dimitri, but he’d stuck around even when he didn’t have to. Kept in touch. He was the one person she wanted to talk to every day, even when she was pissed at him.
He turned around, and the raw agony on his face made her sit up. This was part of the reason she’d kept him in the dark. He loved his family, and he considered her family. He’d take her pain personally. She knew it killed him thinking he might have helped her.
“Don’t ask me that, Dimitri. Please.” Those memories were hard for her, and she didn’t want to end up in another panic attack today. “It’s too much today. I’ll tell you all of it, I promise. Just not all at once. I need to do it my way in my own time.”
He didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Then tell me how all this translates into that panic attack you had earlier.”
“It’s the crowds.” Becca pulled her legs under her. “I don’t remember much about that day I got lost, but I remember the panic and the fear. I couldn’t find my mom. All those faces. The noise. It only made it worse, and when I figured out my mom wasn’t coming for me, I hid. I was so scared. It did something to me, Dimitri, something I can’t explain. It only worsened as I got older. School was a nightmare for me. It wasn’t until I met you that it got easier. That hour you were with me, it wasn’t so bad for a little while. You made it easier to breathe, easier to deal with all the panic. You always have.”
He rolled his shoulders then took off his jacket, throwing it on the bed. His muscles rippled with each movement, and she turned away. He couldn’t see what he did to her. She didn’t want any more pity directed at her. Becca knew the kinds of women Dimitri dated, and it certainly wasn’t her. Besides that, she valued their friendship too much to ever risk ruining it with sex.
“Do you go to therapy?” He sat back down next to her, and she fought to stay still. Having him this close to her wasn’t a good idea. It made her feel too much. Not panic. He’d never set that off. No, Dimitri was like the anti-panic solution. He kept her calm.
“Yes. My doctor has been treating me for the last five years.”
“What does he say about all this?”
“She.” Leave it to Dimitri to think all doctors were male. He stereotyped too much. “Dr. Gainey understands it better than I do. She’s been pushing me for years to face my fear instead of accepting it and medicating me. She even accused me of using it as a crutch to get out of things I don’t want to do.”
“Is she right?”
“Maybe.” Becca shrugged. While her anxiety was very real, she wondered sometimes if she didn’t use it as a means of escaping anything that made her uncomfortable.
“Are the panic attacks always that bad?” He absently played with a lock of her hair, twisting it around his finger. She wanted him to stop, but calling attention to it might embarrass them both, so she left it alone.
“No. I’ve only had one other attack this bad, and that was at my therapist’s office. It was the first time she suggested I go sit at the food court in a mall and see what happens. It was also the last time I left my apartment. We do our sessions via Skype now.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years.”
He stared at her, but she couldn’t read his expression. What was he thinking? It unnerved her a bit. Those blue eyes always had a way of looking right through a person.
“Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”
Confused, she watched him get up. “I’m not sure what I have in the fridge, but if you’re hungry…”
“No.” He stopped her. “Let’s go out to eat. There’s a diner a few blocks over. It’s not busy, which means the food is probably shit, but there won’t be any crowds.”
“I can’t…”
He grabbed her hands, and the wash of panic started to recede. “I’m not asking you to go face a whole room full of people, Becca. I’m asking you to come get some food with me. I know it’ll be hard, but I think your doctor is right. You need to face this. You’re too beautiful a person to hide yourself away and be scared. I’ll be with you, and if it gets bad, I promise I will bring you right back.”
“I don’t know, Dimitri.” Why would he ask her to do this, especially after she’d just bared her soul and her deepest fears to him?
“Will you try, Krasivaya? Please? Just try?”
“What does that mean?”
“After all these years, you honestly think I’m going to tell you?” He grinned, and that damn dimple came out. “Now get your ass up, get dressed, and let’s go eat.”
Without giving her time to protest, he left, closing the door behind him.
What the hell was she going to do?