Her chest felt so tight.

Harriett had left her house that day knowing it would be during rush hour, when there would be the most people out and about during the day. She had known she could not get out sooner to avoid it because she had to work, making it an extra busy day for her.

Still, there was a reason she avoided such crowds as much as possible.

Harriett’s chest tightened as she watched the crowd from inside the coffee shop. She took deep breaths before she immersed herself in that crowd. Her eyes burned as she waited for everything to go wrong, and she bit into her lip, the only source of comfort she had available to herself at the moment.

Time felt strange, the world going foggy as she struggled to remember to pay attention to where she was going, that she had a time limit and could duck into a store until she felt ready to go. Harriett did not know how long it took before the crowds pushed her, and that was when her breaths quickened, when she needed to find a way out.

It felt like a lifetime when she could duck into a building, a fast food place, she realized, and she could take a moment to take deep breaths and calm her pounding heart.

Once her head was clearer, Harriett glanced at her phone, and she found she only had a few more blocks to go and plenty of time to get there. The tightness in her chest eased, but it came back when she had to do it all over again.