The house was always quiet, but that morning it was particularly noticeable. I woke to the tapping of the old water heater coming to life, the house sighing with the new warmth.

I needed a second pair of socks and a hooded sweater over my long sleeve tee-shirt just to get myself out of bed. The cold was in my bones though; it had nothing to do with the approaching winter. Today was simply a bad day: one where my heart slammed in my skull and made my head hurt. Where my skin felt like an ill fitting sweater, itchy and tight around the collar, pulsing under the wrap on my wrist. Where I wanted to sleep away the hours and starve myself so I could feel the emptiness inside me. 

My grandmother wrote me a note, left on the fridge. Went to the bank. I knew it was coming; she spent the last few days reviewing expenses, over and over. Something was going on that I wasn't seeing. Rather, I was seeing it and didn’t want to. 

I turned on the kettle for some tea, hoping the liquid warmth might revive my insides. The house was so quiet, it was growing noisy again. I could hear the clock ticking and the wood frame flexing and the chirp of my grandfather’s life support. An artificial heartbeat that wouldn't stop beep, beep, beeping to the painful rhythm of my own. 

A-live. A-live. A-live. 

The panic drowned out everything, even while the kettle was screaming at me.

I turned the heat off, gathering my shoes and escaping the deafeningly quiet house, but my heart, caged in my chest, was forced to follow. As the door shut behind me, the wind blew and the maple trees shivered for me, filling the gaps in my skull with fuzzy white noise that muffled the protests of my restless pulse.

"Morning, Violet."

Startled, my heart hammered even harder against my ribs. I clutched at the front of my sweater to ease the ache of the panic attack still gripping me. "Stop doing that." The demand came out harsher than intended.

He laughed regardless. "Sorry." He only seemed mildly apologetic. 

I glanced back at the house, unsettled by the idea of going back inside. He must have read my body language or the look on my face because his chuckle faded to concern.

"Are you alright?"

I turned to him, seeing the sincerity in those gray eyes again, and I considered lying as I usually did, but somehow I couldn't muster the energy. "No," I said instead. The truth. People didn’t like the truth.

I braced for his retreat. For an excuse. I was used to them.

"Do you want to go somewhere?" His reply took me off guard. No questions asked.

I felt something uncoil inside me: relief. I sighed, like when Nan hugged me, and nodded.

He took my wrist, the one stitched up and tender, wrapped in gauze, and led me away with him as if it was nothing. As if he was used to guiding people away from their problems, and I followed like it was the easiest thing in the world.

We walked for a long time, until my legs were sore and I felt my stomach groan with hunger pains. Until my seized lungs were coerced into working again, and my deep, tired breaths refreshed my body and cleared the fog from my head. We walked until we neared the edge of my grandparents property, finding a sparsely wooded alcove. 

"Where are we going?" I asked finally.

He stopped briefly, then shrugged. "Wherever you need to go."

"You don't know where you're going?" I stared in disbelief, my stomach twisting, with regret this time instead of hunger.

He shrugged again. "I thought you knew."

The panic wasn’t as settled as I thought it was. It rose like vomit in my throat in reaction to his flippantness. "I've never been here before. Are you stupid? You got us lost!" 

It was unnecessarily harsh. I regretted the words immediately, and groaned with frustration and embarrassment with my outburst, but I couldn’t shake the anger so easily, even if I knew it was unwarranted. It was never so simple.

Instead, I stomped off, searching the area for a place to sit because my throat was tied up in painful knots again, and I was starting to feel lightheaded. I settled on the soft moss at the base of a tree, sitting and putting my hood up to cover my eyes. Even with the sky a gray overcast, they still ached with overstimulation; I leaned forward to bury my face into my knees instead, forcing some deep breaths of the musty forest air. 

It worked. I swallowed my frustration back down past my swollen throat, clenched my fingers to stop their shaking, parted my lips to suck back more cool, fresh air, and I felt the building pressure wane.