It suits you. You look like a little rose yourself. Aish! And you have thorns too…

I wake up feeling like I’m nailed to the floor.

I was dreaming but I can’t remember what I was dreaming about. There is no noise - no motion - no alarm going off but the sirens in my head, but I feel like I’m pinned and I can’t move an inch as my heart races and crashes.

I’ve gotta go -

I’ve gotta go - I’ve gotta go- but I don’t know where or how-

I have something I’m supposed to be doing-

I know I didn’t sleep through my alarm-

But I can’t - I can’t -

And I don’t know why-I’m-sh-a-k-ing-

I manage to raise my hands but just to cover my face.

My heart is pounding so furiously the beats seem to overlap with each other.

I can’t move - I can’t move - I have to-

I’m… I can’t…

I can feel the tears coursing down my face, but I don’t know why I’m crying or what’s wrong with me.

From this morning until now - how did I 180 from being able to function to staring at the ceiling completely paralyzed by the terror of nothing?

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter what I’m afraid of if I’m afraid just the same.

But I can’t make myself understood. I don’t even understand myself. And my excuses all fall flat in my own ears, let alone in the ears of strangers who will never be able to step inside and walk a mile in this freak show.

What was I supposed to be doing…?

Then I remember the photoshoot and the hot dread is somehow a relief.

The panic is a little less scary once it has a name.

Etan…

Alicia…

Why did I agree to this?

But I did and I have to…

Go…

Alicia…

I have to go, but it takes me two attempts to free my hands from my face. I feel like hiding, and it’s so stupid when what I’m trying to run from is inside me-

-Crawling in my veins and over every inch of me.

-I can’t hide from my own glitch - my own rupture in the system that won’t let me just be ‘normal.’

 - I betake myself shakily to my room - but can’t move up the stairs - I move up the stairs but feel myself on the verge of a collapse in the closet - 

Why is it so hard to put on clothes? Why is it so hard to go back down the stairs and put on my shoes? I give up twice, leaning my face on my knees and just cry my eyes out. I put my shoes on and then I just sit there, frozen in place for too many seconds with my hands on the back of my pink high heel - and now I’m just thinking about the evening with Kattar-

I can’t do this.

But even as I think it, I’m mouthing to myself “Door. Keys. Purse.” 

I'm moving, but I feel like I’m fraying and unraveling at the same time - wondering how I can see well enough to put the keys in the ignition and drive to Still Life Magazine’s studio.

Mrs. Howard’s car is in the parking lot by the front door when I get there. 

I know she’ll be way too satisfied if I cry, but I can’t even hide that I’m not okay today - just try to avoid looking at her - already more exhausted than I should be as we enter the front door.

I’m too old for this.

Too old to be melting down and still trying to fight the meltdown when I know from too many years of experience that it never really dies.

Or if it does, it keeps crawling its way back out of a shallow grave to come and haunt me again.

A jump scare, a skeleton in the closet, a monster under the bed.

Everywhere I look, the faintest flicker of dark becomes someone standing too close - too - too close to me - and I feel a shiver like fingertips on my bare arms as I hug them tighter and tighter around me.

The shadows lengthen.

The whole front room is smaller than I expected, with dark, intricately patterned carpets on the floor and purply-blue walls that dried lighter in the middle than at the baseboards or the space near the ceiling.

Fading slowly.

Like they’re waking and falling back into a bad dream all at once.

I take everything in like I’m watching a movie at 0.5 speed. The black and white desk littered with dizzy squares and stripes. The dark-complected woman behind the front desk with the white beaded glasses chain hanging from her neck as she bends her buzz-cut head over her keyboard like she’s searching for a specific key.

Emelia walks straight up to the desk as we enter the door, and for the first time in my life, I’m grateful to her as she shakes the receptionist’s hand professionally. 

“We’re here for Ms. Palmero’s photoshoot. I’m her agent whom you spoke with, Emelia Howard.”

The woman glances over at me quickly, a moment's confusion painting a deep line into her forehead like she barely heard what Mrs. Howard said. But in an instant, she seems to recognize me, and the questioning look is gone as her face lights up with a brilliant smile.

“Oh, goodness. Please forgive me, I thought you said ‘Miss Palermo.’ She’s one of our new interns. We’ve been waiting for you two,” she smiles cordially. “We’ve been waiting for Miss Palermo too. I still don’t have my vanilla latte...”

Laughing at her own remark, she reaches over her desk to shake both our hands.

Her voice flows like honey, but I feel electricity through my frame as her hand touches mine, and I have to resist the urge to yank it back like I’ve been burned.

I am burning.

I’m starting to feel feverish and tremble. 

 “My name is Hope Enam,” the woman says “But you can call me Mae. “Mother.” It’s a thing in our company to be nice because I’m so old.”

Not ‘Mother.’ Anything but mother.

Please.

She puts her glasses on now as she makes her way briskly around from behind the desk, with a hearty wave of her hand, “Come. I’ll introduce you to the crew you’ll be working with.”

We walk quickly to keep up with her as she makes her way to the side door with an energy that belies her previous statement about her age. She’s almost skipping as she hurries forward to turn the knob and leads us into a large studio with an unusually high ceiling and unusually vivid blue walls painted with big white clouds, and no windows.

I can’t breathe.

“Gabriel! She’s here!” Ms. Enam smiles excitedly, addressing a very youngish pinoy man intent on a chunky handheld camera. His face lights up when he sees me, or Mae, or Emelia, or all three, and he quickly comes forward to shake our hands like he’s trying to open a sticking latch. 

Stop touching me. Stop touching me.

I want to get away. Get home. Get to my car. 

Stop looking at me, talking to me.

Anytime anyone gets close to me, it’s all I can do to keep from flinching like they’re all made of burning sulfur, and the suppressed seizure makes my muscles gasp like they might give out.

“Gabe Espiritu,” the man grins, still shaking my hand, as I watch the clouds on the wall jump and then start swimming. When he steps back to admire me, the smile turns slightly playful and he cheeses: 

“Ohhh, she’s a pretty one. You’ll make our jobs fun for us today, Ms. Palmero.”

I…

Please don’t call me ‘pretty.’

I just want to go home. Work and go home. If I have to work today…

I think I force a smile as he waves to a lanky Japanese-looking teenage girl with a blonde ponytail.

“Zoe, please get Miss Palmero to the makeup chair, and get her a water while we wait for Abdul and Miss Carmichael.”

Carmichael?