Later that night, after my friends had said their individual goodbyes, I heard the front door open.

“We’re home!” My father called down the hall to where I was sitting at the kitchen table, in room towards the left of the kitchen. I watched as he walked down the hall, my mother right behind him.

This is what I love about my parents both working in the same place. They worked as teachers at the local primary school, with my mum teaching second grade, and my father teaching fifth.

It was kind of ironic, actually, considering that they had been high school sweethearts at the school right across the road from the primary school.

I’d always admired my parents relationship, and I knew what they had was special. Not many people had the luck of finding their soulmates in high school and where still with them thirty years later, all whilst working at the same place and loving each other as much as was physically possible.

For some reason, I’d always expected my parents teenage-like romance to fizzle out after a certain number of years, but it never happened. They just kept on going.

“How was your day?” My mum asked as she and dad sat at the table across from me.

“Good! We watched Bridget Jones’s Diary and ate snacks.”

“That’s nice. What did they get for you?”

“Chloe got me a bunch of baking stuff, Jackson got me a book I’ve being eyeing out recently, and Tommy bought me some stationary.”

“That’s sweet of them,” my mother gushed. She loved my friends almost as much as I did, and she had a special place in her heart for each of them.

“On that note,” my father announced happily, “how about we do presents now?”

“Yeah sure!” I smiled.

He stood up, leaving my mother and I at the kitchen table, sitting in a comfortable silence. This was one thing I loved about my family. We were sociable and chatty people, yet when nothing needed to be said, no one felt the need to fill in silence with pointless noise. It was always just comfortable.

Maybe that’s why my friends and I worked so well together. I was definitely the most extroverted out of the group, and I easily knew when no noise was needed. When someone didn’t feel like talking. Considering they were all quite introverted, I was able to get them out of their comfort zone without pushing them past their limits.

But I would never tell them that. I knew that telling them how much I was really able to understand their body language and knew when they weren’t feeling good would only make them feel like they were burdening me. It hurt knowing that all my friends doubted themselves so much, so I tried my best to make them feel loved and appreciated.

I think to some extent, I was successful in this attempt.

“Are you okay, darling?” My mother asked softly.

I raised my head to see her staring attentively at me. Unfortunately, she was as observant as I was and knew how to read me like a book, despite the well-practiced and refined mask I often used to cover how I was really feeling. She could see right past it. It was my eyes that allowed that. Curse my eyes.

“Yeah,” I said sweetly, plastering a fake smile across my face. I very carefully made sure my eyes wrinkled at the corners, so it didn’t look as fake as it was.

Truthfully, I wasn’t actually feeling that bad. In fact, it wasn’t even me. It just hurt a bit knowing exactly how much my friends still struggled every day, even though all of their trauma were so different from each other.

“Actually,” I said softly, twiddling with my thumbs. “There is something I want to talk to you about.”

I didn’t know what I actually wanted to say. There where so many secrets I could tell.

I could tell my mother about the abuse that Jack faced most nights at home, how he would sometimes cut himself to relieve this pain and how he would still come to school every day, despite being broken and scared.

I could tell her how Tommy would often cry in the bathrooms, shaking and alone, and the only way I would know was because he would take a bit too long to come back and would return to the group and come back with puffy red eyes.

I could tell her how I suspected Chloe had some sort of eating disorder – this was the first time I’d thought the words themselves – and how I was sure it was connected to the bullying she has experienced in her past, and how every time someone even looked at her for too long she would retreat into the shadows.

A tear fell from my eye as I thought about this, rolling slowly down my cheek and leaving a heat of warmth in its past. It wasn’t a comfortable warmth like what one may feel when receiving a hug. Instead, it itched and burned at my skin.

“Oh darling,” mum soothed, scraping her chair back and walking around to my side of the table. She wrapped me into her arms, and I started to sob.

“I- I can’t,” I stuttered, unable to get out what I was thinking. The thoughts swirled in my brain and mixed together, so I couldn’t tell them apart.

My chest tightened so suddenly I could have sworn someone had just placed a ton of bricks on my shoulders. My heart was slamming in my chest, pumping blood furiously. It was too fast, too loud; I’m sure my mother heard it.

Then, I started trembling. It started with just my fingertips, then, like a shockwave, travelled to my hands, arms, torso. It felt like the whole world was crumbling on top of me, yet somehow also made it feel like I was drowning in a sea of nothingness.

The room tilted, or maybe it was just me. My vision was swimming, and I couldn’t tell what was real and what was just in my brain. I slipped further out of the chair and into my mother’s arms, but like a flick of a switch, they went from feeling like a warm, comforting blanket to constricting chains wrapping around my throat.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelped, shoving her away and slipping onto the floor.

I was able to make out her expression enough to know that she was feeling helpless. My mind was blurring, and I tucked my knees against my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs.

A figure emerged at the top of the stairs, and I was able to piece together that it was my father. He rushed over and reached out an arm for my shoulder, but I flinched away.

I tried to focus on their watching eyes to ground myself, but after a while they started to slip away as well. It felt like reality was slipping away from my fingertips, and the more I tried to clutch at it the further away it ran.

It was strange, like watching myself fall off a cliff in slow motion, like watching myself drown in third-person, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I unconsciously shuffled backwards, pressing my back into the wall, trying to grip onto anything that could keep me from falling into the depths of my own mind. Remembering to breathe was almost impossible, and I gulped at the air.

“I… can’t… breath…” I gasped between pants of air. Each breath felt tighter than the last, each gasp of air making it harder to find air. I wasn’t even outwardly crying, but it felt like I was on the inside. Like I was falling apart without a sound.

I’d never experienced something like this before, and it was scary. It felt like I was dying, like I was being wrenched away from the world, like I would be crushed from the inside out. A scream tried to rip itself from my throat, but no sound was made.

Everything was making it harder. Each touch of my shirt against my skin overwhelmed my mind. I wanted to rip my skin off, wanted to pull the drowning ocean constricting my body away, wanted to die. That was something I’d never said before, not even as a joke. Yet all I wanted was this hell to end.

The thought scared me. It wasn’t me—not really—but in that moment, it felt like the only way out. And even as it passed, even as I clung to the sound of my dad’s voice, the echo of that thought lingered.

I don’t want to die, I reminded myself. I just want the pain to stop.

And somehow, somewhere deep inside, a small part of me was glad I was still here. That I was still fighting. One small moment of panic wasn’t a reason to end everything.

Suddenly, I felt a soft, warm hand grab my own. Unlike the previous touches, this one seemed to bring my slightly back to the present.

“Zoey,” it was the soft voice of my father. “Breathe with me.”

“I- I- I can’t,” I wept, another tear finally falling from my eyes. After this one was released, more followed, making the picture in front of my eyes swim.

“Yes you can.”

I tried to speak again, but no words came out. Dad seemed to figure this out, because he changed his tactic. He grabbed my hand tighter, squeezing it gently.

“What are five things you can see?”

“Hmm?” I managed to mumble. This tactic was something I’d read about, and it seemed to work on my friends. That’s when it hit me: I was having a panic attack. How could I have not realised?

“Five things, Zoey,” dad said gently, keeping his voice low and clear.

I cleared my throat, trying to find my lost voice. “U-uhm… you… my hands… the ceiling… the floor… and mum.”

He smiled. “What are four things you can feel?”

“Your hands… the floor… my clothes… and the wall.” I felt my breaths come easier, and my shaking slowed slightly.

“Three things you can hear.”

“Your voice and my voice… mum crying.” Mum was crying? It was only then I’d noticed the quiet sobs coming from her general direction, and my heart broke with the thought that she’d seen me in such a broken and vulnerable state. This was new for both of us.

“Two things you can smell.”

“The air freshener and cologne.” My speaking was beginning to return to normal, and the world slowly swam back into focus. My thoughts slowed slightly, and I was finally able to take a deep breath. I could almost feel the air seeping back into my lungs, clearing my head and making it easier to think.

“And finally,” my dad smiled, his eye twinkling with relief. “What’s one thing you can taste?”

“Uhh… I dunno. Juice?” It was a slightly disgusting thought, but I supposed I could still taste the lingering orange and mango from the juice my friends and I had earlier.

My friends.

I began to panic again, but somehow I knew I wasn’t going to go into a panic attack again.

“What’s brought this on?” Dad asked carefully. “Have you ever had a panic attack before?”

“No,” I admitted, bowing my head and tracing shapes on my knee with my fingertip.

I felt the shuffle of my mum joining him on the floor beside me.

“What’s going on, sweetheart?” My mum said, her cheeks wet with recent tears and eyes prickling in the corners. She was about to cry again, and I really didn’t want to see it.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I just—”

“Don’t apologise, love,” dad spoke quietly. “This isn’t your fault, and I know it’s hard, but your mother and I would really appreciate it if you could find it in yourself to tell us what happened.”