Choking to death. Not fighting evil or heroically sacrificing herself or saving the world.
Just choking.
Every movement sent the world spinning. Or maybe I was the one spinning. I took a step, stumbled. A hand on my bicep kept me upright. I pulled away. This was wrong. I was wrong. Something was happening, something bad, they didn’t realize how bad this was—
“Wait, listen! I know what you’re feeling.” Red stood right in front of me, her hands raised before her. “You’re not sick. You’re not dying. This is a panic attack.”
“It’s not,” I said, crying now—when had I started to cry?—“something’s wrong, something’s wrong, everything feels wrong, I can’t breathe, can’t do this . . .”
Rainbow stood frozen in the background.
“You need to breathe,” Red said. “I swear it’ll help.”
Breathe: Easy to say. It was too stuffy and hot here. I needed to get to the top of that hill. There’d be fresh air up there. I stumbled away.
“Dr. Hayston?” a Hazel behind me said. “Me too.”
I didn’t know what that meant and the thought slipped away. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this stupid destiny that I wasn’t even supposed to have and that I’d still managed to screw up. For me. For the other Hazels. For the world.
Footsteps behind me. “Hazel, calm down—No, I mean, it’s OK. It’ll be OK. You know what helped me? It’ll sound silly, but I swear, just try it. All right?”
Red caught up to me. I didn’t know where I was going; I was atop the hill, the forest behind me and the road in front. Wind cooled my sweat-soaked skin, but it didn’t help me breathe.
I wasn’t Chosen.
I was chosen.
Someone selected me because they might as well. I was just a stupid teenage girl no more special than any other, I was going to die and take the world with me—
“Try this. Clap your hands here, right in front of your hips. Then here, above your head.” Red clapped her hands low, then high. She kept her eyes on me all the while. “I know this is scary, but I promise it helps.”
She kept clapping. I sucked in strangled half breaths and watched her through blurry eyes.
“Just try it once? Please?” she said. “Here.” Clap one. Clap two.
This was ridiculous. I had to do something, find the trolls or that other Hazel, like it’d even matter—
I squeezed my eyes shut to keep my tears contained.
“Just once. Hazel, I’ve been here. I promise. Let’s go. On three. One, two, three.”
I clapped my hands in front of my hips and choked out a sob.
“Great! Once more. Over your head. Like this.”
“I can’t, I can’t do this . . .” After what Neven had told us, Red was making me clap? This was embarrassing. I shouldn’t be wasting my time, but I shouldn’t be crying, either, and . . .
And then I listened, anyway. My arms mirrored Red’s. Over my head. Clap.
“Now here again,” Red said. Clap, low, in front of her hips. “See? You’ve got this.”
Clap high. Clap low. Tears streamed over my cheeks. I kept clapping along with Red. My breaths were still coming too fast.
“You know how your heart is racing? It’s because you’re hyperventilating. You’re not getting enough oxygen. It makes your body freak out. It’s scary, right? But we can work on it. Breathe in deep, through the mouth, with the low clap. Then high clap, breathe out through the nose. Like this.” She did exaggerated puffs in and out. I wanted to argue, but it was easier to simply keep going. Clapping, breathing, clapping, breathing.
“It’s OK to cry,” Red said. “Let it out. That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. There’s this theory about why people cry. Do you know it?”
I could only shake my head. (Clap.)
“Brain chemicals influence our emotions, like how serotonin makes you happy and adrenaline makes you alert. Apparently, when there’s too many chemicals to deal with, the brain might flush them out via your tears and bring in other, soothing chemicals instead. I swear I’m not making this up. Emotional tears are different from pain tears on, like, a cellular level. So crying could just be your brain deciding to relieve the pressure when you feel something too strongly.”
I tried to follow along, but only caught snippets. “Four is . . .,” I started, for something to say. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rainbow and Four clapping the same way we were.
“I think she’s having a panic attack, too.” Clap, breathe in, clap, breathe out. “Rainbow and I apparently had the same psychiatrist. We must’ve learned the same coping tricks.”
Clap, breathe in, clap, breathe out. Wind rushed past me. The sweat on my skin was drying. “Psychiatrist.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why Rainbow needed to go to one, but me . . . I kept missing school because of the endo. The endometriosis, I mean. I wasn’t diagnosed back then. I thought I just had really bad periods. It’s like that for a lot of people, and then it turns out our organs are gluing themselves together. Anyway, I missed a few days of school every month when the pain was too bad. I had to work extra hard to catch up.” Clap, breathe, clap, breathe. “I got, um, really stressed. It turns out I have an anxiety disorder. Like . . . being terrified something bad will happen, all the time. Or that it already did. Never stopping second-guessing yourself. Mind going in circles. A ball of nerves.”
I barked out a half laugh. “Sounds familiar.”
“Does your jaw ever lock up? So you can’t eat or brush your teeth awhile?” She saw in my face that the answer was yes. “You never saw a therapist?”
I shook my head. The words got stuck in my throat along with my breath. Clap, breathe, clap, breathe.
“Wow. In your situation, the MGA really should’ve arranged one. Then again, if even presidents don’t have in-house therapists . . .” Clap, clap. “I thought I saw signs of anxiety
