* * *

it didn’t happen again, we didn’t talk about it. I only passed her in hallways, glancing quickly at my shoelaces, checking that they were in fact tied. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go back to that moment, to feel what I had felt. But that quickly vanished as I walked up the stairs feeling that gripping feeling against my lungs again.

I had to hold my breath both out of fear that this might escape and fear that someone would find out. I still couldn’t trust them to understand. I hardly understood, no one could comprehend how I was feeling.

I held my breath.

I was ok, I was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was always fine. That’s just the way it should be.

But for those few seconds, I was more than just fine. I was more than just nothing. I was who I wanted to be again. Like part of me just opened completely and was almost ready to let someone else in before quickly stitching itself back together again with each ascending step I took towards the house.

So for that time after, I lived like I had been for the past seven years. Constricted.

Everyone noticed. They had to.