Crash Into You

Chapter 36

Rachel

IT’S A PAINFUL PULSE BENEATH my skull and above my brain. It radiates down from my forehead to wrap around my temples, my cheeks and my nose. Light makes the pain worse. Sound nearly kills me. This is the aftermath of my panic attack.

All off at some important meeting or game or social life event, my family is missing from the house. My lights are on, and my iPod plays softly next to the closed door of my room on the off chance someone does return home before their curfew of eleven—the boys, as sexist as it is, get an hour later than me.

The goal is to appear normal so I can cover up the migraine. That leaves me lying in bed with a pillow over my head and praying for the pain to cease.

After vomiting in my father’s bathroom at work, I cleaned myself up and returned to the conference room. Eleven pairs of eyes watched as I stood at the front, beside my mother, and announced how honored I was to speak on Colleen’s behalf.

My phone rings and the sound echoes violently in my head, yet at the same time a rush of adrenaline hits me. Isaiah is the only person who would call. I adjust the pillow so I can check the caller ID. My lips lift at the sight of his name. “Hello?”

“Rachel?” There is major question in his voice.

“It’s me.” Just me, my painful migraine and my sensitivity to light and sound.

“You sound off.”

I clear my throat. “I was resting.”

“I can let you go.”

Anxiety shoots through my bloodstream at the thought. “No. I’m glad you called.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

I wake up when I notice the strained tone in his voice. Suddenly my head doesn’t hurt so bad, and I edge the pillow onto the bed and off my face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” A car honks. “Tell me how the thing with your mom went.”

“Good,” I say, and place the pillow back over my head. Every part of me flounders. I don’t want to lie to him, too. But if I tell him about my attacks then he’ll view me as weak, and that’ll mess up what’s between us. Maybe I don’t have to lie. I can leave some things out—just like Ethan does to me when he uses twin amnesty. “Actually, horrible.”

I hear a car door close. “What happened?”

“Maybe we can meet someplace and talk?”

“Yeah. Tell me where.”

I swing my legs off the bed to stand, but the headache hammers my head hard and fast. A sound of pain escapes my lips, and I wince because Isaiah had to hear it.

“What’s going on, Rachel?” Isaiah became very serious, very fast.

“Just a headache, I swear. So I was thinking we could meet at this coffee shop—”

He cuts me off. “You’re not driving if you’re hurting.”

I lie back down as my eyesight doubles. With a touch to my iPod, music stops playing from the speakers. I strain to listen for any sound, and all that comes back is glorious silence.

What I’m about to do is wrong. So wrong. The exact opposite of everything my parents expect from me, and for that reason alone it feels right. “Would you like to come over?”