Pirouette [h.s.]

chapter 7

// you've got me and you know //

// that i've got you //

Till Forever Falls Apart  -Ashe & FINNEAS

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I hear the recorded voicemail message for what feels like the thousandth time and let out a frustrated groan before hanging up and hitting the call button again.

I can't stop thinking about Tuesday night, no matter how hard I try. And not the part that would have my therapist on a field day. If I still had the time to see a therapist, that is.

My bike ride home after leaving Harry was completed with fallen tears and a near-panic attack and I was so frustrated with myself for how I handled it all, so I just kept spiraling further. I couldn't let him see me vulnerable like that. I couldn't. So, I did what I do best, which is run away.

It wasn't anything he did, I think I just finally got consumed with everything that had happened. And I also couldn't swallow the idea of him seeing my shitty apartment. I think that's what made it even worse. It's not like I ran because he was a douchebag or a creep, I ran because I'm too prideful and because I'm a grade A wimp. And that frustrated the shit out of me. At least if you're going to run, have a good damn reason.

By the time I got home, I had successfully staved off the panic attack, but once I shut my door, the tears came in a downpour anyway. Crying because of the vulnerability and because of the creep in Dino's and because of the exhausting day and because of the water bucket overflowing and because of being lonely. Mostly from being lonely. Everything came tumbling out of me at once, leaving me a sniffling, snotty mess.

It wasn't until I reeled in the tears, that I remembered he asked me to text him when I got home safe.

Rolling out of bed and wiping my nose against the back of my wrist, I trudged to my bag to dig out my phone. I drafted a new message to send to Harry and, like an absolute dumbass, I stood and stared at the empty text box for an embarrassingly long time.

What do I say?

Simply typing that I made it home felt too short and snippy, especially with how I ran off. But anything more felt forced and too open and made anxious pin pricks scrape across my chest. And I had had my fill of anxiety for one day.

Bottling up emotions is all fun and games until they all come barreling in at once.

When I finally composed a halfway decent text, I hit the send button before I had the chance to overthink it and climbed back into bed. I gripped onto my phone until it vibrated in my palm, tucking the comforter up and over my ears. Harry's response made the turbulence in my stomach calm down a little bit and I passed out pretty quickly afterwards from sheer exhaustion.

The next morning, the anxiety was a distant memory, and I was able to shake off all of the lingering negative feelings. My body felt weighed down and heavy, all of my muscles pulling tight, but I wrote it off as the lack of sleep and dragged myself to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

All day while I danced and while I worked at Dino's, my brain kept replaying pieces of the night before. Little flashes of conversation like snippets in a movie trailer. I wanted to shut it off, but it was never-ending. Small bits of his incessant questioning, the glimmer in his eye from the dim lighting in the restaurant, his hair falling perfectly into place after he ruffled a hand through the fluffy curls, that goddamn dimple.

I well and truly think that I am losing my fucking mind.

I even found myself wondering if he would show up at the gas station at night. And, even worse, when he didn't, my stomach dropped open in disappointment and I biked home with a weird pit in the bottom of my chest.