Imagines

Panic Attack - Florence Pugh (1)

(Potential Trigger Warning)

"Oh no." I mutter to myself. "No, no, no. Not now."

I was walking home from town along the seafront when I feel a panic attack coming on.

I try to steady my breathing as I sit down on the nearest bench but it wasn't working. My hands start to shake as my breaths become more ragged.

"Hey... are you okay?" A voice asks.

I didn't want to have to rely on a stranger but I couldn't exactly lie when I was sat here trembling.

"I... can't breathe."

The girl sits down next to me and places a hand on my shoulder.

"I want you to do something for me okay? I want you to name five things you can see." She says gently.

"I... I can't."

"Yes you can. Come on, just five things."

"Um... the pavement, the bench... the wall, the ocean and um... that seagull." I say between shaky breaths.

"Good, now four things you can hear."

"You, me... those kids and music from the pier."

"Great. Three things you can touch?"

"My jeans, the bench... Uhh... you?"

She chuckles lightly and the sound sparks something inside me.

"That's good, now two things you can smell."

"Fish and chips and your perfume."

"One thing you can taste?"

"Mint." I say, my breathing now back to normal. I turn to face her for the first time. "Thank y... oh my God..."

As my eyes meet the green eyes of the girl next to me, finally realising who she was.

She grins. "Are you feeling better now?"

"You're... Florence Pugh..." I stutter, ignoring her question.

"Yes, but please keep breathing I'd hate for you to have another panic attack."

I laugh. "I think I'm good now. Thank you for helping me."

"No problem. I wasn't going to just walk past you when you were clearly struggling. Do you know what caused it?"

"No." I sigh. "It just happens occasionally, probably residual stress from all the uni work I've been doing."

"Well it was a good job I was here then."

"Yeah. Wait what are you doing here?"

Florence chuckles. "My sister needed a lift; she's visiting a friend who grew up near here."

"Don't you live in LA? Bit of a long way to travel just to give your sister a lift."

Her chuckle turns into a full laugh and I grin, proud of myself for making Florence Pugh laugh.

"I'm visiting my family for a few weeks. Do you live around here?"

"Yes then no then yes again." I joke. "I grew up here, then moved away with my then girlfriend, but then moved back to my parents' a few months ago when we broke up."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay, it was a fairly toxic relationship. She couldn't handle my mental health problems and said I was always depressing her too whenever I had an episode, which of course, made it worse. I've been doing much better though; this was actually my first panic attack since being back home and I really don't know why I'm telling you all this." I blush