After the End: Book 4

24. The Power of Choice

Louis POV

When Harry had panic attacks, he was a mess. He cried. He hyperventilated. Visually, his entire being fell apart every time. He couldn't hide it. He had always been like that, from the time I first met him onwards. The panic used to be smaller, but it had always been the same expression. It had just gotten more intense with time.

I'd never been like that. I was just more reserved. The worst I tended to express in bouts of panic was a bit of compulsive pacing.

I think it was the composure that was throwing Cory off. She didn't know how to react to it. I didn't think she was a compassionate person by nature. I'd guess that Harry was the exception. Any skill she reserved in comforting another person was probably Harry specific.

I was sitting in the drivers seat of my car. The engine was running, but I wasn't moving to drive it. I couldn't fathom trying to drive at the moment.

Cory was sitting in the passenger seat. She gotten into the car without question after we'd walked out of Ash's house. She'd not had a single complaint about it. I was the one who'd hesitated right outside the front door. My hard shell had started to slip for a moment, but Cory had demanded we keep walking without pause, away from the house and into my car. We couldn't stay there. We had to leave. She didn't even care that her car was still trapped in the drive way.

I'd started the car. I'd driven 30 meters, and then I'm immediately pulled over. Cory had looked incredibly confused at that.

Someone had just pointed a gun at me.

All of the terror that I had shoved away in the moment engulfed my body all at once. I had been terrified. I had felt it under the surface of false calm. I thought I might die. I had envisioned for a moment that my son wouldn't have a dad and I felt so incredibly stupid for putting myself in that position. I'd been so naive and reckless and the thought horrified me.

This was exactly the thing I'd meant to avoid after the last time. It was exactly what Harry meant to protect me from by leaving. This was it. It was the massive danger he'd claimed to want to save me from, and I had walked right into it for none other then Cory Fucking Bleu without a second thought.

"Are you freaking out?" Cory finally asked kind of timidly. She was still slurring slightly. If I bothered to look her way, I'd see her gaze fixed on me in deep concern.

"No," I said tightly.

Maybe that was a lie. I wasn't really sure. I assumed it relied heavily on whatever she considered freaking out. I wasn't hyperventilating or anything. I was just staring straight ahead with my hands on the wheel and my eyes wide.

"Then what—"

"I'm processing," I cut her off with a calm mumble. I didn't feel calm anymore. I just felt frozen as the panicked feelings covered me.

"What does that mean?" She asked.

"It means someone just tried to shoot me in the head, Cory," I replied keeping my eyes forward.

"I don't think he would have actually done it," she said as if that were pertinent information. "If that helps."

"It doesn't."

She kept staring at me. I kept staring forward. I thought my heart was beating rather quickly. My fingertips felt numb. Deep breaths. In and out.

"Are you sure you're not freaking out?" Cory asked again.

"I'm going to freak out if you keep asking me that," I said with a rising tension. I looked her way finally.