The Virgin Bet

28

Day 18 - 8:34 pm

Charlotte gazed into the now foreign green eyes in front of her as her throat twisted into knots, making it harder for her to breathe. His usual curly, long hair was cut short and slicked back away from his piercing eyes. She could see it in his face that he meant no harm and that he only wanted her safety. Although her brain told her not to trust him, she did it anyways.

She reached out and grabbed his hands, making him stare at her quizzically for a short moment. Her hands gripped tighter as her breaths became rigid and they became desperate gasps of air. Harry knew what to do, something that she had not even told Cole about in fright of scaring him off. He looked into her eyes as he gave her a small nod.

"Okay, you need to relax. I don't know what got you all riled up, but whatever it is does not matter right now. You have to inhale and exhale for about five seconds each." His words did little help though, for she could not get the negative images of Cole and Becky out of her brain long enough to focus. Harry's brows furrowed together as he stood up and walked behind her, kneeling down just as he had before. He wrapped one arm around to her chest where her heart was, and he let the other snake around to cup her stomach.

Charlotte squirmed slightly, tears rushing down her cheeks from not being able to calm down before she heard his deep voice. "I'm sorry, but if you can't do it by yourself, then I'll have to help you through this. I don't need you passing out tonight." He muttered softly, taking in a deep breath. "Listen to my words, follow my instructions, and your heart rate will go down." She wanted to scream at him, but she just couldn't. If he could help her now, then that's all that really mattered. "Inhale." Her chest rose along with his words as she took in a winded, yet long breath. "Exhale." She puffed all of the air out of her lungs.

It took her a minute to get her composure to follow his words exactly, but soon enough she was able to follow her breaths along with the rhythmic pattern of inhales and exhales he spoke of. Once Charlotte had calmed down enough that her heart rate dropped, he removed his hands from her chest and stomach. Harry made his way around until he knelt in front of her again, looking up into her newly red eyes.

"See, you're all better." He offered her a small smile, which she weakly returned. Her body still shook slightly as she recovered from her previous panic attack, but now she knew that she was safe. Then, Charlotte did the one thing that she never in a million years would've thought that she would ever do again. She slunk down to ground level with Harry and embodied him in a big hug. He was so shocked by her actions that it took him a moment to wrap his own arms around her in return.

Charlotte would have never thought that her ex boyfriend, out of all the people she knew, would be the one to bring her back down to earth from her attack. Her face buried into the white undershirt of his tux, lightly staining the white material with her smeared mascara. His large hand ran down her back soothingly, hoping to further calm her down. She thought that he was only obsessed, but it turns out that he actually still cared about her. It made her heart ache at the thought. Especially with Becky's dying presence in the back of her mind still.

Meanwhile, back in the crowd, Dylan pushed his way through the sweaty young adults dancing to some generic pop song to reach Cole and Becky. The two of them were still catfighting, and he was sick of watching it. He caught hints of their conversation before he even reached them.

"What do you mean that I'm being childish? You're the one who brought the virgin here in the first place after you kissed me last night." Becky had her award winning smirk upon her lips, and Cole's red face was fuming with anger.