an eternity. Count of five. Count of ten. His body heat begins to ease the cold. My heart rate slows. My lungs ache, but the constriction lessens until I’m able to breathe without pain.
I don’t know how long we sit there. His arms stay locked around me, his chest moving against my back in rhythm with every breath I take.
Slowly, I become aware that we’re still sitting on the floor of the café, noise rising from downstairs, but the room around us oddly quiet.
Oh, no.
No.
I open my eyes, blinking to clear my vision. Archer, Allie, and Sheryl are hovering near the door. One of them must have asked the customers to leave the room because the tables are empty. But I don’t know how many people witnessed my descent into panic. No one except Dean has ever seen me through a full-fledged attack.
Tears flood my eyes. He loosens his grip on me and gets to his feet, then reaches down to help me stand. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at anyone.
“Liv, are you all right?” Sheryl hurries forward with another glass of water, her eyes dark with worry and her face pale.
Although I nod, I’m still shaking enough that I know I won’t be able to hold the glass. Dean takes it from Sheryl and turns, shielding me with his body as he lifts the glass to my mouth.
I take a couple of sips and force my gaze to his. His expression is a mask of pain and concern.
“Get me out of here,” I whisper.
He nods, turning to put the glass on a table. He’s saying something to the others, but I don’t bother to listen.
Tears of embarrassment and anger crawl up my chest and clog my throat. I manage to stave them off until we get into the car, then I press my face into my hands and surrender to the sobs that leave my throat raw and my body aching.
Dean puts his hand on the back of my neck and doesn’t move until the crushing storm has passed. I take a deep breath and straighten, pulling myself together.
“Let me see.” He takes my hands, turning my palms upward.
A few pinpricks of red mar my palms from the cut glass. Dean lifts my hands closer, picking a few tiny pieces of glass out. He brushes his fingers over my palms, his touch soft as cotton.
“What was it?” he asks gently.
“I…the surgeon’s nurse called me earlier.” My voice sounds very far away, faint and thin. “She said Dr. Turner had a cancellation, and they can fit me in for the surgery on Monday.”
His grip on my wrist tightens. “That’s good news, Liv.”
But nothing good ever triggers a panic attack. Only suffocating fear, the sense of being trapped, unable to get out…
“I knew you would say that.”
“It makes sense to get it done as soon as possible,” he says. “Once the surgery is over and we get the pathology report, we can make a plan for further treatment.”
We.
Since the day we met, it’s always been we and us. Everything we’ve been through has pulled us closer together. But this time, I’m the only one who has the sick, dreadful sense that the surgery will tell me something I don’t want to know.
A weight presses down on me. I have a strange flashback to the only Christmas I remember with my father, preserved in a single photograph of him and me. I was seven, and he’s sitting beside me, both of us smiling as I hold a big, stuffed bear with a red ribbon around its neck.
“What did you tell the nurse?” Dean asks.
“That I would call her back.”
“So call her back and tell her you’ll take the appointment. Or do you want me to do it?”
“No, I don’t want you to do it,” I reply, my voice unexpectedly sharp. “I’m perfectly capable of calling my own doctors and nurses, okay?”
After a brief silence, he says, “All right. I’m sorry. I just want the damned thing done.”
That’s Dean. Get things done. Finish the job. Win the battle.
I press the bridge of my nose between my fingers. “I need to go in for the pre-op appointment.”
“When is that?”
“Friday afternoon.” I take out my phone and scroll my calendar. “But I have to pick Bella up from preschool at two and take her to gymnastics.”
Dean is silent for a moment before he settles his hand on my knee.
“Liv, sweetie, listen.”
I force my gaze to him, hating the anguish in his eyes,