her to bolt to the elevator, leaving me in the dust, but she didn’t. She walked at a pace where I could keep up, hobbling along with my crutches. Luckily we were the only two people riding the elevator.
“Look,” I began, leaning against the back of the elevator, steadying myself with the bar. “We both said a lot of shit last night, a lot of it we didn’t even mean.”
Lyra crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Like what?”
“Shit, Lyra. You bruised my ego, all right? Is that what you wanna hear?”
Thump. Thump.
The elevator stopped.
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Lyra said, pacing the elevator. “How is this happening?”
“Relax, I’m sure it’ll be back on in a second.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, placing a hand on her neck, her cheeks turning a deep red. Her nostrils flared and her pupils dilated. “I’m claustrophobic. Like really bad.” With a start, she lunged at the buttons on the elevator, hammering against the “Emergency Call” button over and over. After several more seconds of her pacing back and forth, we heard a distant voice answer the call.
“We’ll have you out of there in just a few minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Please,” Lyra begged, her voice frantic. “I can’t do this. I need to get out!”
“Ma’am, I promise, we’ll have you moving again in just a few moments. Try to calm yourself down; there’s nothing to worry about. You are safe and secure within the elevator.”
“I’ll take care of her, thank you!” I yelled out to the voice. I reached one arm out to Lyra, attempting to rub a hand down her shoulder, trying my best to soothe her. “We’ll be back in the room before you know it.”
“I just… I can’t breathe in places like this. I hate elevators, hate them!”
“Maybe if you sat down?” I asked. She stopped pacing and looked down at the marble floor. I could tell she was sizing it up, weighing the steadiness of sitting down versus the germ factory that was that floor. “I’ll sit down with you if you want.”
“No,” she snapped, then she held up one hand and took a deep breath, lowering her voice. “I’d rather stand, thank you.”
“While we wait, maybe we should talk.”
“Not about us,” she said, shaking her head vigorously.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s literally anything in the world I’d rather discuss.”
“How about zombie attacks?”
“What? Why would I want to talk about that?” Her voice cracked as she spoke, and her eyes welled with tears. She was terrified. I wanted to distract her as best I could, and if we weren’t going to rip off the band-aid and talk about how fucked up we’d been to each other during the last day, then I had to think of something crazy, something to make her laugh.
I was failing miserably.
“Fine, bear attacks.”
She pressed her hands into her eyes,. “I don’t want to think about blood and gore, for God’s sake!”
“Okay, what else?” I asked, tapping my chin in an overdramatic way. “If you had to choose one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
She paused for a second, and I knew I’d finally distracted her. But how long it would last, I had no idea.
“It’s the only thing I can eat?”
“Yep, nothing else. For me, it’s easy—khichdi.”
She looked perplexed. “What is that again?”
“Indian dish—rice, lentils, total comfort food deliciousness. Now, what about you?”
“Uh…um…I, uh…bananas.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged, her eyes vacant. “I like bananas.”
I tilted my head to the side as I remembered an article I’d read in National Geographic. “You know, I read once that there was this man living in the jungle who lived almost completely on bananas. He was really old. You may be onto something.”
She didn’t look amused.
“But what about something else? Like a dish that means something to you, something special that your mom makes or something?”
“My abuela,” she said, her expression softening. “She taught me how to cook. Her enchiladas will change your life.”
“I’d like to try them sometime,” I said with a smile.
Something about that sentence struck a nerve. And a bad one at that. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking suspicious.
“I’m trying to distract you. You know, because of your panic attack. It’s working, right?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to pacing the small space. Silence hovered around us for at least a minute before I cleared my throat.
“What about us?”
“Dev, stop it. There is no us, not anymore.”
“We have to talk