Not Another Love Story

Chapter 12

Me being the control freak that I am sometimes, I chose to lift my hand and touch Stephanie on the shoulder, instead the other way around. At least I had full control and I could stop before I started to be sick. Or at least I hoped so.

I drew my hand closer and closer and when the nausea hit me, I stopped, then pulled my hand away, and then I brought it closer, doing my best to relax. Stephanie was looking at me curious and amused at the same time.

When I started feeling nauseous again, I relaxed more and pulled the nausea away. Then images flooded my head. I started to contract and feel overwhelmed, but I took a deep breath and relaxed while exhaling slowly. The nausea and overwhelm went away. As soon as I was trying to focus on one image, or feeling, the nausea came back, so I chose to allow all that information to be present in front of me and around me. It felt like I was being flooded by Stephane's life, memories, thoughts and a whole lot more. I had to remind myself to breathe and relax while allowinging myself to just be present with whatever was going on around me. Relax. Breath. Let go.

"Jenifer?"

Opening my eyes, I saw Stephanie in front of me, waving her hands in front of my face, but not touching me.

"You're alive!" she sighed in relief.

"What? What happened?"

"You tell me! You started moving your hand closer and closer to my hand until it was on my hand and you passed out."

Lifting my head from the couch, I tried to remember what happened, but I couldn't focus. Images about Stephanie were all around me. When she was young, when she transformed into a wolf and scared a bully from her school. When she was working at the restaurant. I took a deep breath and allowed myself to relax while breathing out. I remembered that focusing on something and trying to ignore everything else wasn't working. So I allowed my attention to be on everything and then I started picking different thoughts, or images like I was in a huge library picking out books. Being present with each book and with the whole library at the same time. That made everything so much easier.

Then I turned my attention to Stephanie, who was looking concerned at me, and allowing myself to still be present with everything else.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of this!" I told her. "Did one of your neighbors have a cat that you liked to chase around at night?"

Her mouth dropped. Then she managed to pull herself together.

"Yes. How do you know that? I'm sure I didn't tell you about that fur ball."

"I'm not sure how to explain, but it's like I can see that and all kinds of other stuff all around you. And there's a lot of information. And I tried to understand it and focus on one thing and that was causing the nausea. But now, I'm staying present with all of that and it's way easier to search through all the information."

She was shocked. I could sense everything that was going on for her at that moment. A little freaked out but mostly surprised and curious.

"Yes, I know everything that is going through your head right now." I answered her, before she asked the question out loud.

"That's so weird and cool! I can't decide if I should freak out that I can't have another secret ever with you, or that I should hug you and celebrate how fucking amazing you are!"

I had no words.

"I am so grateful to have you as a friend, Stephanie!" I managed to tell her, feeling like I might start crying. "Really."

And I knew that she was grateful for me too.

"Thank you for not freaking out because I just know everything about you."