What About Love?

Chapter 5 - The attack

[ CHAPTER 5 ]
*edited*

((song to the side: Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey))

We walked to his car in silence. He had told me earlier that the host's house was about 20 minutes away.

Archer unlocked the car doors once we were close enough and I slipped into the passenger seat. Archer backed up his car that he had gotten for his birthday out of the parking lot. I leaned in and put the radio on so I could avoid any awkward silence.

"So, who's going to be at the party?" I asked with the music playing low in the background.

"I don't really know exactly who's going to be there, but I do know that Scott, Wren, Connor, Levi, and Courtney are going to the party," he listed as we waited at the red traffic light.

"I haven't seen them in a while," I whispered to myself. I realized how long they haven't seen me, and I started to doubt if they'd remember me at all. Plenty of horrifying situations started to play in my head. What if they now hated me for leaving them? I suddenly became confused. The first year I was gone, we talked to each other but as time went on, we grew apart. I still knew what was going on in their lives, but from an outside point of view. I just wasn't their best friends anymore. The music in the background faded from my hearing as I zoned out from reality, and traveled to a dark place in my mind. I thought of my friends hating me and ridiculing me in front of everybody, just because I left them for three years. I didn't think that they'd like me anymore, because I wasn't the same timid person that left Waterside three years ago. The things that happened in my absence are the ones that changed me into a different person, and it was terrifying.

I soon realized that I had lost control of myself. My breaths were uneven, and I felt like I wasn't breathing at all. Suddenly aware that I couldn't breathe, I quickened my breaths.

Archer, who was apprehensive after hearing me having trouble breathing, asked, "Everly are you okay?" He looked at me with sincere green eyes, but they were equally filled with fear.

As I tried to calm myself down, which only made things worse, Archer exited out of the road to an empty parking lot. Archer rolled down the windows and shut off the engine of the car. The summer breeze from the outside entered the vehicle and tickled my bare back.

My mind switch back to my friends, or my ex-friends. I knew that they didn't like me anymore. They only liked the Everly I left behind.

"Everly, you need to cal-," he stopped, remembering that it was the worst thing to say to a person who was having a panic attack.

I was about to say that I was fine, but I started to cough in a violent fight.

"Everly, listen to me," he tried again as he cupped my cheeks in his hands. "Tell me what's wrong, talk to me. Don't keep it bottled up."

"I'm listening," he whispered the last part, his eyes holding my gaze. He let go of my cheeks and rested his hands on his lap.

"I-I don't know what got into me." My vision got a little blurry as it was filled with tears.

"Take a deep breath," Archer said gingerly. I did as he ordered me to; I took a deep, and shaky, breath.

"I-I was thinking about the party and-and I don't know, I thought no one would remember me," I stammered. I sniffed and wiped my tears with the back of my hand.

Out of nowhere, Archer unbuckled my seat belt and pulled me over on his lap. I snuggled into his neck and he laid his arm around my shoulders. I stopped weeping because of his soothing words.