Chapter Text
January 17, 2020
Something was wrong.
Mallory was awake and alert in a terrified instant, as if a gun had gone off. She was shaking, her heart racing, clinging to her bedsheets and gasping for breath. Every instinct screamed at her that she was in danger. Someone had broken into her house – or there was a fire – or her heart had stopped.
No. It’s all right. She curled up her legs and hugged them. Nothing is happening. It’s just a panic attack.
But she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe!
This will pass. I’ll be able to breathe again, and I’ll get back to sleep, and in the morning, it’ll all feel like a dream.
She must have gone through this at least two hundred times. Hundreds of nights of panic attacks, and every time she’d survived it. She’d survive this one, too.
This will pass, she told herself, repeating the phrase over and over again. She tried to match her breathing to her words so that she wouldn’t hyperventilate and make herself light-headed. This-will-pass in, this-will-pass out. It almost drowned out the screaming voice of her fear.
It went on and on. She didn’t look at the clock to see how long. If she did, it would make her anxiety worse, and she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep afterwards. She just tried to force herself to focus on her mantra. If she only thought about how to breathe and not how terrifying this was, she would be all right.
Finally, she began to notice that it wasn’t so hard to space out her breaths anymore. The adrenaline left her shaking, and she squeezed her arms even tighter around her legs to get the tension out. But now, when she told herself that there was an end to all this, she believed it.
She lay in her bed until the shaking began to slow down and finally stopped. Then, she loosened her arms. If she didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes, she could get back to sleep and probably get a few more hours before she had to get up for school. So she stayed there, letting her exhaustion take over.
Another panic attack, another time she’d made it through. How many more would there be?
Mallory was still tired when her alarm went off. She stretched and dragged herself out of bed. Another day. At least she’d get to eat at a restaurant for dinner tonight – that was something to look forward to. It was her birthday, so she’d probably get a couple of presents, too.
She checked her phone as she got dressed and put up her hair. There were a couple replies to fanfiction reviews and comments she’d left, and someone had gotten up early enough to have left birthday wishes on Facebook. She responded to one of the review replies and went out for breakfast.
“Morning,” said Mom, making coffee. “How did you sleep?”
“Okay,” Mallory said. She had never told Mom about her nighttime panic attacks. She’d been scared to talk about them at first, afraid to hear someone confirm her belief that she was dying. Now, she knew what was really going on, but she still kept quiet because Mom wouldn’t understand. Once, she’d mentioned the idea that she might be depressed (which she was, of course, but she hadn’t been sure about it back then), and Mom had laughed and said that she had nothing to be depressed about. She couldn’t really tell her sister, either: Sandra already had enough going on in her life without worrying about Mallory.
“Happy birthday!” Mom said. “You’re sixteen! It’s so exciting!”
“Thanks.” Mallory poured herself cereal and milk. There was a birthday card from her grandparents at her place at the table. They hadn’t written much of a message, but they’d put money in it. She put it down and read the newspaper comics as she ate. Then, she got ready for school. Mom drove her there on her way to work, same as she did every day. She dropped her off down the street, and Mallory trudged to the main building.
School was… school. Mallory did well – she was always on the honor roll – but she was the kind of person whom everyone ignored, even the teachers. Most of the time, she was fine with that. She’d somehow gotten herself into a group of kids who ate lunch together, or at least in the same place, so she didn’t have the awkwardness of eating alone. They weren’t friends, but they knew her name, which was something.
“If I’d known it was your birthday, I would’ve brought cookies,” said one of the girls. Of course, that was easy for her to say now that it was too late to do anything about it.
Mallory went home on the bus and started her homework. It was easier for her to focus if she went straight to doing it once she got home. There was reading for history, vocabulary for science, and the obligatory page of math questions. Mom came home at some point, but she didn’t come to her room to talk to her.
“Mallory!” she called from down the hall, maybe an hour later. “Your brother’s on the phone!”
On Mom’s phone? Mallory pulled out her own phone to see if she had a missed call. Out of battery. Oops. She hoped Sandra wasn’t mad at her for forcing her into an unplanned conversation with Mom. “I don’t have a brother,” she called back.
Mom appeared in her doorway with her phone in one hand and a box with crumpled wrapping in the other. “Look, do you want to talk to him or not?”
“No, I wouldn’t, but I’d love to talk to my sister.”
Mom looked at the ceiling in a this-generation-is-ridiculous look and handed over the phone, putting down the box. Making things look pretty was not one of Sandra’s talents, and this gift had probably gone through the mail.
“I’m sorry, I guess I forgot to charge my phone,” she said, waving at Mom to leave. “My fault.”
“Mallory!” Sandra said. “Happy birthday!”
“Thanks.”
“And don’t worry about it, I still have to talk to Mom one way or another. She’ll give in eventually. Besides, people misgender me all the time. I can take it.”
Mallory had always been surprised that Mom had a problem with Sandra at all. Considering she was afraid of men, it would have made sense for Mom to be happy to learn that Sandra wasn’t one, but apparently, if men were wolves to her, then trans women were wolves in sheep’s clothing. Also, she seemed to blame herself for not giving her “son” good male role models. But at least Sandra could handle it. Mallory hadn’t even come out as asexual to anyone but Sandra and some people online. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if she had some identity that she couldn’t just quietly stay in the closet about, or that was so violently hated by society.
“Oh, Zee says happy birthday, too,” she added.
Zee was the person Sandra had been dating for the past year. “Tell them thanks,” Mallory said.
“So what have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
“No parties?” she asked, in mock horror.
“No.” Mallory sighed. “Can I come live with you?”
“Hmm, let’s check the date… by my calculations, in precisely two years, you can live wherever you want. I should have a full-time job by then. I might even have money!”
Mallory managed to smile.
“Speaking of money, your present might possibly just be a box of free stuff I’ve picked up around campus. I mean, I’m not saying for sure, but…”
“It’s okay,” said Mallory, laughing. Last year, she’d just given Mallory some crafts she’d made at a student event somewhere. “You’re still my favorite sister.”
“I’m your only sister.”
It was an old joke, though of course Mallory used to say favorite brother instead. But Sandra still seemed to like it, so Mallory kept saying it. “You want me to open your present now?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Sandra’s gift was a shoebox with a collection of random things inside: a few pens and pencils, a small notepad, a pocket-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, a pair of sunglasses, and a hand towel. All of it either had the logo of the school or a business on it. “Thanks,” Mallory said, trying to sound appreciative. “Pens and pencils are always helpful, and I can keep the hand sanitizer in my backpack and use it at school.”
“Good,” said Sandra. “I’m glad there’s something you wanted in there.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She glanced at the clock. “I should probably get ready for dinner.”
“Ooh, where are you going?”
“Some Italian place.”
“I’m eating Italian, too! Canned ravioli.”
Mallory laughed again.
“I’ll just keep dreaming of real food. Talk to you later.”
“Love you.”
“You too, sis.”
Mallory gave Mom her phone back, put her shoes on, and combed her hair. In her earliest memories, it had been a big deal to go out for dinner, even just to a fast food place. It had taken Mom years to pick herself up from leaving Dad. He’d kept almost everything, even things that Mom had owned before they’d gotten married, and there had been years of lawyers and court appearances to deal with afterwards. Mallory didn’t remember Dad like Sandra and Mom did – she’d been two when they left – but she remembered the effects he’d had on her life, and restaurant meals were part of that. Sitting down for something like chicken alfredo had only been for birthdays, something Mom would save up for. It wasn’t so exciting now, but they still went on birthdays, as a tradition.
“You want to drive?” Mom asked as they got into the car.
“No.”
“You need the practice so you can get your license. You’re sixteen. Most kids would have gone to have their test today.”
“I shouldn’t be forced to drive on my birthday. I’m supposed to be having fun today.”
Mom shrugged. “If you say so.”
They were quiet in the car, but she started up again after they got to the restaurant and ordered their food. “You’re going to have to think about what you want to do with your life,” she said. “You’ll be in college before you know it.”
“Yeah,” said Mallory. She knew that. But there wasn’t anything she wanted to do with her life. She liked reading, and she liked reading analysis of books and movies. So she should study English, but she was a terrible fiction writer (she kept trying to start fanfics of her own and then quitting when she realized how bad they were), and even though she was a bit better with essays, she hated writing them. Anyway, she knew Mom would never go for her being an English major. Sandra had pushed it enough by aiming for social work, but at least jobs existed for that, even if they didn’t pay well. And besides, social workers and women’s shelters had basically saved their lives when they had been hiding from Dad, so Mom couldn’t argue too much. The real problem was that Sandra had refused to go to school in the South, let alone in-state, so even with every scholarship imaginable, she would still be paying off student loans forever.
“Any ideas?”
“Not really.”
“You should talk to your guidance counselor. Maybe they could help.”
There was no way Mallory wanted to do that. That would require personally going to Guidance and asking for an appointment, and then being pulled out of class, which would attract all kinds of attention, to actually speak to someone. And the counselor would probably land on English, too, so the only benefit would be that she would be able to say an adult agreed with her.
“You have to make sure you make something better out of your life than I did.”
That was what it was all about. Do something so that you don’t end up with a husband who controls your life. Who hits you if you “embarrass” him in public. Who makes you beg for him to give you some of the money you earned at your own job. Who says everything he does to you is your own fault. Mom liked to imagine that if she had finished college, she might have left earlier. It probably wasn’t true, but in the end, everything piece of advice she gave came back to him in one way or another.
“You should think about a summer job. You can get paid, now that you’re sixteen.”
Mallory didn’t know how to answer that. The two weeks she’d had of sleepaway camp when she was eleven and twelve stood out in her mind as the best two weeks of her life. But she’d tried interviewing for a counselor-in-training program at a summer camp last year, and she’d completely blanked out and stumbled through messy half-answers once she got there. Nobody would hire her to work for money if she couldn’t even speak for herself in an interview. Besides, she had panic attacks at night now, so she couldn’t work at a sleepaway camp – someone might wake up and see what was happening. And she’d rather starve than work somewhere like McDonalds.
The conversation went painfully slowly until the food came. There wasn’t much to say after that. Mom ordered a slice of cake for dessert and convinced the waiter to put a candle in without singing “Happy Birthday” or making a fuss about it, because there were some things she understood. Mallory looked at the burning candle and made the same wish she’d made on every birthday candle, every dandelion, every 11:11, every chance she’d had to make a wish for as long as she could remember: Take me away from here.
Sure, she’d worded it differently when she was a kid, more like Let me go on an adventure or Send me a Hogwarts letter. But it had always meant the same thing: Take me out of this life and let me be part of something that matters. These days, she didn’t even care about doing things that mattered. She just wanted to go somewhere else. To do something else.
In two years, I can leave. But the thought of those two years, stretching out in the same pattern of school-home-school-home-school-home, seemed endless. And even if she did go and live with Sandra, which would probably not be a particularly fun kind of adventure, she’d have months of high school left, and that would be at a new school where she didn’t have anyone to eat lunch with. Plus, with any luck, Sandra would be living with Zee, and Mallory hadn’t even met them, not in person. And what was really the likelihood? She’d probably go to the University of Georgia to get in-state tuition. God, she’d probably go to a university there in Atlanta and never even leave Mom: that would be easier. And it would just be more of the same for four more years.
It’ll pass by before I notice it, like Mom said, Mallory thought. Just keep going, and time will pass, whether you try or not, and one day you’ll have your own house or apartment and your own job.
And that was going to be so much better?
After they ate the cake, Mom handed her a small present. She unwrapped it and found a silver necklace with an M on it. “I couldn’t find anything that said Mallory,” Mom explained.
“It’s nice.”
“Can’t you be enthusiastic about anything? You would have loved this a few years ago.”
Would she have? Probably. Or at least she’d have been better at faking it. But it was just a necklace. Sandra’s collection of free stuff was at least useful, if not very interesting.
“Can’t buy you earrings, can’t buy you necklaces, don’t know what books you’ve already read or which ones you want…”
Mallory instinctively reached up to twist one of her earrings. She wore them day and night – it was easier not to have to make any choices or think about them. You could buy Sandra jewelry, she thought. Even Grandma had once, although she seemed to have the impression that Sandra was a drag queen who dressed like a woman for fun. But all Mallory said was, “I’m ready to go.”
Back home, she finished her homework as she watched one of the Harry Potter movies. Once it was over, she got ready for bed. She usually read for an hour or so before she turned out her lights. This time, she skipped the dystopian novel she was in the middle of reading – too realistic – and pulled out her copy of The Return of the King instead. Lord of the Rings was always a comfort when she was feeling bad. The world was detailed enough that she could disappear into it, and in the story, everything seemed hopeless but still somehow came out all right in the end.
She was at Cirith Ungol now, and last time she’d had it out, Sam had just found Frodo. She’d fallen into a habit of reading the same bits over and over (the Mirror of Galadriel, Éowyn and the Witch-King, and Éowyn and Faramir at the Houses of Healing) but she’d finally decided she needed to read it from the beginning again, even if she only took it out every week or two. Somehow, even though she spent so much time with the books, this was only her second time reading it all the way through, and she was surprised how much she’d forgotten. It was good to get back to basics.
Finally, she felt tired enough to put the book down and turned out the light. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In and out and in and out. If she just kept breathing, she would get to sleep. And hopefully, considering she didn’t usually get panic attacks more than once or twice a week unless there was a group project or finals or something else that was stressing her out really badly, she’d stay that way until morning.
She was only half right. She did sleep, but she didn’t stay that way. Out of nowhere, she was wide awake and breathless with fear. Her heart was racing, a band squeezing her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees. Nothing is happening, she reminded herself. It’s just a panic attack.
Only, the sun was shining through her eyelids. It shouldn’t be this light until she was arriving at school. She must already be late. But it didn’t feel like morning, it only felt like she’d slept a few hours. And why hadn’t Mom woken her up? She’d had alarm clock problems before, and Mom always noticed. Was there something wrong with her? But the chances of Mom getting sick on the same day Mallory accidentally turned off her alarm were basically zero. It felt like she was lying on the floor, too, not her bed. Something was wrong. Something was capital-W Wrong.
She went numb. Distantly, she knew where the ground was and the way her arms held onto her legs, but she didn’t feel anything. She couldn’t tell herself things were all right, because she knew they weren’t. She couldn’t tell herself this was nothing. She couldn’t even tell herself this will pass, because she had no idea how long the panic attack would last, and the whole time she’d have no idea what was going on or when she’d get to school.
If she couldn’t control herself, she was sure she was going to pass out. Then again, if she was unconscious, her brain wouldn’t be telling her body that it couldn’t breathe, so she couldn’t die or anything. But what if she could? What if she just breathed less and less until she suffocated?
This is a panic attack. My mind made it all up. I’m going to live through it.
But she’d overslept. Overslept.
From a long way away, some part of her decided to open her eyes and start to figure out what the problem was. So her eyes opened, almost of their own accord. They looked around at where she was.
And then she closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands, and lost it completely.