Page 52 of The Sound of Him

I can’t breathe at all.

I wake up alone, Nolan nowhere to be found in the darkness of our shared room. My tongue is heavy and thick in my mouth, an intrusion I can't get rid of. It makes me gag and heave. I barely make it to the bathroom before purging what little my stomach has to offer.

It's not enough, though. My tongue is still tingling, still swelling, even if I know it's only really happening in my mind. I pinch it with my fingers, squeezing it as flat as it'll go. It feels like even the air is sticky and thick, just like the chocolates had been. It feels like my throat is swelling shut.

I turn the light on, blinking rapidly to clear away the stars that dance in my vision at first. Then I lean forward and stick my tongue out at my reflection in the mirror. It looks just as flat as it felt with my fingers squeezing it. There's a perfectly visible, open passage to my throat.

I can breathe.

I canseemyself breathing.

Stop,I try to tell the paranoia inside my head. It's just anxiety. It was just a dream. I can breathe. My tongue is normal. My mouth is otherwise empty. See?

I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe.

But the second I turn away from the mirror, my tongue is swelling again, a phantom death I can’t escape.

I've never explained to anyone what happened that night. Bryce was there, trying to save me. Jake was there, too. I don’t know what parts either of them heard or saw, though. Not all of them.

All I know is my death started on the sticky floor of the party room. I died with my eyes locked on a pair of shoes, Jake looking down at me as people laughed and laughed. My afterlife started in the pantry closet, my body half-draped over Bryce’s. I came back to life with a gasp of air and blurry vision, Bryce’s tear-soaked face the first thing I saw once the oxygen rushed into my lungs.

I remember Bryce sobbing before dragging me up against his chest. He had clung to me, his whole body shaking, as he said, “Fuck, oh, thank fuck, Matt, Matty, you with me? Yeah, yeah, fuck, you’re okay. You’re okay, Matty. I’ve got you. Just breathe. Just breathe, please, keep breathing.”

If my screams still haunt Nolan, what must they do to Bryce?

Neither of them know what it felt like that night, or what my life has felt like ever since. The things they do know are foggy, guesswork and observations pieced together. They know I struggle with food, maybe they even tie it to the chocolates, but they don’t know what happens when I try to eat, they don’t know how hard I reallydotry, they don’t know how often I’m sick. They know about the nightmares, but they don’t know how little I sleep, they don’t know about the bone-aching exhaustion, they don’t know that sometimes the nightmares come for me when I’m still awake.

They don’t know why I don’t talk.

Then again, neither do I.

They’ve always been there, though. By my side. They keep me company as I sit trapped in silence. They talk me through waves of panic and grief. They tell me it’s okay that I can’t talk, that everything is okay, that they love me, that they’re so fucking happy I’m still alive.

I won’t ever tell them I’m not so happy.

I cup a hand under the faucet, filling it with cold water before sipping it. It hurts to swallow. That’s probably from the anxiety, or maybe my throat is sore because I was screaming in my sleep again, but my brain won’t drop thewhat ifs.

What if your throat is closing again? What if you ate something earlier and it’s just now triggering you? What if the reaction before did some sort of damage and your body is just finally giving out?

What if you never actually caught your breath? What if you were right to be afraid? What if you really have been a ghost all this time?

I need Nolan. I need him to sit with me until this feeling goes away. Until I can convince my mind to accept reality. I need him to tell me that my throat is open, my tongue isn’t swelling.

I need him to tell me that I’m real.

I don’t know how to tell him I need those things, not with how messy my thoughts are or how shaky my hands, but him sitting beside me and not panicking should be enough. He’d never ignore me if those things were happening. He’d save me, just like Bryce had somehow.

That's why, even with a tongue that feels doubled and legs that barely hold me up, I force myself to go look for Nolan.

My search doesn’t last long. I don’t even make it to the first floor, getting caught halfway down a hall by the sound of Jake’s voice in the too-near distance saying, “I’ll be right there.”

Any bravery I’d managed to scrounge up evaporates.

There’s a moment where I’m no longer on my feet in a safehouse. I’m laying on the floor, at the Roarke compound, suffocating, and that voice is saying something else, is - is saying - and he’s Master Benny - but he’s - he’s Jake now - and -I can’t.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t breathe.

I grab the nearest door handle without even considering the consequences. I’m already stepping into the room before I can process that it’s at the very least rude, if not dangerous, to just walk into someone’s space like this.