Page 37 of The Design of Goodbye
An hour later, a bang like last week reverberated throughout the conference room. At first, Liam didn’t react. But, soon, I noticed the trembling of his hands and heard the shakiness in his voice as he tried to continue teaching me.
When an even louder noise sounded, he pushed away from the table so suddenly he almost fell over. He was trembling so much he barely managed to unzip his backpack. Just as he grabbed a few mints from the front pocket, a succession of bangs vibrated against the wall next to us, and he dropped them to cover his ears.
I picked a mint up for him, unwrapped it, and held it out to him. “Here.”
He didn’t take it. His gaze was distant, his breaths frantic.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly, trying to hide how scared his actions were making me. “Liam?”
He didn’t respond. I kneeled next to his chair. My hand hovered a few inches from his elbow, uncertain if I should touch him. But I had to do something, and if he wasn’t going to speak...
As soon as my hand made contact, his body slammed against the conference table.
“Don’t.”
I reeled back at his tone, but I knew not to take it personally. This was not the Liam I knew; this was an extremely panicked version I didn’t know how to help.
“It’s construction,” I said. “You’re okay.”
He left.
And this time, he didn’t take his stuff.
* * *
Liam was at the bike rack. I’d expected to find him sitting on the bench and be fine by now. A little shaken up, maybe, but overall fine.
He wasn’t.
“I hate to break it to you,” I said as he desperately pulled at his steel bike lock, “but you’re not the Hulk. You can’t break those cables.”
He didn’t laugh at what had been an excellent joke. I mean, I knew who the Hulk was—that was impressive.
“I can’t remember my combination.” He stopped pulling and stood. As soon as he did, he leaned against the bike rack. If the rack wouldn’t have been behind him, he would’ve fallen to the ground.
“That’s okay. We can figure it—”
“It’s not okay!” he yelled, hands gripping fistfuls of his hoodie. “I need to leave.”
“No.” Under no circumstances would I let him get on a bike right now. “What you need to do is calm down.”
“Ican’t!”
He pulled his hoodie over his nose and stood there, entire body tremorous. I had no idea how to help him.
“How about we go sit down?”
He didn’t move, so I gripped the bottom of his hoodie and dragged him to the bench. As soon as we sat down, he pressed a hand to his chest. Was he having some sort of medical emergency? Should I be calling an ambulance? Or, at the very least, searching through his backpack for his phone to call one of his parents?
“You’re scaring me.” My voice quavered. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, okay,” I said, stomach twisting at his response. “Try and breathe.” I felt ridiculous the moment I’d suggested it—wasn’t he already trying to do that?
“I can’t.” His voice was barely audible through the fabric of his hoodie. “I feel like...I feel like I’m going to...”
His heart rate. That was a thing people checked, right? I could try that, but only if he’d let me touch him. Given his reaction from earlier, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. At this point, though, I was willing to try anything.
