A panic attack. Ahren was having a panic attack. Shit.
Anna hadn’t had one since high school, she was medicated now, but a pang in her chest at the sound of it in his voice, the lost and the broken and the miserable, made her entire being ache, and she found herself clutching the phone tighter, curling up into a ball as she sat further back into her chair. “Alright, okay. Can you…is there something you can focus on…” she thought for a moment before it clicked and she nodded to herself. “Listen to my voice, okay? And just breathe. Listen, and breathe. Count in with me, one two and then three, out one two and three.”
The blonde demonstrated this breathing technique, one she used for centering herself during yoga session, for Ahren over the phone. She continued to monitor everything as he spoke, listening to the change in his voice. The world around them grew quieter at one point and she knew he didn’t have her on speaker phone anymore. The words he was saying, that he hadn’t wanted to call anyone else, that he didn’t know who else to call, made something in her chest swell and take up more space than it was used to possessing than ever before.
When his voice cracked a small sound came out of her throat and she realized it was a whimper; imagining the pain that he must have been feeling, something that she had gone through before herself, was like a physical reminder. “Of course,” she said, voice a bit choked. But, she smiled, once her mind had been made up. “Whatever you need, Ahren. Keep me on the phone if you want, too but, um, if you can’t drive I can–”
She cut herself off and bit her lip, deciding against that. No, no he sounded okay enough for that, but it was something she hadn’t been able to do, before, so it was an automatic response. Instead, she rattled off her address and, moments after she hung up, called the front of the apartment complex to let them know she was having someone come in and to buzz the gates open. Then, she paced by her front door until she heard a knock, toying with her fingers, heart in her throat.
In all the time she’d known him, Ahren had never, not once, had a panic attack. Not even when she’d learned about his mom. So whatever this was, whatever had set it off, was huge. And he wanted to come to her for it. That alone was staggering, but the sound of knuckles rapping at her front door pushed that thought to the back of her mind. Pulling it open so hard she nearly knocked herself backward, Anna pulled him into the hug she could already see coming, burying her face in his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his middle.
“You’re welcome,” she said, voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt, “but you don’t ever have to thank me. Ever, okay? I’m glad you came here.” And it was true. She was. More than she could have realized before. But the anxiety of waiting for him to drive here, of hearing that sound in his voice and wanting to make it go away, it had all come into a stark reality then. When he pulled away, she dropped her arms away only to grab one of his hands and tug him gently toward the couch, dropping them both carefully onto the cushions and curling up into his side as much as he would allow.
Some people wanted to be touched, others left alone. Anna was taking a gamble and saying, by the hug that she’d gotten opening the door, Ahren was the former. Her fingers stroked down the sides of his face, through his hair, down his arm, hand gripping tight before she started speaking, voice quiet but firm.
“Yeah I do. Ahren what happened? What’d she say?”
Anna knew about Lily, knew that she and Ahren had been together for years before, that things had gone down, Ahren hadn’t wanted to get clean and she had but that–
–that couldn’t have been what caused this.
as Ahren tried to calm the panic within him, the moment Anna took his hands and guided him to her couch, he felt the weight on his chest ease ever so slightly–and the more she seemed to touch him the more grounded he seemed to get. he took a deep, slow breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth after holding it for a moment, practicing the breathing that she had tried to help him with before he drove over so he could get the words out and tell her what was wrong. the hand she still held shifted to interlace their fingers together, holding it firmly as he trembled slightly as he worked up the courage to speak.
while he was finding his words, his free hand fished his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open, taking out a tightly folded piece of paper; two pieces folded up together to be exact. he held it in his hand and stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell Anna about what was making him fall apart like this.
"she left again," he whispered with little emotion as he swallowed around the lump in his throat, a stray tear falling from his eye that he wiped away quickly. "but left me this with a note 'cause I asked for—" his voice cracked, his lungs sucking in another breath before he kissed her knuckles and took his hand back to unfold the was of paper in his grasp.
"...if I'd been there, if she had told me, if I had known.." he started again as he unfolded it slowly, only to reveal a sonogram of a baby girl and the note his ex-fiancee had left him before disappearing from his life again.
"Lily was five months pregnant with my daughter and...she miscarried..slipped on the top of our stairs while I was somewhere getting high and being a piece of shit.. she never told me she was pregnant, never told me how far along she was.. she wanted me to stop doing shit back then and I didn't, so she kept it from me.." despite the flat tone of Ahrens voice while the pain made him numb, tears streamed down his face while he brushed his thumb over the little silhouette of the daughter he never got to meet. "I'd have a 4 year old daughter right now if I had just fucking been there for her.."
that was when the emotion came back— like a wave that pulled a gut-wrenching sob from the bottom of Ahrens very being. he dropped his face into his palms, falling apart and leaning into the only touch he wanted right then while he unloaded the flood he'd kept behind a dam for weeks now.
"that's all I've ever fucking wanted—a chance to be a father… a chance to be what I never had, and do it better than someone who would up and leave before the kids even around—and I fucked it up all because I wouldn't get sober when she wanted me to…" Ahren had never had a breakdown like this in front of anyone in years, and the only person he felt safe enough to be this vulnerable with again was Anna. part of him hated that he was coming crying to her with something he should have handled by himself, but the selfish part of him wanted her near him even while he fell apart; her presence was a comfort he was beginning to realize he wanted more than he thought.
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