"Hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that."
She never thought she’d feel safer walking through the city after dark than being inside her own home. She hadn’t stayed very long. She’d opened the door, noticed it opened too easily–the lock had been broken–and that the lamp on the side table was knocked over. No one was home (She checked, walking through the house with the lamp raised in her hands like a baseball bat.). and after making sure Miko was okay, she stepped back into the hall.
She sent out a single text to several friends, just a simple <>. She hadn’t decided what to do. Did she call the cops or something? Should she text her mom? But her parents were out of town until tomorrow and would panic. Miyako said she was at work and that Hikari was welcome to stop by and hang out, but she knew Miyako’s mom wasn’t thrilled when her friends loitered in the store.
Yamato texted her back next, and he was home. His apartment building wasn’t that far away either. She’d always liked his dad. There was something comforting about him, but also something very sad, and she always wanted to give him a hug though she never did. Hikari started walking before she’d consciously made a decision. She texted Taichi to pick her up from Yamato’s on her way home. She didn’t give details. She’d fill him in later, when he wasn’t busy.
She skipped the elevator–too many people–and headed straight for the stairs, taking them two at a time until that was too exhausting. She remembered someone telling her once (A teacher? Jyou? She couldn’t remember.) that exercise released endorphins. Maybe if she walked fast enough, endorphins would take over and she’d stop feeling so frightened. She would just hang out with Yamato for a while, probably just watch some television, and then she’d go back home and when she turned on the lights it probably wouldn’t look as bad as she remembered. She’d been frightened. She was overexaggerating. Nothing was probably even missing. She’d seen the television sitting there in the dark. If they took anything, they would have taken the television, right?
Her knock was tentative at first, and then a little stronger. She wasn’t bothering him, she reminded herself. He hadn’t said not to come over. He said he wasn’t busy. He came over and hung out with Taichi all the time, and not always with an invitation. They all did, at some point or another. She wasn’t sure when they’d stopped needing invitations. She was dwelling on this fact, the way some people picked at lint on their clothes, when Yamato opened the door.
She was fine. She hadn’t even been in the apartment when it had been broken into. She had no idea how many people were there or what they had looked like or why they chose that apartment of all the apartments in that building, on their floor. Her parents were fine. Her brother was fine–He had just texted her back with a simple <>–and her cat was even okay. She had absolutely no memory of the thing that had shaken her so deeply, except for the broken lock and the dented doorknob and the lamp lying on the floor with its bulb broken and its shade a few feet away.
She couldn’t figure out why he was asking that. She was fine. Even as she shook so hard that she couldn’t answer him, she kept thinking Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. Even as he cupped her elbow and gently pulled her into the apartment, she couldn’t understand why he thought something was wrong. She didn’t realize she was crying until he shut the door and pulled her into a hug, and she could feel moisture against his shirt that hadn’t been there when he’d opened the door.
“Hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that.”
She still couldn’t speak, so she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And she listened.
