Thanks a Lot, Universe by Chad Lucas

Author:Chad Lucas [Lucas, Chad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781647001346
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2021-05-10T18:30:00+00:00

I shook. I couldn’t breathe. The sludge was strangling me. I felt like I was dying.

I had to get out of here.

The idea was so urgent, my body acted on reflex. Next thing I knew, I stood in the hallway. My belly quivered. I needed someone to save me before I stopped breathing and keeled over, so I stumbled toward the brightest light in the house, a blue flicker in the basement stairwell. Halfway down the steps, my eyes went starry and my stomach caught fire. I had to lean against the banister and wait for my senses to recalibrate.

“Brian? Whoa,” Gabe said somewhere below me. “You look awful.”

I couldn’t speak. Gabe guided me to the couch. He’d paused his PlayStation in the middle of a basketball game. I hunched over my knees, trying to breathe.

“Are you sick?” Gabe asked. “Want me to get Mom?”

“Don’t go,” I croaked. I didn’t want to be alone. I’d never felt so helpless.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“I …” Squeezing out words was so hard. “I … can’t … breathe.”

He studied me. “Is your heart racing? You feel out of control?”

I nodded.

“Sounds like a panic attack. Try taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly.”

Gabe rubbed my back. An awful eternity passed before my hammering heart slowed and my stranded-fish gasping relented. I felt the coolness of the wood floor against my bare soles. Gabe smelled faintly of sweat and Old Spice, and his hand moved in gentle circles against my ribs. Slowly, slowly, the sludge dispersed.

I wasn’t going to die.

“There you go,” Gabe said. “You’re all right.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because that’s what I always said.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s OK.”

I wanted to explain, but I didn’t know how. As the panic let its claws out of my chest, I felt light and detached from my body. I watched my shoulders twitch and tears flow. I watched Gabe wrap his arms around the shuddering weepy wreck that was Brian Day.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I got you.”

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