Free Carry the Ocean: The Roosevelt, Book 1 by Heidi Cullinan

and when she got tired of waiting for me to take care of things, she took charge. She dragged me to Target after yelling at me for an hour about responsibility, but I think I would have had a panic attack in the middle of the college prep aisle even if she’d smiled and told me it would all be okay.
    Don’t think she held my hand afterward, though. She shouted at me the whole way home.
    “How could you embarrass me like that? Everyone was looking at us. Everyone looked at me , as if it were somehow my fault.”
    I felt guilty, though she was the reason I got upset. She made me go. I couldn’t do the large discount grocery store or any store bigger than Wheatsfield, and some days it was too much. But I hate disappointing anyone, and I hated the way everyone looked at me too. I despised that I couldn’t walk farther than the greeting cards in Target without hyperventilating, but it didn’t matter how I tried, I always broke down.
    I broke down all the time now, even at home. Not often with Emmet, but we had to stop walking on campus, because it only made me think of how awful living there would be without him, and I would get a panic attack.
    “I think you should not go to college yet,” Emmet said. “I think you should talk to my mom about medicine. She could prescribe it for you.”
    He was right. But I always told him I didn’t want to talk about medicine. Honestly, part of me wanted to go be a mess at school, to show my parents how wrong they were.
    Then I would realize how many strangers would see me break down, and I’d have another panic attack. So mostly I tried not to think about school at all.
    Marietta worried about me, I could tell. She didn’t tell me I should take medication, but she gave me lots of attention every time I was over, assuring me she was looking into alternate housing for Emmet and me, that she was making me an extra-special going-to-school care package. Books began to appear on the Kindle I always borrowed from her too. The Noonday Demon . Shoot the Damn Dog . From Panic to Power . They were books about depression and anxiety.
    I didn’t read them.
    It wasn’t that I didn’t want help. I did , but mostly I wanted my parents to stop pushing me, and I didn’t see how me taking drugs or reading was going to change them . I needed them to take drugs or read books or at least listen to me.
    They didn’t listen, no matter what I said or did, no matter how bad my panic attacks became. But one day, my sister called me.
    Jan lives in Chicago, and she rarely comes home. My mother complains about this all the time, how whenever she calls Jan, my sister doesn’t answer. In Jan’s defense, Mom never asks Jan about her life, only complains about her own. I wouldn’t answer her calls either, if I were Jan.
    Jan doesn’t call us, ever, and she never calls me. But that day she did, when I was sitting out back waiting for Emmet to be done with class.
    “Hey, little brother. How are things?”
    “Fine,” I said, though they were anything but. Nobody ever wants to know about bad things.
    “I hear you’re nervous about starting college. And you’ve been having more panic attacks. You’re worrying me, Germ.”
    My whole body went hot with embarrassment. How did Jan know all this? Her calling me my old nickname didn’t make it any better. “I’ll be fine.” I didn’t believe that, but I didn’t want yet another person fussing over me. I didn’t understand why Jan was. She never did.
    But that day, she wouldn’t stop. “I know I’m bad about keeping up with the family. I’m sorry for that. I can’t handle Mom, so I stay away, but that means I accidentally ignore you. Are you really okay? Do you need me to come home, run interference for you?”
    I didn’t know what to say. She wanted to come home and help me? I wanted that, yeah, but this whole thing felt weird, and it made me nervous. And embarrassed, that she’d have to bother with me. “I’m okay. Sorry to bother