Free From What I Remember by Stacy Kramer Page B

it before.
    I wish Kylie would stop staring at me. It’s making things worse.
    For the most part, I’m pretty chill. I can get intense during squash, but that’s different. Nothing like this had ever happened, until last year. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I thought I was having a heart attack. Luckily, I was in the hospital at the time. My mom and I had been sitting in the waiting room for hours. She was zoned out on some kind of meds, and powering through a stack of gossip magazines. I was reading On the Road . We were mostly ignoring each other. To fill the dead air, Mom would occasionally ask me about school or squash. Not about Dad. Stupid stuff. We were pretending that everything was okay. That’s what my family does. We put all our shit away into some dark place where we never go, and plaster on our game faces.
    Dr. Stein was still wearing his scrubs when he came out and headed toward us. I could tell it wasn’t good news. I wanted to get the hell out of that hospital. Just jump in the elevator, slip outside, into the sunshine, and go for the longest run of my life. But I stayed there next to Mom as Dr. Stein told us more than I wanted to hear about Dad’s condition.
    That was when my body first seized up. It felt like I was suffocating. Like my organs were shutting down. I thought I was just sitting there suffering in silence, but it must have been pretty obvious, because all of a sudden, Dr. Stein grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me to my feet.
    “Breathe, Max,” he said. “Slowly. Blow the air out through your mouth. In through your nose. Stare at the nurse’s station. Put everything else out of your mind. You’re having an anxiety attack. It’ll subside in a few minutes. Keep breathing with me.”
    Dr. Stein was right. After about ten minutes, I came out of it. It didn’t feel like the world was pressing down on me. I could move and breathe normally again. For the next few hours I was still a little shaky. The whole thing really messed with my head. Once something like that happens to you, you start to wonder if you’ll ever feel normal again. You wonder if you even are normal. Or if something is seriously wrong.
    Dr. Stein had me talk to some woman psychiatrist for a few weeks. She was pretty useless. She asked me a million questions. Mostly I lied to her, told her everything was cool so we could end the sessions. She prescribed Xanax for me, but I threw them down the toilet. Mom was already taking way too much of that shit. We didn’t need two robots in the house.
    For weeks afterward, I felt like I was always waiting for it to happen again. Where would I be? Somewhere embarrassing, like school? Or squash? Or wherever. Worrying about it drove me crazy. But then it didn’t happen. I forgot about it. Until six months ago, out of the blue. Lily and I were at the movies, some horror film. All of a sudden it felt like the walls were closing in on me. I got this weird sensation of being outside my body. The blood, the gore, the violence started getting to me. Which is weird because I usually love that stuff. I had to get up and leave the theater. I told Lily I’d be right back.
    I went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, put my head between my knees, and stayed there for about fifteen minutes, until it all blew over. When I went back in, the credits were rolling. Lily was all worried. I lied and said something about food poisoning. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Lily the truth. I’m sure she would have been sympathetic and everything. It’s just, I wasn’t ready to tell her. I was kind of hoping I’d never have to tell her. Who wants a boyfriend who can’t keep his shit together? Besides, Lily can be such a drama queen. I didn’t need her freaking out about my freaking out. I figured I’d let it ride. Hopefully, it wouldn’t happen again. And if it did, I’d deal with it then.
    It’s all been good. Until now. I’m wishing I had some of that Xanax on me.
    I suddenly