The Times We Felt Alive

Chapter 6

I looked over the city. God, it was beautiful. The night was patchy with dark blue clouds and speckles of stars popping up here and there. The city's skyline glowed yellows and blues and pinks. A break in the trees showed a glitter of water, which I supposed was the bay.
When Alex was up and finished with his episode (It took about an hour for Jack to help Alex stop shaking and sobbing), Alex looked terrible. He slumped while he walked; Jack just said it was okay. And Alex sniffed. I could tell he was deeply sorry. He tried to apologize, but he stuttered over his tongue. I was confused, and I guess I was a naturally calm person in scary situations, but this still scared me. Jack told me it happens all the time.
“Anxiety,” He told me as we watched a late night talk show in his basement and Alex slept on the couch. Jack and I sat at a little table in the corner of the room with the light on. “He hasn’t had an attack in a while.” Jack cracked open a Pepsi. He lowered his voice. “What happened, exactly? He was saying something about Tom, but…”
I recounted what happened with Tom and Peter, and the bottle and the broken door. How Alex was about to blow up. Then my phone buzzed.
“Shit,” I mumbled. I answered. “Hey, Mom. “ I checked the time. It was 11:00. Fuck.
“Hey. Where the hell are you?” I could hear the anger in her voice.
“There was a situation at Alex’s and now I’m at Jack’s.”
Alarmed, she asked, “Why? What happened?”
I didn’t know how to recount this. I looked desperately at Jack. He took my phone, and I almost punched him in the face. “Hi, Mrs. Kampbell. It’s Jack Barakat. I’m sorry about having your daughter, Alex has had a little episode, and he really needs me and Tiff here now.” Jack gave me a thumbs up.
I stared at him, dumbstruck.
“What the fuck?” I heard Alex mumble in a raspy voice. I know it was a terrible time to think this, but his voice sounded so sexy. The thought came and gone as soon as I realized it. I felt my face grow warm.
I could tell my mom was also dumbstruck on the other end. My mom was the type to fall for a little charm. I heard muffled talking. “Yeah,” Jack said. I tried to intervene, saying I could go back now, but Jack waved me off.
“Understood.” Jack cooed. “I promise she will be in school tomorrow.” He giggled. I felt myself blush even more. Alex sighed.
After a bit, Jack had hung up. “You’re staying. But you gotta be back by 5 am.”
How he did this, I will never know. I can just picture Blake throwing a temper because I was 16 and he was 17 and I was out later than him. I laughed. “Jack Barakat, I will never know how you do what you do.”
“No one will…” Alex sighed. Jack laughed and shrugged.
“Anyways, thanks Jack.” I gave him a smile. Then I got up and walked over to the couch. Alex was playing with the loose strings of his little braided bracelet made out of green, blue and pink. I sat on the floor next to him. “What’s up?” I asked.
“My humiliation,” Alex mumbled. I gave him a look. “I’m guessing Jack told you?” Alex closed his eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, though. Seriously. You obviously can’t help it.”
“But the thing is, Tiff, I can. I can help all these things, and if I was just a stronger person, I could probably hold back from these little FUCKING attacks-“
“-Alex,” Jack said quietly. He was in the back, on his laptop. I swear, without Jack, I wouldn’t know what to do with Alex. I wish I did.
Alex slumped into the couch. “I’m sorry.”
I held his hand. “Sh. Don’t be sorry. We’ve got it all figured out for now, that’s all that matters.”
Alex started to say something, then put his hand to him head.
“Alex, why don’t you sleep for a bit? I can get you a cold washcloth.” Jack said.
Alex nodded sleepily as his eyes crossed and started to close. Jack went upstairs and Alex reached over the couch for a blanket on the arm. He sort of twitched and fell back, in pain, holding his chest. He shivered. "Can I see that?" He muttered. I wrapped it around him and kissed his forehead. He mumbled thanks. Jack came back and gave him a washcloth. I stayed next to Alex for a bit, watching him fall into a sleep. He definitely looked better than before, but he looked like a wreck all the same. I felt guilty for not bringing him to a hospital, and I wondered if something bad was happening inside his brain, like what if he had a small seizure or something? I’ve never seen his previous attacks. I also didn’t know much about anxiety. Maybe anxiety was small seizures? Anyways, when I was almost sure he was asleep, I got up. Alex said something sleepily and startled me.
“Dreams only last for a night, Tiff.”
***
Jack and I needed to kill some time, and Alex was sound asleep, so we went upstairs and made coffee. We sat at his island for a little, quietly sipping and thinking. It was one of those moments where it was silent but not awkward, because we were both occupied with our minds. I guess it was almost like we could hear the buzz of our brains. Then when you stop thinking and just listen, that’s when you realize it’s really quiet.
I glanced at Jack. He looked exhausted; his eyes brimmed with red as they moved slowly in his attempt to keep them open. Then I took a look around the kitchen. It was nice, more a modern style than Alex's whose was more of a Western style.
Jack’s kitchen was painted a soft green with a white trim. It was a cute kitchen, kind of like how my house was a cute home. The island was white speckled marble and the wooden cabinets were a dark forest brown. I liked it. We sat on little white stools atop the bamboo floors (I knew they were bamboo, because my room in Cape Cod had the same flooring. It was inexpensive, and looked very nice.)
I sipped the coffee gingerly. It was good, it had a little hint of something that completed it… hazelnut? No… what was it? “What’s in this?” I asked. Jack jumped. I laughed.
“Oh, sorry.” He sat up. “It’s cinnamon.” He pointed to the coffee maker. Next to it was a container of cinnamon sticks.
“Ahh, that’s it.”
“Used it as a stirrer.” He raised an eyebrow. “Good, isn’t it?”
“Really good.”
We sat in silence for a bit more. Then I asked, “Did we wake you up when we called?”
“No,” Jack said, “But I was getting there. I was playing Xbox. ‘T’s fine though.”
I looked at him uncertainly. “Really, it is. I’ve helped him through almost every attack, and he always says he needs me when it happens.”
“How many has he had?” I wondered aloud.
“Hmm…” Jack scrunched his eyebrows and looked up. “He started getting them probably 2 years ago? It’s confusing, because he’s always had family problems. And his parents never listened to him when he said he felt weird when he got angry and overwhelmed. Like, apparently it was anxiety. And the more he didn’t know why the fuck he was hallucinating and shit, the more overwhelmed he’d get.”
“Are they like seizures?”
“Sort of. Seizures can’t be caused on purpose, I think. Panic attacks can have a reason. But it’s not the same because when you have a seizure, you can’t control anything. In an anxiety attack, you just feel like you’re gonna die. Alex’s words.” Jack nodded and took a sip of coffee.
“Scary shit.” I added.
“It really is. Sometimes I feel like we should take him to the hospital, but it doesn’t even matter because the best thing to do is to get the person alone in wherever he wants to be, or with people he wants to be with.”
I thought that maybe I shouldn’t have been there. What if he ran away from me for a reason? He probably just wanted to be with Jack.
As if reading my mind, Jack said “He usually just wants to be with me. Or Zack, because Zack reacts calmly in situations like these. And just so you know, he was holding a lot of his shit in, which is bad.”
“What does he usually do?” I was afraid for this.
“Usually,” Jack said, “He crawls in a ball and shakes. The shaking never stops. His eyes get all wide and he grabs his chest and he... what's a good word for this... he sputters.” Jack sighed. “And then he has to leave. He gets up and runs and screams and sobs. Like, death screams. It’s really terrible, especially when he’s in a public place. He’s getting better at controlling the screaming.”
“No kidding… he didn’t scream much,” I added.
“He just kinda cried this time. I can tell he's holding a lot in, though.”
“Is it my fault he’s holding it in?” I nervously asked.
Jack looked up. “Not your fault, he was just embarrassed. He didn’t want to look like a freak.”
“But it’s fine! I want to be the other person he’s comfortable around, not to take your place or anything Jack… but like, you know-“
“I know what you mean, Soup.” He grinned. “I think you should talk to Alex about it in a few days.”
“A few days?”
“Mhm. He’s usually out of it for a few days. It’s like having a hangover but 10x worse. Alex’s words.”
I laughed. “Because you guys have gotten wasted.”
“Definitely a little drunk, not completely wasted…” Jack winked. A hangover is a hangover.
“Will he puke?”
“Probably.”
“What else happens?”
“God, you are just questions tonight. Um, he just has a bad headache and doesn’t eat, but when he does, he-“
An ear splitting scream coming from the basement seemed to shake the house. “FUCK!! DAMMIT! JAA-ACK! TIFFANY! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

“Get down there. I gotta go tell my parents its fine.” Jack ran up the stairs. I ran to the basement door and down the steps. Alex was on the floor in a ball. He looked like he was dying. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to help. I held back tears as I sat him up and held him.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’ll be fine. Shh, Alex.”
His breathing slowed a little, but then his chest heaved and he grabbed his chest and pushed me, hard. I hit the floor with a thud. It took me a little while to come back. I got the wind knocked right out of me. Jack ran back down the stairs and saw me and Alex on the floor. The scene must have been pretty insane, me laying on my stomach gasping for air and Alex screaming. Jack's mother ran down the stairs too. She grabbed Jack.
"They gotta leave, Jack. Go to Rian's or something. I'm serious. We're gonna get arrested."
"Mom I can't! He's going insane!" Jack's voice broke. I scrambled to my feet and almost threw up. I sat on the couch (and Alex has stopped screaming but shaking ever so violently,) and told Jack I'm fine and that we could possibly move him somewhere else.
Jack's hand was covering his face, rubbing his eyes. I thought he was crying. He definitely looked like he was about to. He then went over to Alex and grabbed his right arm. "Tiff get the left side."
Trying to hold back the vomit, and Alex was muttering "Noohmygodohmygodssstop", tripping over his words, and I was feeling so lightheaded, but we pulled him up the stairs and outside into the cool night air.
***
Alex was once again lying on a couch with a cold washcloth on his head in a basement. We were at Rian’s, the scene being very similar to the one at Jack’s. The only differences, I noted, was it was much smaller, one more person was there (Rian,) and it was cleaner. Clean as in ‘it looked more like a room than a basement’ clean. But just as I started to feel a little conscious again, Jack was ushering me out the door.
“God, this was a disaster. I’m sorry you had to put up with this, Tiffany.” It was odd seeing Jack act this way. He’s usually the type to say everything will be alright, but now he just looked exhausted.
“It’s fine, Jack. I totally understand.”
“It’s just… I just met you and I feel like I put you through so much. And Alex feels like complete shit about this.” He sighed. “And are you okay? You looked like you really couldn’t breathe.”
I couldn’t. I got the wind knocked out of me. But I don’t say this, for two reasons. 1) Jack would probably tell Alex and Alex would feel so much worse than he does now and 2) JACK would feel even more terrible. So instead, I say “Jack, its fine. I would have felt the same way, I promise you. You guys are like brothers to me.” I smiled. “And I was just freaking out a little. I also kinda fell on my way to Alex, and he was thrashing, so…”
I gotta admit, I was a bad liar. I think Jack noticed this, but he didn’t question the possibilities of what could have actually happened. He pulled his lips to a straight line. “Want me to walk you home?”
I immediately responded. “No. See you at school?” I laughed a little at the question. Who the hell would worry about school in a situation like this?
Surprisingly, Jack answered “Yeah. We’ll see if he’s alright in the morning. But don’t expect Alex to be in school. Highly improbable.” Jack smiled a little. “See ya.”
I gave him a hug. “See ya.” I walked across the street and into my house. I definitely had experienced a whole lot more of life in this one week than I had ever these past 16 years, I thought as I tip toed up the stairs and into my room. I became sad thinking about this, but then got excited and a little frightened wondering what adventures I was about to encounter.

“I guess it’s just the beginning,” I whispered as I opened my window and peered at the bright full moon.