Safe Haven

I was right when it came to a lot of things. My predictions were always pretty accurate, even as a child, so I guess that’s what made me a little better when it came to mathematics. I could use my sense of piecing things together to make estimations, and most of the time that system worked.

As soon as I walked in and saw my mother’s heartbroken face, I knew that I’d guessed right. She was upset, and Dr. Fletcher’s good mood from our last session had completely vanished as she stared at me with angry eyes from behind her desk. And if I knew that explaining myself would have been helpful given the situation, I would have offered her it, but I didn’t trust the woman and I highly doubted that she would believe me anyway.

So I played my role as insolent, uncaring patient to the max after I realized that no matter what I did, I wouldn’t win.

I stared out the window and thought of a lot of things, mostly revolving around the one thing that I didn’t want to think about: John.

We had a solid relationship. After years of dating, it was pointless not to have one.

We grew up together, gave our first kisses away to each other, witnessed and became a part of so many of our own “firsts” together that it was literally impossible for us not to be a fairly strong couple at the end of it all.

But even if he wanted us to be together again, I wasn’t sure I could do that for a number of reasons. Relationships, no matter how strong, always took a lot of work. I wasn’t in any shape to take on that burden.

I couldn’t even find the motivation to work on myself much less be able to work on making anything successful come from another person.

Then there was the bracelet – the one I still hadn’t managed to find, the gift given to me by John, himself.

“Have you attempted writing in the journal I gave you last session, Marlow?” Fletcher asked as my eyes focused on the way the rare breeze swayed the branches of the tree just outside the window.

Pat wanted me and John back together. They all wanted us to be together again.

It was a hard concept to wrap my head around, and as the remainder of my session ticked by in silence from my end, I dwelled on that, wondered why they felt that way and why they thought they’d turn to me to say that instead of working their way through John’s stubbornness.

It puzzled me, and as I faced my mother in the waiting room after my session was completed, I still hadn’t come to a conclusion.

We stared at each other for a long moment before my mother broke down. “I am driving you to every single session from now until Dr. Fletcher feels the need not to schedule you in anymore. Am I understood?”

She tried to be strong, but her eyes betrayed her. They welled with tears and disappointment.

I nodded, stuffing my hands in the over-sized pocket of my sweatshirt.

“I expect you to go directly home, Marlow,” she stated.

I nodded once more, and that was that. I returned home and stowed away in my room to allow my mother to announce the news to my father: that their daughter, despite their original hopes, wasn’t doing any better here than she was in Seattle.



I felt like crap, I looked like crap, and I really didn’t feel like going to face the public, but with my mother finally getting back to running her boutique again without so much assistance from her manager and still trying to maintain family dinners every night, I was forced to drive the ten minutes to the grocery store on my day off.

Dressed in my new usual – a pair of flip-flops, a hoodie, and some sort of pants whether it be out-of-season jeans or sweats – I wandered the aisles, becoming re-familiarized with the place as I tossed the items my mother had diligently listed for me in the shopping cart.

Taking a loaf of bread off of the shelf, I felt myself glancing over to make sure I wasn’t seeing things when I caught a familiar, bright flannel pattern out of the corner of my eye.

Halvo.

Eric “Halvo” Halvorsen stood at the end of the aisle, his lanky body turned the opposite direction I was.

Slowly, as subtly as possible, I backed up and hid around the corner, hoping to God that he wouldn’t go in the same general direction.

My heart pounded within my chest and my palms grew slick against the handle of the shopping cart as I waited and played lookout.

He was a good guy. Perhaps he was a bit nerdy, a little awkward and far lankier than John, but he was always nice and he always had the ability to make me laugh. Well, almost always. He was John’s best friend though, and I couldn't face him.

I felt myself backing into the aisle to cautiously watch him through the shelves, trapped by the layout of the store.

He didn’t even notice – didn’t even turn around to grab a loaf of bread to be able to even catch a glimpse of me through the semi-stocked shelves.

I took a moment to gather myself using those methods of feeling the solidness beneath me, but it didn’t work. My heart beat frantically on, my thoughts remained frayed and my face felt clammy.

I couldn’t do it. The need to leave urgently was screaming somewhere inside of my head so heedlessly that I had no other option but to tug my cell phone and iPod from the child carrier in the cart and hastily – but cautiously – walk out of the store.

By the time I reached my car, I was shaking so bad that I couldn’t even get the key into the ignition. I felt like there was a weight pressing on my chest, preventing me from getting a full breath in.

Pulling my phone from the cup holder I’d tossed it in, I pressed speed dial, and instantly connected myself to the person I usually turned to in states of emergency: my father.

“Hello?”

“Dad,” I managed to wheeze out. “I think – I think I’m having a heart attack,” I admitted, pressing my free hand to my chest in attempt to somehow alleviate the pressure.

I knew the second he heard the words that panic flooded him. “Marlow, you’re too young to have a heart attack. You’re probably experiencing another, more severe panic attack, like Dr. Fletcher explained to us. Where are you?” Despite the rationalization, I knew that he was still freaking out. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence for your young and physically healthy daughter to call your office, exclaiming that she was having a heart attack.

I tried wheezing out the words, but I couldn’t form them.

“Are you still at the grocery store, Honey?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t move.”

I didn’t think I could move even if I tried. Tears were streaming down my face, though it wasn’t like I was crying. It was just a reaction I was having between my lack of oxygen intake and my racing heart.

Feeling like the air inside my car wasn’t enough, I managed to push open the door and left it that way in attempt to get some fresh air into my lungs.

I leaned against the steering wheel, in attempt to try the exercises that I’d been taught again. I gripped the leather tightly as my cheek rested against the stop and I pressed the bottom of my left foot to the pavement of the parking lot just as I pressed my right to the floor of my car.

Halvo knew. He knew and he was back in town.

Another risk, another reason to stay inside, another reason to pick up and leave again.

I managed to breathe a little more normally before I heard my name. Only it wasn’t my father’s voice questioning me by just the tone of his voice.

Opening my eyes, I looked almost directly at John O’Callaghan’s concerned face.