18

The thumping bass, the crunching guitars, the wailing singer—every sound cut through Abi like a knife. There was a sickness rising in her, emanating from the pit of her stomach, clawing at her throat and infecting her mind.

It began, like it always began, with the sense that she was drifting away from the world, as if she were behind herself, her eyes a video camera, her world unreal. In an instant, the happiness, the calm, the normality—it all came crashing down. Her heart quickened, her palms became sweaty, the sickness rose, and she felt like she was ready to pass out.

“It’s just a panic attack,” her gran told her once, “It’ll pass. Calm down. Buckle up. Ride it out.” But knowing it was just a panic attack didn’t make it any better; knowing that she wasn’t going to die didn’t make her less sick or woozy.

Death wasn’t the problem. If she dropped dead, at least she wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment of being roused by a bartender while everyone gathered around her, fretted over her, and then treated her like some invalid. No, death wasn’t the issue, passing out was. If she passed out, she would have to face the indignity of exposing her flaws to strangers, of bringing everyone’s fun to a standstill and attracting the entire attention of the room.

That’s what made her sick, that’s what made her feel ill at ease, and the more she thought about it, the worse she became.

“Is everything okay?” Steven’s voice filtered through as if underwater. He didn’t look worried, not yet, but he could see that she was uncomfortable. His words should have spurred her into action, they should have dragged her out of the panic and into the real world, but they made her worse.

Why’s he asking that?

Am I pale?

Is my nose bleeding?

Do I look like I’m going to pass out? Because I certainly feel like it and if I look like it as well, maybe it’s really going to happen, maybe—

She felt his hand on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze, a comforting smile. He guided her to her feet. “Let’s step outside,” he offered. “Get some fresh air.”

Abi felt herself walking after him and felt her feet carrying her. It was as if she were walking on air, pushed by the force of the music and the chatter in the bar.

Seconds later, they were outside, and just as quickly the sickness faded, forced back down from whence it came. Reality snapped back, the panic dissipated, and when she turned to Steven, glad for his company and delighted she hadn’t passed out or thrown up in front of him, she noted that he was smiling at her.

“You good?” he asked.

She nodded. “Sorry, not sure what came over me there.”

“One minute we were chatting, then the band started doing their thing and then …” He shrugged, uncertain. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

She smiled meekly, unable to explain herself.

“You know the band or something?”

“Actually, yes,” Abi said with a laugh, before shaking her head. “But that’s not why. Sometimes I just … panic, I suppose. Weird, I know, but—”

“Not at all,” Steven interjected, eliciting a grateful smile from his date.

“It’s the noise, the chaos, the people—and as soon as the panic sets in …”

“You start to worry yourself even more,” he finished with a knowing smile. “I’ve been there. Panic begets panic.”

He wrapped his arm around her, and she moved in close, feeling safe and warm under his towering stature.

“I used to be the same,” he said, his voice heavy with bass, almost palpable as she rested her head against his chest. “It wouldn’t take much. A little too much caffeine, not enough sugar—I’d feel different, unwell, and if I was in a place I wasn’t entirely comfortable in, that would be enough to kick-start the panic.”

Abi nodded. There was a chance she had also consumed too much caffeine or too few calories. They had remained in the café for several hours, drinking cup after cup. In the early afternoon, they’d avoided an exodus of news crews and the trail of locals that fled in their wake to visit a food stand. Abi had eaten a small portion of fries, despite the gnawing hunger that grabbed and pulled at her stomach. She didn’t want to look greedy, and she didn’t want kebab-breath on a date.

They ate their food on a bench outside the stand, watching passersby and making a game out of it. They began by guessing whether couples were related or dating, before moving onto a game where they guessed what people were doing on their phones—was the man in the suit texting with a business partner or a mistress; was the kid in the baseball cap stalking his best friend’s girlfriend or sexting his ex?

There was an air of excitement in the town. More chatter, more groups, more drama. You’d expect the murders to create fear and a sense of panic, but it just seemed to give everyone something to talk about. They all wanted to voice their theories and state what they knew, even when what they knew was the same as the next person.

Abi hadn’t intended to spend the day with Steven, but the longer they spent together, the harder it was to walk away. So, when he asked if she wanted to go to a local pub, she didn’t think anything of it.

“What do you think of the band?” Steven asked, apparently feeling a need to change the subject.

Abi grumbled an indifferent reply.

“Yeah, not great, are they?” Steven said. “Singer is a bit annoying and the bassist seems to think he’s some kind of rock god, throwing his guitar around like he’s swinging his dick.”

Abi peeled away from his chest. “He wishes his dick was that big.”

Steven laughed. “There’s your grandmother coming through again. And I thought I was dating a prude!”

Abi stepped back, a look of fake indignation on her face. “Firstly,” she said, aiming a finger to the sky. “I’m not a prude, I’m just polite, that’s it. Secondly,” she edged in closer again, her face just inches from his. “If we’re officially dating, does that make you my boyfriend?”

Steven seemed surprised and Abi instantly worried that she’d jumped the gun and spoken out of turn.

Was it too early?

Are second-date declarations just for rom-coms with limited running times and stories to tell?

Have I blown it?

Her fears were dispelled when he nodded, sporting a grin he wore from ear to ear.

Abi kissed him, instantly feeling the remnants of her anxiety and everything else that had boiled up inside of her just fade away, out into the still night. He pressed his hands to her face, and she flinched, surprised at how cold they were. He pulled back, ready to apologize, but she dove in again, kissing him harder, pressing herself tightly to him.

They kissed as the music played and, only when the song ended, when the noisy, poorly played cover gave way to a round of unenthusiastic clapping, did she peel away.

“You’re right,” she said, “the music is shit. But the company is fantastic.”

She noted an element of surprise in his eyes and his rigid stance. He was shocked, as if in a temporary trance, his gaze locked onto hers. Eventually, he pulled away, freed himself, and asked, “Should we go back to yours?” There was a hunger in his voice, a desperation that she hadn’t heard before, and one she felt rising in herself, as well.

“It’s early,” she said. “My gran …”

“She can join us,” he paused and then quickly corrected himself. “For a drink. She can join us for a drink, I mean.”

Abi laughed. “It’s a good thing she didn’t hear you say that. Her knickers would have been around her ankles before you grabbed the wine.” She tapped him on the shoulder jovially, noting the shock in his raised eyebrows. “Why don’t you call an Uber and I’ll just nip inside to use the toilet?”

“Okay, deal.”

Abi slipped back into the pub, and as soon as he was out of sight, she pulled out her phone, eager to check on the whereabouts of her gran. They didn’t have a landline number, and while Martha did have a smartphone, she didn’t use it to receive calls. It was a Twitter machine, something she could use to access the internet, troll people on social media, and receive a deluge of sexts from unsuspecting men who didn’t know a septuagenarian catfish when they spoke to one.

Martha refused to give out the number, insisting that people would only use it to bug her, make demands, and tell her that yet another friend had died.

Abi was on her gran’s Twitter page when she bumped into the bassist from the band, causing her to nearly drop the device.

“Excuse me,” he said dismissively, his attention focused on a young blonde girl who clearly wasn’t interested. Steven had been right; the bassist did swing around his instrument like it was his penis, and as soon as he finished his set, he put the guitar away and tried to do it with the real thing, latching on to any vagina that seemed the least bit interested.

“It’s okay,” Abi said, moving out of the way. Their eyes locked and he paused, staring at her for an uncomfortable length of time.

“Don’t I know you?”

Abi shook her head. She did know him, and she hated him. In a town this small, everyone knew everyone, and even Abi, who had lived a relatively sheltered life, had encountered her fair share of assholes, friends, and acquaintances over the years.

“You look familiar,” he pushed. “Did we fuck?”

Her jaw nearly hit the floor. The blonde girl standing next to him recoiled somewhat, but also seemed amused by the question and keen to hear an answer. Everything that Abi had felt before leaving the bar came rushing back to her—the panic, the fear, the sickness. She felt like she was going to pass out again, like the entire bar was staring at her.

In reality, she knew that there were only a few people there. The rest of the band were in the process of leaving when she returned to the pub, the barman was on his own behind the bar and there were only a handful of customers, but in that moment, it felt like she was on stage and being judged by thousands.

“I have to go.” Abi pushed past the self-assured musician and headed for the bathrooms. He shouted after her. There was a note of recognition and it was followed by a snigger, laughter she could have sworn was coming from everyone in the bar.

She shut the bathroom door behind her, entered one of the stalls, locked the door, and sat down on the toilet, breathing deeply, her eyes closed. It didn’t take long for her moments of panic to pass, but Abi hated herself for feeling this way. She hated herself for letting her paranoia get the better of her and for believing things that she knew, deep down, simply weren’t true.

Her phone rang and without even looking Abi knew it was her grandmother. As crazy as the old woman was, she had a sixth sense for knowing when something wasn’t right. At age fifteen, Abi suffered the sort of unbearable trauma that no child should ever suffer when she watched her childhood home burn to the ground with her parents inside.

It broke her, changed her, and alienated her—she became angry, bitter, and rejected every friend, family member, and social worker that tried to help. Her grandmother was the only one who understood, the only one who stood by her throughout those dark times and the lonely years that followed. The night her parents died and her life changed forever, Martha sat Abi down for a heart to heart, one in which Abi expected to hear the same old cliched nonsense she’d heard spouted on countless TV shows and in many films.

Instead, Martha told her, “Nothing happens for a reason. Nobody goes to a better place, and life is meaningless.”

When the words eventually sank in, Abi had asked, “So, what’s the point?”

“Think of it like a video game. If you have an end goal, a reason for playing, you do your best to stay alive, to accumulate points, to get as far as you can and do as much as you can. You get angry when you lose, upset when things don’t go your way. It’s fun, for the most part, but there are times when that happiness is offset by the grind, the repetitive missions, the fact that you get lost or keep failing.” Abi hadn’t questioned why her grandmother knew so much about video games, as she had always seemed more technically adept than she was. “But if there’s no purpose, no end goal, no fear of losing, failing, or getting lost, no missions or targets, what do you do?”

“Run around like an idiot trying to have as much fun as possible before I get bored and quit?”

Martha had nodded assuredly. “There you go, dear—the meaning of life. Now, why don’t you put the kettle on and make us both a cuppa?”

The phone continued to ring, the noise echoing throughout the empty bathroom. Abi answered it after a minute or so, but she didn’t wait for her grandmother to speak, didn’t give her a chance to worry. “Hey Gran, sorry, I can’t speak right now, but don’t worry, I’m doing fine and will be back soon.” She hung up without waiting for a response, smiling as she recalled the words her beloved guardian had said to her many years ago.

After several minutes that felt like hours, she pulled herself together, checked her reflection in the mirror—her eyes wide, her mascara smeared, her hair ruffled—and left. Her head was held high as she walked out of the bathroom, her grandmother’s words replaying in her head.

The bar seemed empty—without the thousands of staring eyes she had envisioned before, without the shouting or the laughing. Steven was waiting outside with the Uber, his phone in one hand, the open door in the other.

“You’re here at last,” he said. “I thought you’d climbed out the bathroom window and done a runner.” He pointed to the door. “Your carriage awaits, my lady.”

She smiled, curtsied, and then slipped inside.