After that, I couldn’t go into Nonna’s place because the décor made me too claustrophobic. All I’d done was go in to have coffee with my family, but the dark ceilings had triggered something inside me, which ended up with another panic attack.
Yet again, I had to face the choice of getting help or fighting it myself. The solution ended up being neither of those two.
During the panic attack at Nonna’s place, Gus had driven by with their latest rescue, a very sad faced but absolutely adorable dog that looked like a cross between a German Shepherd and a Labrador. He’d stopped when he’d seen me on my knees in the front yard, and the whining noise coming from the crate in the back of his truck had pulled me out of the attack. I’d met the dog and fallen immediately in love with him and vice versa.
His name was Maestro, and I adored him. Every time I’d get hit with the feelings of an attack being imminent, he’d whine and do something to pull me out of it. Whenever he felt unnecessary and scared, I'd do the same with him, usually during a thunder and lightning storm.
I also had Rocky, my little horse buddy, who was growing every day. That little guy was an attention fiend, though, and snorted and neighed at Maestro if he tried to keep my attention on him. He also loved him, though, and had begun playing with him.
Once he got a bit bigger, we’d have to keep the two apart, so he didn’t accidentally kick Maestro, but until then, I’d keep watching and laughing at them.
Marcus
The first time Addy had a panic attack, I felt like someone had put my nuts in a vice and was squeezing the life out of them. I didn’t know what to do to fix it and help her through it until I turned the light on, and she’d managed to finally take a breath in.
Yeah, sleeping with it on every night was hell on my sleep, but I’d do it for the rest of my life if she needed me to. Nothing was more important than helping her get through this, and sometimes the impact of things like what Addy had been through lasted forever. I’d do whatever she needed me to.
I could put a pillow over my eyes or get one of those sleep masks—she couldn’t just turn the hell she’d survived off and delete it from her brain.
I had no idea that a dog would help her, and day by day, she got stronger and stronger. There was no time limit on her recovery, though, so I never pushed her once.
Well, unless you counted me telling her she was moving in with me the day after she got out of the hospital.
It started with me bringing her clothes up and reassuring her I wouldn’t pack up any more of her shit in case I did it wrong. Within two weeks, I had her living under our roof, in our home, and sleeping in our bed.
The dog and Rocky might have been her road to recovery, but holding her close every night was what was mine.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Addy
Four weeks later…
It was during a book club meeting that things took an unexpected turn for me.
We’d just finished reading the first half of Santana’s new book that she was writing, so we’d met to discuss it.
“How the shit do you make things like this romantic?” Sadie asked her. “One second, the guy’s stumbling across a leg on his porch, like it’d been tossed there for him to read like a newspaper. The next, he’s seeing his new next door neighbor getting out of the bath, and they’re tearing up the sheets.”
Snickering, I threw an M&M at her. “It didn’t exactly go from ‘there are my new neighbor’s nipples’ to him diving into her vagina, Sadie. Santana has a way of creating a slow burn between the characters. However, her finding the bitchy chick’s hands in her freezer helped speed that along.”
Santana stayed quiet, listening to us discussing it for a while longer.
“Right? I’ll never be able to look at those fake hand Halloween decorations again. When they unclenched the fingers of one of the hands and that note saying, ‘you asked me to lend you a hand. Please accept these as my apology for being unable to do so,’ fell out.” Sadie shuddered.
Yeah, that’d been in my mind, too. I don’t think I’d ever be able to watch The Addams Family again because they had that hand which just ran around like a puppy.
Leaning into Santana’s side, I pinched her thigh to get her attention. “That gave me nightmares. If it wasn’t for Maestro, I don’t think I’d have slept at all for months after reading that, but he has a way of fixing my insomnia.”