It was terrifying, just as it always was. I was lost to everything in the world, but most of all me.
I must have stumbled on my feet as I tried to come to my senses. I must have spoken nonsense and turned pale and wide-eyed and every bit as fucked up as I did every other time I had a seizure in public.
I must have moved blankly when they led me off by my arm and forced me to a seat in the customer service booth. I saw them offering me a bottle of water but couldn’t understand what they were saying to me. I tried to focus on their language but got nowhere, swimming in a sea of confusion and panic and nothing whatsoever I could form any sense from.
And then my brain came back to me. Slowly.
I heard words and understood them in fragments. I heard the woman in front of me asking about people she could call, but couldn’t find the words to reply.
Her blonde hair looked so fair. Her eyes looked so clear. I couldn’t stop staring.
She pulled my phone from my handbag and asked me about contacts.
“Husband? Mum? Dad?” she asked, but I shook my head.
“No,” I managed. “No. Please don’t.”
“No?”
I was shaking my head, pleading with the blonde angel.
“Okay, don’t worry,” she said, tapping at my phone. “We’ll find the right person for you, don’t worry.”
I hoped they hadn’t called an ambulance. I tried to tell them so, but my words were still jumbled.
She waited until I managed to make a scrap of sense, and when I did, I focused on my phone in her hand.
“Not Mum,” I managed. “Not Mum. Please.”
She nodded and squeezed my arm. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Not your mum if that’s not what you want. We’ll find someone else. Can you give me a name?”
I closed my eyes and urged my thoughts to come back to me, but the only thing coming was the heavy drag of exhaustion. I hated it when it took this road. Hours of having to recover in a stupor while my brain got a grip of itself.
Even in my dazed state, I expected the woman with my phone to call my mum, or Vicky, or Nicola. Even worse, I expected her to dig deep through the backlog and find Dad, or some random workmate, or even Sebastian.
I got a rush of panic when the bleep of a message sounded out and she took a gasp of a breath.
“Wow. I’m sorry!” she said, and her cheeks blushed pink. “I guess you do have a boyfriend. I’ll give him a call.”
There was a laugh. A laugh and a shake of her head, her cheeks blooming even brighter as she digested whatever message had come through.
I didn’t understand the laugh until she turned the screen towards me and I saw my dirty lace knickers stretched over Lucas’s throbbing dick.
Oh. My. God.
It was Lucas’s throbbing dick on my phone screen.
I’m sure my cheeks must have been burning pink too as I tried to read the words along with his photo. I was still trying when she cleared her throat and read them out for me.
“Been thinking about you all week. Fancy a rematch tomorrow?”
I was still nothing like capable of a proper conversation when I saw her raise the handset to her ear.
Oh God, she was calling Lucas.
I leaned back in the seat and tried to gain control, but I was still spinning sick. My mind zoned out of the words around me, picking up just snippets on the nauseous ether.
Yes… Bath Street… right here… pale, but breathing fine…
I opened my eyes on hers when she leaned in close.
“He’s coming. Don’t you worry, sweetheart. He’ll be here soon.”
She winked as she put my phone back in my handbag. I tried again to gain control of my speech but the exhaustion was too much.
So I breathed.
I leant back in the seat and let the world turn around me… until I heard a voice in the chaos that cut through it all.
“It’s epilepsy, yes,” I heard him say, and then I smelt him. I smelt the scent I loved so much, earthy and warm. I felt him beside me, kneeling close, my skin tingling and crying out for his. His eyes were fierce on mine. His breaths were hot on my face. “Anna, it’s Lucas. Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”
I managed to shake my head, my hand reaching out to grab for him and landing on his shoulder. He was wearing a suit. His tie was purple.
My brain was still coming back to itself, but I knew I liked his purple tie.
It was a relief when my voice came out solid.
“No,” I said. “No doctor, thanks. I’ll be okay.”
I knew Lucas would likely do a Sebastian on me and insist I headed to the local hospital for them to poke and prod me and tell me I needed my meds reviewed. I was fully prepared for him to bundle me up in ill, so ill considerations and look on me as an invalid who’d fucked up with bright lights, or eating bad, or not sleeping enough, or just about anything else he thought could bring a seizure to my door.