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(3:17 P.M.) Sydney: Where’d you go?? Family’s ready
(3:18 P.M.) You: Smoke break gimme a minute
Bile burned its acrid way up his throat and out, splashed onto the concrete and soaked into fleabane weeds that grew between the cracks. He’d thought there would be more oxygen for him outside, but every gasping attempt to pull air into his lungs threatened another round of retching.
(3:25 P.M.) Sydney: Wouldn’t kill you to eat with us every once in a while
(3:27 P.M.) You: a minute. Please
She was, understandably, pissed. Once the high of success and parental approval had worn off, Sydney’d wanted to talk. About his failure to keep promises like that of calling Terry the fridge guy, about his inclination toward stress-induced yelling, about his consistent non-focus in the face of her hustle. About his growing tendency to zone out during their unofficial makeshift meetings, or scrub the already spotless kitchen with a hunger-sick stomach while they all gathered for family, savored the food and one another’s existence.
(Richie shouted something, and was met with howls of laughter. Forks clinked. Compliments and loving insults were dished out with the meal. Carmy’s stomach churned in revolt, Carmy’s heart was wrapped up and choked by the boa constrictor of panic, thudthudthudhelpthudthud, Carmy scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.)
Sugar and Tina compulsively worried and hovered, like they couldn’t help themselves. Richie was so furious with him that he still refused to meet his eyes. Carmy was spiraling, and he knew it, and so did everybody else, and fuck if it wasn’t humiliating to be perceived so accurately in this state of disarray.
He couldn’t fucking breathe. Carmy doubled over again and gagged, hand braced against the dumpster, but nothing came up. He was dying, his heart was going to beat out of his fucking chest bloody all over the concrete, he was dying, he was certain of it.
A hand touched his back. “Jeff?”
“Go.” His voice was small, hoarse. Carmy dropped to one knee, gasping for a full breath he couldn’t find. “Fuck. Go away.”
Tina asked questions he couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears and lowered herself into a crouch beside him. Her hand rubbed circles on his back that were probably meant to be soothing, but his skin was on fire and the contact burned.
His vision began to gray out around the edges, blurred. Staccato breaths, punctuated by wheezed exhales. Tina’s hand was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
He was about to die alone, which sounded right. But it was going to be here, beside the dumpster in The Bear’s back lot, and that part was wrong, all wrong. It was supposed to be the bridge. Mikey’s spot. Their spot, eventually (inevitably). Carmy’s scripted end was to slip beneath the cool of the water and drift, soothed. Not to suffocate and keel over next to rotting refuse.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The back door slammed open, carrying voices toward him.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Tina said, drawing closer with each word. She sounded as panicked as he felt. “He’s breathing all funny. I’ve got one of Louie’s inhalers in my bag, should I -”
“He doesn’t have asthma.” Sugar’s face appeared in his line of vision, her eyes wide. She placed both hands on his shoulders and squeezed. “Carmy. You’re okay. You're having a panic attack. I need you to try and breathe for me, okay? Can you try?”
He shook his head in two quick, ragged movements, because he fucking couldn’t. His lungs refused to cooperate. He was obviously, unquestionably dying. What about that was so fucking unclear?
“Okay. Um. Alright. Let’s - let’s try, uh -”
“Sug, go inside.” Richie. Calm and collected. “I’ll take care of it.”
Sugar’s eyes lifted to glare above Carmy’s head. “Oh, what a tempting offer. No, thank you, I’ve got him.”
“The fuck you’ve ‘got him,’ his fucking lips are turning blue.”
Her gaze flitted back to Carmy’s face, and he watched her falter. “Shit.”
“Yeah, no shit, ‘shit.’ Stop crowding the kid, that ain’t fucking helping. Let me handle it.”
“Richie -”
“Nat. Trust me.”
Sugar rose, slow and hesitant. “If you knock him out, I swear to God.”
“Yeah, yeah. No promises. Vamos, ladies.”
Carmy swayed, his oxygen-deprived, terror-laden brain struggling to keep him conscious. Richie took advantage of his unsteadiness and nudged him back from his crouched position until his ass hit the concrete, a firm hand pressed between his shoulder blades to keep him upright. A sound close enough to a whine to be mortifying tore itself from his throat.
“I know - hey. I know.” Richie’s hand moved to grip the back of Carmy’s neck, pushing his head to rest between his knees. “C’mon. You got this. I got you.”
Tears sprang up unbidden. Carmy’s face was hidden, but he screwed his eyes shut anyways. “Fuck. God, fu-uck, I’m not - can’t -”
Richie grabbed one of Carmy’s hands, placed his own wrist inside Carmy’s grip, and curled the trembling fingers closed. His pulse thrummed beneath Carmy’s fingertips, strong and steady.
“Feel that?”
“Mhm.”
“Yep. Focus on that. Rhythm, Cousin. You can do it.”
“Can’t.”
“ Can, fucko. You’re not even trying. Find the rhythm and breathe. One, two, in. Three, four, out. Like ballet or some shit. You love all that pansy rich people garbage.”
“Talk. Please.”
“I am fucking talking, dipshit,” Richie said, but conceded with a long-suffering sigh: “‘Kay, uh…oh, shit - ever tell you about the time your brother and I almost got arrested for chucking eggs at some lady off the L platform? She deserved it, so don’t get your panties in a twist, but your mom was pissed when we got home with her groceries…”
Carmy had, in fact, heard this story before; around twenty-ish times by conservative estimate, including just a few hours after it happened. But it was a soothing background, familiar and homey like a favorite, chipped coffee mug, and breathing like a real person again became manageable.
He dropped Richie’s wrist, and the narration stopped abruptly. He kept his face buried in his knees.
“Sorry,” Carmy said after a long silence. “That was - God. Shit. I’m sorry.”
“All good. Do your thing.”
As the panic tapered off, the tears washed in. Carmy couldn’t have pinpointed exactly what was making him cry. The burning shame and humiliation of being seen that way, maybe. His shoulders shook, and his now-plentiful breaths quivered. A lighter clicked to his left. Nonchalant, Richie had settled in on the ground beside him and lit a cigarette. As if they hadn’t just had a real conversation for the first time since the walk-in. As if their public grand opening was not looming closer every second.
How could Richie not feel this? How was everyone so calm? And why couldn’t he be calm, too?
“We should talk,” Carmy said, voice rough, once he’d finally regained a solid grip on his emotions.
Richie caught his eye. “Fuck that. You’ve got a get out of jail free card if you do two things for me.”
“What’s the first?”
“Apologize to Claire. She’s a nice fucking girl, Carm. That was shitty.”
Carmy swallowed, nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The second?”
“Don’t ever use my daughter against me like that. Do it again and I swear, I’ll walk out of here and I won’t come back.”
“Heard.” I’m sorry.
Richie looked at him for a long moment, expression softening, then extended his half-smoked cigarette in offering. I forgive you. I’m sorry, too.
Carmy accepted it and took a slow drag. I forgive you.
The nicotine likely wasn’t good for his recovering nervous system, but God was it good for the soul. Carmy let the smoke fill his already sore throat and reveled in the sting. When Richie rose to go, Carmy asked, “Where’d you learn that? The pulse thing.”
“Mikey got a lot of panic attacks, near the end. It helped him, and you’ve got the same fucked up genes, so.” This, Richie said casually, between a shrug and dusting dirt off his suit pants. “Dinner service in an hour, bossman. Syd saved you a plate from family.”
(4:03 P.M.) You: I am so, so sorry
(4:04 P.M.) Claire: Took you long enough. Could you be more specific?
(4:06 P.M.) You: What I said was incredibly messed up. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m sorry I said it. I’m sorry we ended that way
(4:07 P.M.) Claire: Thank you.
(4:07 P.M.) Claire: Could you do something for me?
(4:08 P.M.) You: Of course
(4:09 P.M.) Claire: Get some help, Carmy. I don’t want to go to another Berzatto funeral.
Carmy stamped the cigarette out and rose.