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Sandpaper. Or, maybe chalk. Not just the utensil itself, but the powder that flies off a board after a tired logician writes the punctuating Q.E.D. at the end of a proof. Yeah, that makes more sense--there’s chalk in your eyes right now. That’s the only feasible explanation for why you’re sitting on the coldest floor you’ve ever felt trying not to split apart at the seams. Your eyes are screwed shut while you shiver against the wall at your back, trying to remember the grounding exercise an old roommate of yours shared with you ages ago.
One thing I can taste…
The faint memory of bile accosts your tongue. You poke a cold sore that’s starting to form in your cheek and taste blood, the sharp, ringing pain pulling you somewhere closer to the present moment and muffling the memory of your professor’s breath wafting over your face. Your diaphragm spasms while attempting to take in a deep breath, sending you into a coughing fit. You taste the beginnings of mucus making its way up your throat, threatening to choke you again.
Two things I can smell…
Your perfume wafts up from your wrists, notes of Limonene and honey invading your senses and mixing with the faint smell of plastic and Simple Green from the recently cleaned floor. That was two things, right? Fuck, why can’t I think-- you say to yourself internally, interrupted by the effort it takes to choke back a sob threatening to tear through your lungs. The last thing you need right now is for someone to notice you in your current state. Losing your focus, your mind begins to wander. You remember your professor’s touch on your cheek that trailed menacingly down your neck. You jerked away from him at the time, not expecting him to blow up at you like he did. All you needed was help on a homework problem, and you got a quid pro quo. Refusing him feels like a mistake even though you know for a fact that it wasn’t. You remember how quickly his face turned sour, how laden with poison his voice was when he told you you had no potential. That you’re nothing without him and might as well give everything up if you weren’t willing to do something as simple as what he was asking. You froze under his explosive scrutiny and he was further angered by your unresponsiveness, eventually telling you to get out of his sight. Recalling all of this causes you to sink further into your panic attack, and you begin to feel phantom touches skirt over your skin before you continue trying to ground yourself.
Uhm… three things I can hear…
I’m shaking, you deduce from the faint jingling of your keys--which are currently clipped to one of the belt loops on your chinos with a carabiner. You hazard another breath and can hear the thin whistle of a wheeze on the exhale, then Footsteps after a door shutting in the distance. You try to remember what rooms are in that direction, but right now you can’t recall anything other than who you are and what just happened. The footsteps seem to get closer before stopping, I guess they left…
Four things I can touch…
You drag a nail over the pad of your thumb before clenching your fists and running your knuckles over the fabric of your pants. You gingerly unclench your fists and set them down on the floor on either side of you, letting the cold linoleum draw heat from your skin. The muscles in your arms and shoulders are still wound tight and are starting to burn with fatigue. I need to relax, you think but you can’t quite will yourself to do that yet. I need to get up, I need to go home…
Five things I can see…
It takes every ounce of strength left in you to open your eyes. The first thing you notice is pain as your eyes adjust to the sudden influx of light after having your eyes shut for what must’ve been a long time. As the blurriness fades you see your legs crossed in front of you, quads still tense and ready to help you bolt if you need to. Taking in another shuddering breath, you look up at the wall in front of you, tracing along the faint lines of graphite that compose what looks like half of a Fourier transform coefficient calculation before the sound of quickly approaching footsteps makes you snap your gaze to the right.
White Converse shoes… sandy blonde hair… blue eyes. Blue eyes…
Will drops to his knees in front of you and takes your face into his hands. “What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you hear me? Please say something, you’re freakin’ me out--” Will looks over you frantically, presumably looking for injuries or any sort of sign of foul play. “What happened?” he picks up your hands from the floor and holds them between his warmer ones, rubbing them together to try to bring some warmth to them.
“I need to go home--” The haggard grit to your voice surprises you and evokes a pained grimace from Will. He draws a hand into his sleeve and uses the loose fabric to wipe a few errant tears from your face.
“Can you stand?” His voice sounds small and restrained and his grey-blue eyes look steely as he looks into yours. You nod a few times and try to stretch out your legs, slowly stretching out your fatigued and still-tight muscles. He helps you stand, one hand on your elbow, the other on your back, and the two of you slowly walk out of the mathematics building.
After you get into your apartment, Will helps you take off your shoes before situating you on your couch. He kneels in front of you and regards you for a moment before asking, “Have you had any water?” you shake your head no, staring down at your lap. You hear Will utter a soft ‘alright’ as he stands back up and starts to walk away from you. A bolt of panic tears through you and you suddenly reach for him, eyes staring at his hand, wide as saucers while you’re grasping onto it. He flinches unconsciously, causing you to let go and draw back from him in embarrassment, having forgotten about his own history. “S'okay…” he says before sitting down on the cushion next to you and picking up the hand you reached out to him with. He sits there with your hand in his, passing his thumb over the small patch of skin he can reach while still interlocking the rest of your fingers together. The two of you sit like this for what feels like an eternity before Will finally breaks the silence. “...Can I hug you?” You nod in response. “You sure?” he asks carefully, already scooting closer to you, and you nod again, with more conviction this time. You move toward each other and Will wraps you up in an all-encompassing embrace. He starts smoothing down the hair at the nape of your neck and all that you'd been blocking in the hallway comes rushing back to you with a vengeance. You break down again, your arms tightening around Will as you let out a pained cry, muffled only by the fabric of his shirt. He starts to rock you back and forth, telling you that you're okay while rubbing soothing circles into your back.
The two of you sit like this for maybe twenty minutes before Will begins to pull back. “ ‘m gonna get you some water, okay?” You nod and free him from your grip, curling into a pseudo-fetal position while you wait for him to come back. Eventually, he returns with a glass of water, sitting back down next to you and putting a hand on your shoulder to alert you of his presence. “Here, have some of this, then maybe we can try some food if you're up for it.” He says barely above a whisper as you look back up at him and the water he's presenting to you. You take the cup and hold his hand while slowly sipping the cool liquid, the temperature difference between it and yourself shocking you further into alertness, finally fully taking in what's happening around you.
After a few minutes of silence, Will asks you the one question you were hoping he'd avoid. “What happened? What's got you like this?” He brushes a stray lock of hair out of your eyes and you lean into his touch.
You shake your head in response and he clicks his tongue at you. “C’mon, please don't lie to me. I know this ain't nothin’... did someone do something to you?” Your silence speaks for you and you can feel Will tense up in front of you. His thumb pauses its repetitive journey back and forth over the back of your hand as he continues, his voice going cold with thinly veiled fury. “Say the name and they’re gone, I'll knock ‘em into their grave--”
“That's exactly why I can't tell you, you can't do that--”
“What're they, God? I'll fight ‘im too, knock ‘im on his ass if he has one,” this starts you laughing; it's a wheeze of a chuckle, but more than you were expecting to come out of you.
“No, no, I… I think… I'm gonna have to file a report. And if I do, there might be an investigation, and if there's an investigation I’ll have to sign an NDA, so I can't tell you…” you finish the water and Will takes the empty cup from you, setting it on the coffee table.
“... so it was one of the faculty? I can ask Lambeau, maybe he can get ‘em fired--”
“Do not tell Lambeau. Things like this… they'll all gang up on me just to stay in the good graces of their colleagues. I don't think I could handle being on anyone else's hit list right now.” you hold Will’s hand with both of yours now, feeling the contrasting textures of his nails and skin.
The two of you sit in silence again before Will asks, “What're we gonna do then? Just wait for someone to pick up the case and hope something happens?”
“That's what we'll have to do. I doubt anything will happen, but I really don't have the energy to think about what else I could possibly do right now…” You can feel Will's arm bob up and down slightly as he nods hesitantly.
“...how're you feelin’? Can I convince you to maybe have a bite to eat, or is that too much right now?” you shake your head and breathe out a barely audible ‘too much’ before shutting your eyes again. “Okay…. Do you wanna lie down on your bed or do you wanna stay here?”
“Here, please,” you whisper, leaning into Will's hand, which is currently drying a tear you didn't know was sneaking through your eyelids.
“‘Course, no need to say please, I can't stop you from laying down on your own couch.” He breathes out a laugh before leaning over to pick up a throw blanket that was crumpled up behind you. He helps you wrap the blanket around yourself and eases you back into his arms before reclining back into the sofa's arm as much as possible, the two of you settling into a warm and comfortable silence. Or, at least it would be if you could get your brain to quiet down.
Your mind is still circling back to what your professor said just before he made you leave his office. You’ve felt like this ever since you transferred to MIT last Fall--feeling like you somehow made it in by mistake, that you weren’t meant to be there. All of that’s been dialed to eleven since you’ve started classes, though, the intensity and pace of the work making you feel like a fish out of water. You’ve been keeping up your grades, but your success always feels acquired by the skin of your teeth. Maybe he’s right; maybe you really aren’t cut out for this. The prospect of having to give up the one thing you’ve been dreaming of doing since you learned how to count was beyond distressing, but everything seems so uncertain now. Your spiral into the depths of self-hatred is interrupted by Will running his hand over your hair, slightly scratching your scalp. “You know you’re fuckin’ brilliant, right? People only do shit like that because they don’t know what else to do to control you.”
“I honestly find that hard to believe--”
“Then find a way,” you can feel him looking down at your form, nestled within his arms. “Hey, look at me.” Reluctantly you turn your head to awkwardly look him in the eye. “I mean it. You’re perfect. Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you know I’m telling you the truth,” he says, cupping the side of your face with his free hand. “You are extraordinary. Please don't ever doubt that.” You feel your heart jump at his declaration. Will is usually sparing with compliments, but when he does utter them he has a piercing intensity to his demeanor that makes your face light up like a Christmas tree. He looks at you like you’re the universe staring back at him, the only thing standing between him and oblivion. “Please. Promise me.”
Looking into his eyes, you feel that same reverence for him. Will has been through so much, and yet he still has the bandwidth to love you and the trust to open his heart to you. You try to match his intensity and sincerity while looking back at him, eyes glistening and gaze raw,“... I promise… Thank you.”