Twenty-Two
On Tuesday, Helen is surprised to be the first one in the office. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day (she spent last night getting dinner with Nicole and Saskia, then driving home alone on principle) and there’s a seven-car pileup on the freeway, apparently, which traps everyone else in the traffic going north to Burbank. Suraya texts instructing them to start without her, whenever Grant arrives. About forty minutes later, she texts them again to say they’re basically done breaking episode 109 anyway and she has too many preproduction meetings so she’s going straight to the production office instead and they can all just work from home today.
Helen’s about to turn and head home when the elevator doors open and Grant appears. He’s wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap, and she can see his shoulders heaving up and down unnaturally as he walks out.
Something’s wrong.
He sees her, but he’s walking in brisk strides toward his office instead.
“Grant?”
“Water,” he says croakily, and jams a mug under the office water cooler.
He presses the hot water accidentally first, and curses before he switches to the cold water. She reaches his side then, and up close she can see he’s pale and sweating.
“What’s wrong?” She touches his hand gently.
“Panic attack,” he says grimly, closing his eyes as he leans back against the wall.
“Tell me what you need now,” she says.
“I need to count,” he says. “Letters on signs, or—or something . . .”
“Should I count with you?” she asks, and points at a poster on the wall. “That sign?”
He nods, and she holds his hand as they both count upward. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
By the time they reach five, his breath is coming out in slow, racking sobs, and she slides her arm around his waist to wrap him in a hug. He drops his face into her hair, and she can feel the damp heat of his breath and tears as he inhales and exhales, accepting her comfort without hugging her back.
“What happened?” she asks, when his breathing slows and she feels him straighten.
She runs her palms up and down his upper arms, trying to warm him.
“It’s stupid,” he mutters, and she presses a kiss against his neck, willing him to go on. “Traffic on the five north, because of the pileup.”
“The big car accident?”
“There was a second one, a few miles after the big pileup. Someone in a sheet on the ground,” he says.
“Oh.”
“I kept thinking about how they made it past all that traffic, just to die a few miles later,” he mutters. “Or maybe it happened before and caused the other big pileup. I don’t know.”
“And you had a panic attack?” she asks, looking up at him.
He wipes his face with his hand, and she takes the hand from him to press a kiss into his palm.
“You’ve done that before,” he says, and swallows.
“You were hurt then too,” she murmurs, lacing her fingers through his hands.
He exhales shortly.
“Sometimes I get like this,” he mutters. “I don’t know why. The most random fucking triggers, it’s embarrassing.”
“Is it about . . .” Helen doesn’t finish the question, but he hears it anyway.
“Probably,” he says. “I mean, it definitely fucked me in the head, if that’s what you’re asking. It took so long for the paramedics to get there, I still remember the traffic.”
“Come on,” Helen says, and tugs his hand to lead them toward his office.
She shuts the door and sits on the couch against the wall. He removes his baseball cap and leans against the door. He’s cold and pale, and she aches at how vulnerable he looks.
“Come here,” she says, and when he moves to the couch, she urges him down until his head is in her lap. She brushes a hand through his hair, repeating the motion in soothing strokes.
“Do you think about that night a lot?” she asks.
“I try not to,” he mutters. “I feel so fucking useless whenever I do.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” she murmurs.
“You don’t know that,” he says quietly.
“There was nothing you could have done,” she repeats, shaking her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I thought I was going to jail,” he says, and laughs in a choked kind of way. “I was mostly worried about me.”
“That makes sense,” she says. “You were just a kid. You didn’t know what could happen. It was scary.”
Grant presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“You . . . of all people . . . should not be comforting me. My life has gone really well since then,” he says. “It’s so fucked-up.”
She covers both his hands with hers, hoping the extra weight feels comforting even in the darkness of his vision, and after a moment, he silently laces their fingers together.
“You can tell me, you know,” she says, so quietly she feels compelled to repeat it. “You can tell me about that night. If it helps to have someone to—to remember it with.”
They’re both still for a moment.
Grant takes a breath, and then he starts.