Chapter 112 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
Chapter 112 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
AVERY
His apartment was too quiet.
That was the first thing that felt wrong.
I knocked once. Then again, harder. The door gave under my hand… unlocked.
“Asher?”
No answer.
Shadow appeared first with a sharp, insistent meow. He paced once around my ankles, tail flicking, then looked back toward the bedroom like I was late to something obvious.
My stomach tightened.
“Asher?” I called again, louder this time, stepping fully inside and shutting the door behind me. The living room lights were on. His keys were on the counter. A glass of water sat untouched near the edge of the island. Everything looked ordinary.
Shadow meowed again and trotted ahead of me.
I followed.
“Asher, this isn’t funny.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “You called me over here. The least you could do is—”
The bedroom door was half open.
I pushed it the rest of the way without giving myself time to hesitate.
And stopped.
Asher was on the floor.
He was half-curled near the side of the mattress, back pressed to the frame, one hand clenched in the front of his shirt like he was trying to hold his own ribs in place. His breathing was wrong…too fast, too shallow, dragged in through his mouth in broken pulls that never seemed to reach deep enough. Sweat darkened the collar of his T-shirt. A few strands of blond hair stuck to his forehead.
His eyes were open, but they weren’t focused on me.
Not really.
They were fixed somewhere middle-distance, wide and glassy, as if the room around him had stopped being solid.
For one stunned second, my brain refused to make the image make sense. Asher Whitlock did not look like this. Asher Whitlock did not end up on the floor unable to get air into his lungs. Asher Whitlock lived behind control so airtight it bordered on arrogance.
Except he was right there.
Shaking.
“Asher.”
Nothing.
I dropped to my knees in front of him fast enough that the impact stung. Up close, it was worse. His whole body was rigid and trembling at the same time, shoulders jerking with every failed attempt at a full breath. The hand twisted in his shirt had gone bloodless at the knuckles. The other one hovered near the floor like he couldn’t tell whether he needed to brace himself or push the world away.
“Hey. Hey.” I touched his wrist carefully. His skin was clammy. “Asher, look at me.”
His gaze flicked toward the sound of my voice without fully landing. A rough, broken sound left his throat.. not quite a word, not quite a breath. His chest rose too fast. Fell too fast. Rose again like it was fighting him.
Panic.
Real panic.
“Okay,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “Okay.”
I shifted closer, keeping my voice low and even even though my own pulse was slamming hard enough to make my fingers unsteady.
“You’re having a panic attack,” I said. “I know it feels like you can’t breathe. You’re still breathing. Listen to me.”
His eyes shut hard, face twisting as another wave hit him. His shoulders curled inward. For a second he looked younger than I had ever seen him…stripped of every sharp edge, reduced to the raw fight for air and control and a body that refused to obey.
Shadow lingered in the doorway with another anxious little sound.
I didn’t look away from Asher.
“I’m here,” I said, tighter now. “I’m right here.”
Asher’s breathing was still too fast, scraped and shallow. His hand stayed fisted in his shirt.
“Asher, listen to me.” I kept my voice low and steady, even though my own heart was slamming. “You’re safe. You’re in your room. It’s just us.”
He made another broken sound. Not a word. More like his throat had forgotten how to shape one.
Okay.
Ground him.
I shifted fully onto the floor in front of him, close enough that my knees nearly touched his.
“Name five things you can see,” I said.
Nothing.
“Asher.” I squeezed his wrist once. “Five things. Look.”
His eyes dragged toward me with visible effort, still glassy, still not fully here.
“The bed,” I prompted softly. “Start there.”
A ragged breath. Then, hoarse and barely audible:
“…Bed.”
“Good. What else?”
His gaze flickered. “Floor.”
“Yeah. What else?”
“Window.”
“Two more.”
His throat worked. “Lamp. You.”
“Good.” Relief loosened something in my chest. “Four things you can touch.”
His fingers twitched against mine.
“Your hand,” he got out.
“What else?”
He pressed his palm flatter to the floor beside him, like he needed the solidness of it. “Floor.”
“And?”
“Shirt.” A shallow swallow. “Wall.”
“Perfect. You’re doing it.” I moved my other hand to his back, not rubbing, just anchoring there between his shoulder blades. His whole frame was still trembling. “Breathe with me. Not deep. Just slower. In through your nose for four.”
He tried and failed on the first attempt, air stuttering back out almost immediately.
“Again,” I said. “With me. In.”
I counted under my breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
“Hold.”
His eyes shut.
“Out through your mouth.”
The exhale left him rough and uneven, but longer than before. I stayed with it, counting again, then again, until the worst of the gasping began to thin. The rigid line of his shoulders eased by fractions. His hand, still caught loosely in mine, stopped shaking quite so hard.
“Three things you can hear,” I murmured.
A pause. His breathing scraped in and out, slower now.
“…You.”
“What else?”
“You.”
“And?”
Shadow meowed softly from the doorway, as if on cue.
Asher’s mouth twitched in something too broken to be a smile. “Cat.”
“Yeah.” My thumb moved once across the side of his hand before I could stop it. “Two things you can smell.”
He took a careful breath. “Soap.”
“And?”
“Your… hoodie.”
That almost undid me, for some reason. The quiet honesty of it. I nodded anyway.
We stayed like that on the floor… me counting, him following, the room slowly stopping its collapse around him. Each minute pulled him a little further back into himself. The sweat at his hairline began to cool. His pupils looked less blown. The terrifying blankness in his expression cracked enough for awareness to filter back in, and with it, the first flicker of something like humiliation under the exhaustion.
His breathing finally evened into something sustainable.
He leaned his head back against the side of the bed and closed his eyes, throat exposed, body spent like he had run miles without moving.
“There,” I whispered. “You’re okay.”
His fingers tightened weakly around mine.
He didn’t let go.
And I, God help me, didn’t either.