Buried deep in her troubled thoughts, Emmy started at the soft sound of
someone settling into the chair beside her. Her head was beginning to spin and
she felt uncomfortably cold. Suddenly even the light weight of the People
magazine seemed too great a burden for her slender fingers. Clearing her
throat, Emmy laid it down onto her lap and tried desperately to catch her
breath without gasping and drawing the attention of everyone in the room. She
felt eyes on her and looked up at the man in the next chair. To her surprise,
he was young like her, not older than forty like everyone else in the room. He
met her gaze and smiled cheerfully. Emmy suspected that he was there waiting
for someone. He looked perfectly healthy. Embarrassed by her own poor health,
she bent her head again so he wouldn’t see her pallor and her shaking hands.
Panic gripped her in spite of her resolve to stay calm, and with it came fear
and nausea. Every nerve in her body grew tense. Emmy knew from past experiences
that in just a moment she would begin to sweat and grow even more dizzy and
nauseated and would shake violently. With every effort she made to calm
herself, she only became more and more agitated.
Clenching the arm of her chair, she tried to breathe deeply, tried to
think calming thoughts, tried to think of nothing at all.
“Emmy Chappelle?”
The sound of the woman’s icy voice calling her name made Emmy’s heartbeat
jolt to a stop. She licked her lips and stood unsteadily.
“That’s me.”
“Right through here please.” The woman said, her face the emotionless
mask of a working mother of three. It was hard and cold and devoid of compassion.
Emmy followed her through the doorway, wishing she had worn shorter shoes. She
was wobbling all over the hallway in her Sophia Webster pumps. The nurse showed
her into a barren white examination room and asked Emmy to sit.
“Dr. Regan will be with you shortly.” She left abruptly and closed the
door, without waiting for Emmy to say thank you.
Once more alone, Emmy feared that the chills and panic would worsen,
but her symptoms seemed to have left as suddenly as they had come. She was no
longer shaking or weak, or even nervous. But her heart raced as if she had just
finished a marathon, instead of walking twelve feet down a cool, carpeted hall.
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