8.31.2013.

The man next to Emmy looked up from his magazine. “You one of Dr. Regan’s patients?” He asked her, unexpectedly. Emmy grimaced inwardly. Conversation, at the moment, was beyond her power. Her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth and her lungs refused to give up enough air simply to exist in comfort, much less talk. She turned to the man and studied him briefly. To Emmy’s surprise, she recognized him as the same young man she had seen before. He still appeared healthy, and also hardly any older than Emmy herself, and she remembered guessing that he was there waiting for someone else, rather than being a patient. Upon closer examination, however, she saw that his skin had a revealing pallor and he was thinner than most men his age. In the time it had taken to study him, Emmy had caught her breath.

She answered slowly and somewhat hesitantly, “Yes.”

“I figured.”He replied.

Her brows furrowed. “How?” He was reading an article about health food and he answered without taking his eyes off of it.

“How what?”

“How did you know I was here to see Dr. Regan?”

“Because you don’t look so good.”

“Thanks.” She replied sarcastically, slapping open her own magazine. Mila Kunis and Mariah Carey were still going on as if nothing had even happened. Emmy had never felt so small and insignificant in her life.

“I only meant that you look like you just got some bad news.”

Emmy said nothing. Her heart was already racing again and talking just made it worse. She wanted to be left alone. No she didn’t. She wanted to go back to the way things had been two hours ago. Back when her world made sense and the huge dark cloud that was her future didn’t exist. Panic was a terrible feeling. She hated it, and she fought it, but still she felt it slither into every tiny curve and crevice of her heart. There was nothing she could do but sit there and feel her body seized with a terrible exhausting fear.

Suddenly the shock of an unexpected touch on her arm brought Emmy flying out of her thoughts.

“You alright?” The stranger spoke with steady, unveiled concern. The worry in his face was genuine and her panic subsided slightly at the warm, compassionate touch of another human being. His dark eyes were kind. Somehow their softness eased her fears. Could it be…. he was afraid too? Perhaps even caught in the same terror that she was?