Trying to shake it off and get back to work

The meeting with Dayana ran long - not just because of my fucking panic attack and talking everything out with her, but also because we ended up having a bunch of crap to try and reorganise because the ongoing ‘extra booking’ crusade with Jonas was royally fucking things up. By the time we were done, we’d both had multiple texts summoning us elsewhere in the hotel, but Dayana had still made sure not to let me go without giving me a tight hug.

We’d hugged before, outside of work, but this was the first time she’d hugged me at work.

And again I was struck with thoughts I shouldn’t have been. The feel of her under my arm, her torso pressed to my side. The soft smell of her shampoo wafting up lightly from her thick, dark hair.

Leaving her as she headed for the restaurants while I had to head back up to the ballrooms, I had a moment to myself as I made for the elevators. And I used that moment to feel like an absolute piece of shit for a minute, wallowing in shame over the panic attack, and not being strong enough to handle everything without buckling under the stress. Then I cleared my throat hard, stood up straight again, and tried my best to tell myself it was OK. Dayana hadn’t been horrified - or not enough that I’d become a pariah to her or something. She knew the truth now, or at least as much of the truth as I could realistically tell her.

Holding back the whole App thing was still a small pinch in the back of my mind. It would have definitely been affecting Dayana’s friendship with Cassidy since they’d first met, but our friendship wouldn’t have been affected and I really did trust that Cassidy’s timeline of when she stopped everything was true.

What I really had to decide now, and what I stewed on as I rode the elevator, was whether to text Cassidy or not about it all. I wasn’t sure if Dayana would or not, or if she’d wait to get Cassidy in person before letting my fiancee know her opinion of things.

The problem was that I fully expected Cass to feel like utter shit as soon as she found out I had another panic attack partially caused by her being all coy. And she kind of deserved it, but I didn’t want her to have to feel like that. Or Cattie, since she’d been playing along at least since their lunch and hadn’t stepped in. But I also hadn’t stepped in and called Radical Honesty and just asked for the truth, mostly because I hadn’t realised or acknowledged it was starting to creep up on me like it was.

She would blame herself completely, but I had to own some of it because I needed to pay better attention to my own needs. I needed to…

I needed to be a little selfish.

And that thought made me feel gross even if it might be true.

I ended up deciding to put off texting Cass and Cattie and jumped back into work. I would see them soon enough, and we had our solo therapy later. Maybe this would be a good place to start, see if I was thinking straight.

The problem, of course, with putting something off was that it would come back at me with a vengeance. In this case, it was a series of phone calls as I was speaking with several of the organising committee folks from the group that was renting out the main ballroom that evening. I had to blindly flick my phone onto silence quickly because the vibrating in my pocket felt like it was a jackhammer in my ear, and quickly extricated myself from the conversation, heading into the back corridor from the half-setup ballroom to get some privacy.

Three calls from Cassidy in a row, then a call from Cattie right after. Plus a text from Cattie telling me Cass was panicking and that she was sorry. Dayana must have told Cassidy she’d witnessed me having a panic attack. As I was reading it I started to get several poorly spelled texts in a row from Cassidy.

I shook my head and called her, and she picked up on the first ring.

“I’m- so- sooorrryyy,” Cassidy sobbed. “Please, Robbie, I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please, I’m trying so hard.”

My heart broke at the utter despair in her voice.

“Are you OK?” Cattie asked with a nervous edge in her voice, the phone on speaker on their end. “We’re really worried about you, Tiger.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said softly, trying to keep an edge out of my voice as I paced further down the corridor from the doors into the ballroom, not wanting to be overheard by anyone coming to use the hall for normal purposes. “I was just in the middle of a conversation with a client, I couldn’t pick up right away.”

An almost comically loud nose blow happened in the background.

“Cassidy got a text from Dayana chewing her out,” Cattie explained. “Are you sure you’re OK? Can you, like, come home early or something? I don’t know if you can do that with your job if you have an attack like that?”

“I’m-” I wasn’t fine, and I didn’t want to lie and say I was. So I pivoted. “Dayana helped me through it as best she could, and no one else saw it,” I said. “And I need to get stuff done so I can get out of here on time so we can get to the therapy appointments.”

“Robbie, I’m the fucking worst,” Cass sniffled, back closer to the phone again. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I’m a cheating whore. I’m sorry I did everything the way I did even if it did work out for, like, Cattie and Becca and Terra and Wanda and-”

“Maybe don’t list everyone, babe,” Cattie murmured, interrupting her.

“I’m sorry, Robbie. I’m so fucking sorry. And I’m sorry I’m a dumb fuck who just pulled you away from a client, and- and- I don’t fucking know.”

“Cass, baby,” I said, feeling super fucking torn. On the one hand, every guilt-laden word out of her mouth made my heart hurt for her. Every put-down she laid on herself was a self-inflicted wound I wanted to soothe. On the other hand, my hand was clenching my phone tightly and I had the other hand curled into a fist in my pocket, angry and frustrated. “I love you. I’m not considering leaving you or anything drastic like that. This is a speedbump, and we’re going to probably hit a bunch of them before we… yeah. You should have told me instead of making it a game, but I should have asked for Radical Honesty as soon as I started to worry about it.”

“No, I should have just fucking told you, you shouldn’t need to ask for Radical Honesty,” she argued. “I should have fucking realised this was way more important, I just- I don’t know. Everything’s been going so well since we got back and I’m just a stupid-”

“Stop,” I said, at the same time Cattie said it on the other end of the call.

“Stop calling yourself stupid, Cass,” Cattie chastised her. “It’s not like I clued in either and you don’t think I’m stupid.”

“Every time you call yourself names, Cass, I feel it deep in my heart,” I told her.

Cassidy sobbed again, a wordless cry of anguish that broke off in a muffle that sounded an awful lot like she’d buried her face in a pillow or something. Cattie shushing her gently gave me a mental image of my girlfriend rubbing my fiancee’s back, trying to soothe her.

“I’m sorry too, Robbie,” Cattie said after a moment.

“I know, baby,” I said, feeling the weight of it. “Look, I’ll be home as soon as I can, but I need to get back to work. Cattie, I love you. Cassidy, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she croaked.

“Cassidy, I love you. Truly, madly, deeply. Even despite the roadblock. We’ll talk about it when I get home and can actually hold you both and look into your eyes, OK?”

“OK,” she mumbled, then sniffed hard and said more clearly. “OK. I love you, Robbie. I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby.”

“I love you too, Robbie,” Cattie said.

“Fuck, I’d leave right now if I could,” I sighed. “I’ll be home soon.”

When I hung up I had the urge to throw my phone down the corridor, and also to cradle it to my chest. I fucking loved them, but being on edge like this made me feel like I was about to over the edge and drive myself right into a deeper problem. Like yelling at the clients back in the ballroom who were expecting everything to be done instantaneously with a snap of my fingers, or with fucking Jonas for making the next few weeks look more and more like a goddamn minefield instead of an orderly, structured system. Or Tan for being a fucking anchor around my ankle. Or Doug for setting this whole ball rolling at work.

I took several long, deep breaths, straightened my tie, blinked several times and sniffed in one more deep breath before turning back towards the ballroom.

Work. Drive Home. Have the conversation. Go to Therapy. That’s what needed to happen.

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