Someone collides with the right half of my body, spinning me around. It knocks me off balance. This is it—the start of my attack. Not a punch or a hit, but a shove, knocking me backward. I’m falling to the ground and my death. I can’t breathe. Can’t run.

And then his arm reaches out and catches me. I don’t hit the platform. His chest and his bicep hold me upright. I clutch his shirt, bracing myself for the next hit. Dozens of people file out of the train, pushing me, knocking into me.

But they go right past us.

Every. Single. One.

No one hits me or kicks me or shoves me down. Instead, each passenger rushes out of the train and up the stairs to catch their transfers.

They aren’t trying to kill me. It’s just a crowded train full of people shoving and racing and not paying attention like any other rush hour train on any other day. And it’s that realization that makes me lose it.

I’ve been holding my breath for too long, and I gasp for air so abruptly I start to cough.

He guides me into the train while I wring his shirt, gulping oxygen, looking like some frenetic lunatic. I stumble as he leads me to a seat in the back of the train. A burning sensation explodes behind my nose. I start crying and shaking. It’s all too much—my dad, Dopney, people who want me dead. The pain of it pours out in a horrific, ugly deluge of snot and tears and coughs.

Everything seems to fade into the background—the scene I’m making, the commuters staring at the freak show I’ve become, and the fact that he tilts my hat to cover my face as I cry into the chest of this guy whose name I still don’t know.

Somewhere along the way, the train emerges from the city’s tunnels. Dusk hits the windows, pouring into the dark and dingy car as the Red Line becomes elevated like the others in the city.

With my crying under control, I keep my face against his chest while our train travels to the north side of the city. My breakdown is humiliating enough. Last thing I need is seeing it all over tonight’s news broadcasts because some jackass with a camera phone recorded my meltdown. If the city’s reporters are desperate enough to jump into some fictional romance between me and Cullen Henking, I can only imagine what they’d do with this.

We’re approaching Fullerton when he nudges my elbow. “We’re getting off.”

I lift my head. The sun’s soft orange glow reminds me of how red and puffy my eyes must be. I can’t get off this train fast enough.