But Delia ignored him, taking in the pride on Eric’s face. She pushed herself back in her chair. She found it.

A lightness buoyed her and she reached for her phone. Somehow, she’d missed a text from Maddie.

Natalie posted a pic on Instagram. Carrying a box and waving at the Pulse building with “Bye-bye Pulse” scribbled across it. And her Pulse is Comatose.

Delia’s stomach dropped.

“No!” she cried, drawing rabid shushing from half the room. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of hot tears.

This isn’t fair!

When she opened her eyes, a blurry Eric was standing before her, reading the text on her phone. He wrapped his hand around hers and led her outside.

“We have to tell,” she blurted out. “We can’t let her be fired because of us.”

“Okay, just take a breath, Lia.”

“No matter what it means.” She paced the sidewalk outside the library. “We can’t . . . it’s not right.”

“Lia—”

“She’s innocent. I used her. I did this. I did—”

“Lia,” Eric said again.

“This. It was my idea and now . . . now . . .” Delia raised her hands to her temples, pressing against the pounding erupting on either side of her head. Sweat prickled on the surface of her skin, and her vision clouded. No! Not again, not again, not again.

“Lia!” Eric cried. “Breathe, just breathe.”

The panic in his voice ignited more in her chest and her hearing went fuzzy and she found herself reaching out, for something, anything, to stop this, to stop her body from betraying her again, like this, in front of Eric. She sank to the ground, her hands leaving her head and pushing into the concrete, the tiny pebbles of the sidewalk digging into her palms, the pain keeping her here in the moment.

She closed her eyes tight against the world, silently repeating, “Breaths raise you from the depths,” over and over until . . . they started to. When flashes of light began to infiltrate the abyss she’d descended into, she opened her eyes.

Not to the world.

To Eric.

Before her.

Kneeling on the ground, his arms outstretched as if to catch her if she fell.

“Lia. Lia, what can I do?”

The tears that had ebbed began to gather once again. “Exactly what you’re doing.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“You were here.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

Delia’s smile was weak. “No. Hoped, maybe, but no.”

“Hoped? But why . . .”

“What girl wants the guy she’s desperately falling for to see her having a panic attack?”

“You . . . what?”

“A panic attack. At least I’m pretty sure. It was the same as the other night.”

“That’s not the part of the sentence I meant.”

“Oh.” Delia blushed, and a tingle spread beneath her skin.

He flipped his hair out of his eyes, and pink colored his cheeks too. “Because I’m not falling.”