This has never hit me like it does in this moment. Even the other day when I collapsed in Kiera’s lap. It’s like that moment walked so that this one could run. My ears ring and my heart races alarmingly fast. Everyone around me seems like part of an even different reality. I feel like I’m dying; my brain is emitting that drug, maybe that’s what all of this has been.

It’s a panic attack. My first major one since I arrived.

They happen when I feel out of control. That’s what Cillian said that first night.

I don’t think I would have understood it a week ago, but yes, I do feel out of control right now. I’m unraveling a ball of certainty that I am not sure I can rewind. I’m accepting what was unacceptable, and I’m afraid of what it’ll mean. Will it make all of this fall away? Will it send me home?

Will it make the rest of my life unlivable?

I need to breathe. Around me people move and talk efficiently as if I’m not experiencing an emergency.

In, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Then again, in …

My heart rate slows and I’m starting to be able to hear and see normally again.

If the panic attacks are about feeling powerless, then no wonder I’ve had so many. I’ve never had an ounce of control. In LA, I don’t have power over the hours of my day, the money in my bank account, the way I look, what I say, what I eat—anything.

Or I do have control, but I haven’t been taking it.

“Okay, you do the first line, and we’ll go from there,” says Aimee, appearing suddenly at my side. “Try to keep it close to the script where you can for the lighting cues and all, but do whatever’s best.”

Her happy face makes me want to cry. “Aimee—”

“Do it,” she says.

“I don’t think I can do it. I can’t talk about this—”

“We have to do this. Do it for me.”

She stares at me hard and I feel how deeply she needs it. But why in front of everyone? Why in front of an audience?

And yet, somewhere in me, I feel like I understand.

Onstage, we can’t run from it. Onstage, it’s easier to face, as if it’s not quite as real.

“We’ll use it,” she says. “You and I have trouble being vulnerable. It’s like Kiera said. We’re tough. But you never had trouble onstage, did you? You’re so much more confident when you’re acting.”

I don’t get a chance to answer her, because a moment later the bell rings outside and we hear people start to get back to their seats.