He handed it to me. It was titled The Worst First Kiss. I could almost hear my mom’s voice saying, “There’s no such thing as coincidences.” I’d never subscribed to that particular theory of hers, but I was much closer to believing it now. Jeez, if I was looking for a sign, you couldn’t ask for a bigger one than that.

As I glanced at a couple of the pages, not sure what I was looking for, he said, “In this script the heroine has that phobia, but it’s about germs. Is that a problem for you?”

“No. I don’t think about germs. I mean, more than one dog has licked my face, and I didn’t freak out about germs or anything. I’m not grossed out by kissing. It’s the act itself that is paralyzing for me.” I hesitated to ask my next question, but curiosity took over. “How does the heroine deal with it? Does she get over it?”

“She does. She learns to ground herself to deal with the attacks.”

“What does that mean?”

“Basically that instead of avoiding the feelings associated with the panic attacks, you let yourself feel them but stay in control by grounding yourself. Hold on, let me look it up real fast.” He turned pages until he found what he was looking for. “You’re supposed to think of five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. When your mind is racing, going through those steps is supposed to bring you back to the present so you can focus on what’s happening to you physically instead of being caught up in your brain. And deep breathing is supposed to help, too.”

“Really?” I was skeptical.

“In the script it works, and she also practices kissing with the hero, who is also her best friend, and she overcomes her phobia. There was a note that the scriptwriter overcame this thing in real life. I’m not an expert or anything, but it seems to me that it’s kind of similar to being afraid to fly or being terrified of tarantulas. You get over your fear by repeatedly exposing yourself to the thing you’re afraid of and working through your reaction.”

Logically it made sense. It also made me feel better that somebody else had been through the same thing as me, even if hers had happened for different reasons.

It was also the first time in a long time that I’d felt hope over my situation—what if I could overcome this? What if I could be in a normal relationship and actually be able to kiss someone without feeling like I was going to die?

That would be amazing.