Chapter 30

CHAPTER

THIRTY

Ella sat up in bed from a sound sleep, trying to figure out what was wrong. Sometimes this happened when she'd forgotten to do something at the bakery and her subconscious realized it. Had she forgotten to turn off an oven? Were there some ingredients she'd forgotten to order that she would need later in the week?

No, that couldn't be it. She's gone shopping yesterday with Colton and?—

Colton . He wasn't in bed with her. That's what had woken her up.

She glanced toward the bathroom but that door was open, so he wasn't in there. She made her way out of bed and padded into the kitchen. Maybe he'd gotten hungry. But he wasn't there either.

Had he left?

They both had gone to bed a little early, the incident at the sporting goods store having taken a lot of Colton's energy. He'd apologized multiple times for it taking so long. Not that an apology was necessary.

She walked over to a front window and peeked out. His truck was still parked out front, so he had to be here somewhere.

"Colton?"

She wasn't sure that searching for him was even the right thing to do. Maybe he needed some time to decompress. Maybe he wanted to be alone.

She didn't call out for him anymore, but she walked around and noticed all the doors were open so he couldn't be here inside. Her house wasn't very big, and unless he was sitting in one of the closets, he wasn't in here.

She rubbed the heels of her hand against tired eyes. Where could he be? She glanced out the window one more time, thinking perhaps he was out walking. But the sidewalks were clear. He couldn't?—

Wait, was that a shadow in the cab of his truck? She squinted and watched for a few more seconds. Yes, he was definitely in there. Maybe he'd forgotten something. But he didn't seem to be moving or looking for anything.

Finally, she decided to go out there and see if he needed something. Wrapping herself in her favorite cardigan, she walked out and tapped on the window.

She knew immediately he wasn't okay. He jerked away from the window at the sound, but his eyes were wide and unfocused.

Shit . He was in the middle of a panic attack.

She slowly eased the truck door open. "Colton? It's Ella." She wasn't sure how coherent he was during these events.

His breath sawed in and out of his chest at way too rapid a pace for someone as fit as Colton who wasn't doing anything.

Should she touch him? Should she leave him alone?

She couldn't stop herself; she had to try to help him. She slowly moved her hand toward his arm, ready to jump back if he got violent. She touched him as gently as possible, concerned at how clammy his skin was under her fingers. Cold, yet she saw sweat beading on his forehead.

He stared down at her hand, his breath still coming way too fast.

"Colton?" She was careful to keep her voice even. Not betraying any of her own panic at seeing him this way. "Can you come back to me?"

She had no idea if she was saying the right thing .

"It's late. Still dark out. Do you think you might want to come inside? I would like for you to come inside."

He blinked rapidly at her. Maybe she was getting through to him. She kept talking and rubbing his arm gently.

"I woke up and you weren't in bed with me, and I missed you."

More blinks.

"If you want, I can make you something to eat. It won't necessarily involve rainbow sprinkles, but maybe some food would make us both feel better."

His breathing seemed to be slowing just the slightest bit.

"That's right. Come back and talk to me. We've always had a good time talking to each other. Do you remember that time in high school when we all got stuck in the gym during that storm? None of us could get home because the bridge washed out, so they made us stay there till nearly midnight?"

She continued on with the story, talking about how they all ate food from the basketball game concession stand and slept on the gym floor.

After that, she launched into another story from even further back about the time Colton and his brother Tucker had snuck out with Lilah and Scarlett. When the girls' dad, a former Navy SEAL, found out about it, he threatened to kill both thirteen-year-old boys. Only the fact that Gabe Collingwood and Boy Riley were good friends stopped any bloodshed. Ella remembered the story because it had been the weekend her sister had gotten married.

By midway through a third story, Colton's breathing was almost back to normal.

"Hi," she said gently when she could see his eyes were more focused than they had been for the past…however long she been talking. "How about we go inside?"

He nodded, moving slowly as he got out of the truck and walked beside her into the house. Once there, he still seemed a little lost, so she guided him over to the couch before grabbing them both bottled water from the fridge. He took his bottle and drank it down in one huge gulp. Then he just stared at the plastic in his hand .

"I'm sorry," he finally said. "You shouldn't have had to see me like that."

She sat down on the couch but gave him space. He didn't look very receptive to someone being close to him. "We all have low points. There's no need to apologize for that. But how did you end up in your truck, do you remember?"

For a minute, she thought he wasn't going to answer, but finally, he found his voice. "Sometimes I can't sleep. It doesn't seem to matter what bed I'm in. I discovered that somehow my brain relaxes in my truck, so I try to sleep there. I know that's stupid."

"Not at all. It's good that you have somewhere you can get rest when you need it."

He just shrugged.

"It didn't look like you were actually asleep out there."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "No, tonight was bad. I wasn't able to sleep here. I didn't want to disturb you, so I thought maybe I'd go sleep in the truck. But then that didn't work either."

"So, that was a full-blown panic attack?"

He stood up and began pacing. "Yeah. One of the worst I've had in a while. Just when I thought things were finally getting better."

She so badly wanted to go over and wrap her arms around him. "My parents are forever saying that the healing progress isn't always?—"

"Linear," they both finished at the same time.

"My parents say that too. And I know it's true. But still…" He ran his fingers through his thick brown hair, causing it to stand on end. "It's been months since the accident. I shouldn't still be having these problems."

"But—"

He held out a hand. "I know. I know. I need to have patience. I need to be gentle with myself. I went through a traumatic event. Trust me, I've heard it all. Mom and Dad asked me to see a therapist, and I did. But it's just not working."

"You need more time. You need?— "

"How can someone who does stunts for a fucking living have panic attacks at the thought of danger?" he yelled.

Ella just blinked at him. She couldn't remember him ever yelling in frustration.

He immediately looked contrite. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you at all. I'm just frustrated that I can't seem to move past this. I feel like a fraud."

Her heart cracked. "Don't say that. You're not a fraud. There's nothing wrong with struggling after what you went through. You still do stunts, and everyone still loves you. All those people at the sporting goods store were a prime example of that."

"They wouldn't like me if they could have seen me out in my truck a few minutes ago."

"Do you really think that's true?"

"How can it not be? I'm a coward." He looked more despondent than she'd ever seen him, shaking his head before picking up his pacing again.

She wanted to be as gentle as possible, but sometimes being too sweet made things worse. Sometimes the kindest thing you could do for someone was speak the truth. "I don't think you're a coward, but I think you might be a liar."

That stopped the pacing. " What ?"

She held out a hand before he could jump into an argument. "When you say you're a coward, you're making it sound as if doing something brave or adventurous means not having any fear at all. Were you not just telling Marshall that he was still heroic for trying to save Ashley from falling into that river even though he wasn't able to?"

He shook his head. "It's not the same."

"Maybe not directly, but it's similar enough to still be true. What makes you you and so appealing to your fans is that you do the things you do despite any fear or hardships, not because the fear doesn't exist."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Maybe. But I still feel like I should have more control over my reactions than I do. "

Ella had always believed in coming at problems as logically as possible. Maybe he couldn't control his reactions, but he could at least try to understand as much as possible about them. "Have you tried to keep track of when you have panic attacks? Attempt to figure out what triggers them?"

"I thought for sure they had something to do with stunts that affect my airway in some way—limited oxygen supply or something like that. That would make sense, right? Or ones having to do with snow and ice, things that remind me directly of the avalanche."

"That would definitely make sense."

"Right. But that doesn't seem to be the case." He threw up both hands. "There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this panic. All I know is that I can't control it."

"It's interesting that you had an attack tonight, but not last night after the river incident. That would make more sense."

He nodded. "Exactly. For just a second after I jumped into that water after Marshall, the cold stole my breath and I had to regroup."

"But you did. You didn't even hesitate."

"I know. I was proud of that. I just ignored it and kept going. And then last night, I was fine. Hell, all day today, I felt fine until…"

"Was it the people? Signing autographs and the pictures? You looked like you were having a great time, but were you faking it?" Had Tony been wrong about how much Colton loved this?

"No, I liked being with the people. I always do. I was a little concerned that you weren't having much fun, but otherwise, it wasn't stressful. It wasn't till afterward when I was talking to Tony that I started to get stressed."

"What were you and Tony talking about? Was it about the stalker? Has that topic caused the attacks? That would be understandable too."

He finally stopped pacing and came to sit down on the couch next to her. "No, the opposite. The more I'm focused on something dangerous, the less the panic seems to occur, even with the stalker. Like, when we were trying to draw her out? I was completely focused and didn't have one iota of anxiety. But he and I weren't talking about the stalker anyway."

"What were you talking about?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing dramatic. Plans for the future. How to get my numbers back up. The stuff the PR team is thinking about all the time."

"Were you fighting?"

"No. To be honest, I wasn't interested in it at all. I just don't give a shit about that stuff."

Annoyance was clear on his face, but when she looked down at his hand, it was starting to tremble slightly.

Maybe they'd been thinking about this the completely wrong way.

"What if your panic attacks aren't about the accident at all—or at least, not fear of those types of stunts?"

"What do you mean? I never had any anxiety until the avalanche."

"Or maybe it just never manifested itself until you were so abruptly faced with your own mortality and how short life can be."

"I'm still not sure I understand what you're saying."

"Have you considered that your panic attacks are about you feeling trapped in your own career?"

She half expected him to laugh or scoff, but he didn't. He sat there staring at the space in front of him for a long time.

A really long time.

"Colton?" she finally asked, hoping she hadn't offended him. "Are you okay?"

He looked over at her slowly. "I think you're right. I've been going through my panic attacks in my mind, and yeah, early on, they might have been a little centered around the avalanche?—"

"Understandable."

"—but I think they're really about how I was feeling before the accident. That I was done with the constant treadmill of stunts just for the public glory of it. That I'm ready to retire."

"Retire completely?" She hadn't been expecting that.

"I don't know. Maybe not completely . But simplifying everything. Getting back to the basics."

There was no tremor in his hands now.

"It sounds like you know what you want to do, you just need to do it."

Again, he stared out in front of him. But instead of looking lost like he had a few minutes ago, he looked determined. In charge. Ready to take on the world.

Like the Colton she'd known and loved almost her whole life.

"You are one hundred percent correct about that." Almost before she saw him move, he'd picked her up and deposited her across his lap. "And right now, I know what I want to do and definitely need to do it."

"Oh yeah?"

"You, Butterscotch. I want and need you ."

He laid her back against the couch and proceeded to prove it to her.