You'll come apart and you'll go blind
Agatha’s choice of lunch food turned out to be a small vintage-looking diner with a stereotypical menu and slightly sticky linoleum floors.
Rio had followed Agatha obediently across the diner, still holding her hand, and didn’t resist in the slightest as she was pulled next to Agatha in their chosen booth, rather than seated across from her.
It was a small win, but Rio reveled in it, and, when Agatha squeezed her hand before reaching for the paper menus, Rio tried her luck by gently placing her now-free hand on Agatha's jean clad thigh.
The slight catch of Agatha’s breath was the only acknowledgement Rio received, but she was more than happy with that.
It was only when the silence between the two passed the five-second mark that Rio felt herself fall painfully back into reality. She was not the Cool and Confident Girl, she was not the Yea Let's Grab Lunch Girl, she was the girl who had five consecutive panic attacks last time she went to a restaurant; she was the girl who sat in the corner of cafés alone.
The high Rio had been on since the day before crashed around her unceremoniously.
She felt the tingle of anxiety in her fingertips.
Fuck.
Somehow, Agatha's confidence had blinded Rio of everything other than the present, had made her forget the anxiety attacks that had gotten her so behind on her school work in the first place, the panic attacks that had exhausted her friends until they gave up on her. Her obsession with the older girl had blinded her of the fundamental truths about herself.
The silence stretched out as Agatha's eyes dragged down the menu.
Rio felt nauseous.
Her skin was itching with a cruel type of electricity and her fingertips longed to claw at her skin to get it out.
She could feel her breathing becoming shallow. She was helpless to stop it.
Fuck. Fuck.
You are not going to have an anxiety attack in front of Agatha, she told herself. Get yourself together.
Her heart jumped painfully in her chest.
The hand on Agatha’s thigh flew to her wrist.
Her nails scraped across skin.
Fuck.
Agatha was looking at her now, her head twisted to the side and Rio was sure she looked like a deer in headlights.
She could only stomach a fraction of a second of eye contact before it became too much and her eyes began darting from the table, to her jeans, to the floor, back to the table; entirely avoiding Agatha.
She can't see you like this, her brain whispered, you're disgusting like this, you can't do this.
I can't do this.
‘Are you okay?’ Agatha asked, her voice distant and muffled to Rio's ears.
I can't do this.
She managed to force words past her lips.
‘Yeah, I'm jus’ gonna go to the bathroom quickly.’
She didn't wait for an answer before slipping out the booth and following the signs to the toilets.
Her body felt weak and unstable.
She didn't even make it into one of the stalls before her legs gave out and she slumped against the sinks, knees against her chest, shaking painfully, her breaths so shallow she might as well be suffocating.
I can't do this, I need to go, I can't, I can't, I-
Rio stifled a sob with one hand, clawing at her collarbone with the other.
The pain was dull and distant, like her body was disjointed from herself.
Her lungs cried out.
Air, they begged, Let us breathe.
Rio didn't - couldn't - obey.
They took matters into their own hands.
Rio choked, maybe gagged, and began flapping her hands maniacally as her body forced air past her lips.
Her mouth felt too dry.
She choked again, her body seemingly unable to remember the proper way to breath.
In through the mouth? Or the nose? Both?
Rio's hands returned to her wrists, clawing, picking, digging in. She could barely feel it.
She let her head fall against her knees.
I can't do this.
The bathroom door swung open.
‘Rio?’
Rio didn't move, didn't look up, couldn't bring herself to see the look of disgust that would be painting Agatha's face.
Her fingernails worked double time on her wrists.
‘Rio, hey,’ She felt Agatha kneel next to her on the dirty bathroom floor, ‘Can I touch you?’
What the fuck? Why isn't she leaving?
It took Rio a few seconds to process her words, but when she did she shook her head, the thought of hands on her skin causing a horrible wave of nausea.
She shook her head harder.
If someone touched her she would throw up.
‘Okay,’ Agatha said softly, shuffling back a little, ‘Can you lift your head and sit up? It'll help with your breathing.’
Rio didn't move.
Why isn't she leaving?
‘Why aren't you leaving?’ Her voice came out strained and scratchy, muffled by her own legs.
‘Do you want me to?’ Agatha asked, speaking softly and evenly, her words floating through the thick fog in Rio's head.
Rio paused.
She was still shaking, her muscles beginning to ache from it, she was sure her eyeliner would be smudged from her tears, her wrists and shoulders were probably red and raw and her hair was likely fucked as well. She was disgusting.
She didn't want Agatha to see her like this, but she already had, and, instead of leaving, she had sat next to her, kneeling on the filthy floor, and was trying to help.
Rio was scared, scared of being too much, or too weird, or too mentally ill, but she didn't want Agatha to leave.
She didn't know the girl at all really, but she felt like she'd die if she left, she felt like she was somehow tied to Agatha, like if the older girl walked away now, she would be taking a part of (most of) Rio with her.
‘No,’ she said, voice barely above a whisper, head still resting on her knees, ‘stay, please.’
‘Okay.’ Rio heard a slight shuffling of clothes and shoes against tile floors and a slight thud that was probably Agatha leaning against the sinks.
Time passed in a haze.
Rio choked on her own breathing a few more times before she finally gave in to Agatha’s insistence she sit up straight and revealed her face, feeling like someone had just stripped her naked and left her in the middle of a busy shop, but it did help her breath better. Her body continued to shake, even spasming uncomfortably a few (horribly embarrassing) times.
She still hadn’t dared to look at Agatha, fearful of, what she believed to be, inevitable rejection, but, when her body finally began to calm and the nausea ebbed, Rio knew she should at least say something.
‘I’m sorry.’ She said eventually, the words oh so familiar on her tongue.
‘No.’
That surprised Rio enough that she forgot her fear and turned to look Agatha right in her soul-piercing blue eyes.
‘No?’
‘You don’t apologise for anxiety attacks, idiot. They’re not your fault.’
There was a beat of silence. Rio thought she might cry.
‘Do you think you can move?’ Agatha asked, thankfully putting a pause on Rio’s tratorus tear ducts’ plan to make her cry.
‘Yeah,’ Rio said, trying to figure out how her body was feeling, noting only a blurry pain from her scratches and a slight lightness in her head, ‘I think so.’
Agatha stood first, offering a hand out to Rio, who took it, finding the slightly dry skin of the older girl's hands to be surprisingly grounding.
With a little help, Rio made it to her feet before promptly falling back against the sink, her vision dimming at the edges and her limbs tingling unpleasantly.
‘Shit.’ Agatha muttered and Rio felt arms circle around her waist, holding her upright and pulling her away from the sinks.
‘Sorry.’ Rio mumbled into Agatha's shoulder, letting the other girl hold most of her weight as her vision slowly returned to normal, ‘I can get really lightheaded after, y’ know, that.’
‘Stop fucking apologising, it's not your fault.’ Agatha replied, her tone stern but soft as she tightened her grip on Rio's waist slightly. ‘We're gonna get you some food and you'll feel a bit better.’
‘Okay.’
—
It took them approximately five minutes before they actually made it out of the bathroom.
Rio apologised approximately five times per minute.
Agatha, miraculously, didn’t hit her.
In fact, even when Rio was stable again, Agatha left an arm around her waist, holding her gently in a way that would make Rio tear up if she dared to think about it for longer than a few seconds.
Agatha led them confidently over to the counter, oblivious to how close Rio’s pathetic little brain was to gay spiral.
‘Hey,’ she said, getting the attention of the young-looking waitress who had, quite literally, been twiddling her thumbs, ‘two plain bagels to go, please.’
The waitress scrunched her nose and flicked her annoyingly perfectly curled hair over her shoulder.
‘We don’t do food to go.’ She said, her drawly, bored tone and stupid fucking pink braces pissing Rio off more than they probably should.
‘Yes you do,’ Agatha replied, sounding sure of herself and a little bossy in a way that was incredibly hot, ‘I get it all the time.’
The waitress rolled her eyes (Rio wanted to punch her now) and walked over to the kitchen, throwing a ‘Fine. Whatever.’ over her shoulder as she moved.
‘Fucking bitch.’ Agatha mumbled, not really bothering to speak under her breath.
Rio might just be in love.
Jesus fucking christ calm the fuck down, her brain interrupted, flashing red lights at the mere suggestion of the L word, get a grip, calm down, and maybe return to this when your brain is fully functional again.
She shoved the thought to the back of her head. Her brain's alarm system was probably right.
After a couple minutes the waitress emerged from the kitchen with two bagels wrapped in wax paper, which she dumped in front of Agatha, and a card machine.
Agatha paid, removing her arm from around Rio as she did so, and picked up the food.
Rio barely had a second to mourn the loss of Agatha’s touch before there was a bagel in one of her hands and Agatha's hand in the other, though the other girl had taken a second between the two actions to flash the waitress her middle finger.
Rio was down bad, fuck the flashing red lights.