Five: Escape

                                    

                                          

                            

                                
                            
                              
                                  
                              
                              
                                
                                  
                                  
                                
                              
                             
                            
                            
                          
                          
When I got home, Yoongi's photographs were already sitting in my mailbox. To be honest, I was emotionally exhausted and uninspired to even think of a design but I knew how important the election meant to him, so I surfed through some of my drafts and worked on them, all the while willing myself to just hang on a little bit.
The panic attack had shaken me to my core. It had come at the most unexpected time and it was worse that it happened in front of Namjoon who walked around like he had no care in the world but shed a tear when he saw me fighting for air.
I didn't think I would get them anymore. I thought I'd phased out of them. After my dad left, every certainty of stability and safety left me. I was filled with anxiety and paranoia. 
I'd go to bed at night with my heart sank to the pit of my stomach afraid that someone or something was going to creep up and snatch me away and no one would know. My mum would be too sad to notice and my dad would be long gone to save me. The fear would cause me to have difficulty breathing, I'd scream in my bed or in the closet—wherever I found myself—crumbled to the floor, shaking like I was having a terrible fever.
It took a while for my mum to notice. I wasn't sure how she'd not heard me scream the previous times but I never blamed her for it. I knew she was dealing with his betrayal in her silent way. After that, I saw a therapist for three years, who had advised me to write my feelings in a note and not suppress them because apparently doing that could drive me nuts.
To an extent, it worked. The panic attacks stopped—for most of the time—because I believe I had moved on from my anger towards my dad. I convinced myself I could live normally without thinking of him or getting affected by his disappearance.
But I had wrong. So damn wrong, and now everything was coming back to me in one big monstrous wave, and I had nothing—no armour, no shield—to keep me safe.
Until yesterday. 
Jungkook's appearance in my life was fated. I'm a Christian and don't know how else to put it. The previous times I'd had the attacks, I had had Hoseok by my side to hold me and talk me out of it.
Right now, I didn't have Hoseok anymore to do that. I couldn't call him when I was afraid or cry to him that the ache was unbearable. I had felt alone for a brief moment yesterday until Jungkook appeared by my side and made it better. He made me feel better.
Without thinking twice, I pushed myself out from my reading desk, grabbing my phone and wallet from where I'd tossed it on the bed barely thirty minutes ago, before snatching a jacket from my closet and running out of the house.
It was just six p.m, but dark clouds rolled in the sky. The biting wind warned me of an impending storm but I didn't care, I walked on. I didn't want to be at home, alone. I didn't want to give any room to entertain the overly imposing thoughts in my head.
What I needed was an escape—a distraction—before I further lost my mind. What happened this morning had just been a tip of the ice berg. My panic attacks were usually worse than that. I didn't want to remember how bad they got or relive it. Hence, the reason I was literally brewing the storm in an attempt to hide from it.