For six minutes now your breath has been coming in through the top of the chest only, quick and shallow, the belly held so tight it forgot it was allowed to move. I have been rationing air like we're underwater. We are not underwater. We are standing in a hallway painted black, and something up ahead made your ears go hot and your palms go slick, and I opened every door I have: sweat, pulse, the little jolt down the arms so you could run if running were a thing we were going to do.
You did not run. You laughed instead, a short one, high in the throat, and squeezed the hand of the person next to you until my knuckles pressed white. So I understood: this is a favor to me, not a danger. You wanted the old alarm without the old emergency. Fine. I gave you the good stuff, the full flood, the whole ancient chemistry I keep loaded for the wolf that never comes.
The floor here shrieks under us and every board sends a spike up through the soles, and I notice you have been walking on the balls of your feet the entire time, ready, ready, ready. Your jaw is a fist. There is a scream stored behind your teeth that you paid money to release.
Something jumped out. You gave it the scream. Good. Something in me has been waiting years to spend that one.
We are outside now. The pulse is coming down. The shoulders are lowering, one inch, then another, back toward where they belong.
That was a lot of me, all at once, for pretend. I loved it. When we get to the car: some water, and let the hands stop shaking on their own.
I've got them.