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ever, like, really thought about your skin? We’re pretty useless without it, right? But it’s so insubstantial. Thin thin thin! Breathe, Hilary, breathe. Good Will. Good Will. Good Will. It’s just stressful. This is just a panic attack.
    I had my first panic attack on stage eight years ago. I didn’t know what was happening. I passed out and woke up on a stretcher. This was not just the stage at a karaoke bar. It was the kind of stage that spurred headlines such as “Is She On Drugs?” And “Another Teen Anorexic?” Headlines on E! News and MuchMusic , sandwiched between the repeated playing of “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” I can’t hear that song without feeling nauseated.
    The attacks happened a few times after that, and then I was fine for several years. As if I’d had an allergy that had abated. Until about a year ago. I was in my Major British Writers class and my hands lit themselves on fire. My head turned inside out. I was afraid of everything, as suddenly as a sneeze. The only place I felt safe was at home.
    Entertainment Tonight called panic disorder the new “It” disease of the stars. And I was a motherfucking star. Well, not any more. Yeah. I had felt fine that morning. I had hope for 2004. Four is a lucky number, easily divisible. Four is the only number in the English language with the number of letters in its name equal to itself. Good! Will!
    I was at the dinner table a year after the panic attacks returned, vibrating legs skimming the hem of the off-white tablecloth. We’d taken the subway out to Scarborough, where my girlfriend Maria’s mom had moved from Winnipeg last year.
    â€œA steal, Hilary,” she was telling me about the tablecloth. “You wouldn’t believe it. I should take you to Winners with me.”
    Maria’s mother appreciated a bargain. She was one of those ladies with a sensible short brown haircut and pants pulled too high up, just thrilled when she could buy a designer brand for less. I loved her.
    â€œMom, we don’t need to do any more goddamn shopping,” muttered Maria, filling up her wine glass. “The basement is like a bomb shelter already.”
    It was true — the amount of preserves, cases of drinks, bottled water, and multi-packs was almost impossible to take in with one glance. Maria’s mom even had two fridges, full to capacity. She was prepared for disaster and mass hunger, binge eating for thousands. And what she could hold in the tiny duplex basement was nothing compared to what had been in her old house in Winnipeg.
    Maria was no longer my girlfriend, as of 3:47 that morning, but we’d decided not to tell anyone about the breakup yet. It was too new, and it just seemed easier to play along for her mother’s birthday. My voice was still hoarse from yelling, and things we’d said to each other with such finality echoed in my brain. An endless loop of Why can’t you just get it together ( her ) and When did you become such a paragon of sanity ( me ) and You drive me fucking nuts with your bullshit ( both ) and I’m so tired of you ( both ) .
    We’d been dating since the end of high school — seven years. Succumbed to the cliché itch, I suppose. We had become like furniture to each other. But to be honest, we also didn’t have a lot of other friends. Except for some brief threesomes and the odd crush, we’d never been with other people. The friends we had were mutual, except for Roxy, who I’d met at the café where I work. Last month Roxy had needed a roommate, and Maria and I decided to move apart, to see if we could still date but have separate lives. That hadn’t worked either. Looking back, it was really just a way to break up without saying it.
    Maria and I had moved to Toronto together from Winnipeg in 2000. Her mother had moved to Scarborough a few years later to be with Maria’s grandmother, who’d since passed