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heavy July thunderstorm rolling in. And I can’t fight it, not this time.
    Logical, rational thought would indicate that this is just an anxiety attack. A natural reaction to my body offloading a crap-ton of adrenaline into my system, a system now customized and shaped after years of trauma to leap immediately to the flight-or-fight instinct at the first sign of trouble, imagined or not.
    Knowing that should be enough. And maybe on another day, if I’d caught the anxiety train on the tracks at the top of the hill instead of the bottom, it might have been.
    But true clinical anxiety gives zero fucks about logic and rational thought, and when I’m in the throes of it, neither do I.
    I push past Andy and run.
    “Amanda, wait!” Mia shouts after me, but I ignore her and the photographers and everyone and head to the back of the store. There’s a delivery entrance through the storeroom. It opens up to a small employee parking lot. From there, if I cut around the side of the building, I can avoid the cameras and I’ll be heading the right direction for home, which is only three blocks away.
    Five minutes. Maybe less. Just keep it together. A few more minutes. You’re okay.
    But it’s hard to accept that when the sky feels like a gaping maw preparing to spit some unknown form of disaster on your head.
    Mia catches up with me as I reach the parking lot. “Amanda, stop! It’s okay, please!”
    But it’s like I’m controlled by someone or something other than myself. I don’t care what she says. My instinct is screaming “danger,” and that’s all that matters.
    I shake my head at her, the most I can do, and keep moving.
    She stays with me doggedly, a step behind, as I race home, and she’s crying. But her ragged sobs are interspersed with strings of creative and furious epithets that only Mia would come up with (“son of a llama-licker motherfucker” might have been one insult or two—it was impossible to tell), which would have made me laugh under different circumstances.
    When our house comes into sight, I put on an extra burst of speed up the path, onto the porch, and through the front door, which is standing open. I just need to be safe. I feel like a beating heart exposed without the protection of skin and bone.
    “No, thank you, she’s here now,” my mom says into the phone, watching me from the doorway to the kitchen as I throw myself into the foyer like a marathon runner stretching for the finish line.
    She hangs up on whoever called without even saying good-bye, her forehead pinched deeply with worry. “Amanda, are you okay?” She approaches me with her hands out, as if she means to hug me or hold me still, but then she hesitates. “What happened? Where’s Mia?”
    The panic roaring in my head dies down a little, as I attempt to catch my breath. It’s better here, in familiar surroundings, but it’s not enough. My legs are jelly from running and shaking with the desire to keep going. I can feel that jittery push inside me, the need to stay one step ahead of whatever is coming.
    Standing there on the worn blue and white rug that used to serve as the ocean for our Barbies when Liza and I played years ago, I try to talk myself out of it. I’m safe. Nothing is going to happen here. Mom is right here.
    But that itch, that undeniable sensation sending up the alarm, Danger, danger, danger! just won’t let up.
    “I’m sorry,” I whisper to my mom, tears burning my eyes. I’m not sure if I’m crying for her or me or both of us. She wants so badly for me to finally get my life back. So do I.
    “What?” She looks baffled. “Amanda, talk to me. Tell me—”
    Behind me, Mia rips open the screen door and crashes into the foyer. Snatches of her breathless explanation drift upward as I pound up the stairs.
    “Chase Henry … at the store … Amanda freaked out … hauled ass out of there … so going to be fired!” From Mia’s plaintive wail on that last part, I’m pretty sure she’s talking