Breaking Through (The Breaking Series Book 3) by Juliana Haygert Page A

Taylor,” he said then paused. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you all right?”
    I could barely breathe, much less talk.
    Instead of answering, or even acknowledge him, I ran. I ran from the building. I ran across campus. I ran to my dorm building and into the safety of my room.
     
    ***
    Although I still shook while recalling what had happened, now that I looked back at it, I felt stupid.
    “I overreacted,” I said to Dr. Walker, my therapist. I was seated in her comfy armchair, positioned strategically in a corner of her office, from where I could gaze through the window and admire the view of the park below.
    If I closed my eyes, I could still see myself in that classroom with those guys, and the seemingly locked door, and the missing professor. I knew I had seen and felt the situation in a more dramatic way that it had been, but that didn’t stop me from shaking all over again.
    After the test, I locked myself in my room for the rest of the day. I even missed another final exam. Mariah came into the room twice, saw me in that state, and left without saying a word. During our first week living together, I had a major panic attack and I had to tell her about them, but I never told her why, what had first caused the attacks. And I never would.
    At night, I got an email from Fallon White about my first day at her studio. That finally snapped me out of it. Immediately, I called Dr. Walker and asked for her help—with my current state and with contacting my professors and asking them to reschedule my exams. Thankfully, one of the professors listened to my therapist and let me take the exam another time, without many questions, but the other professor didn’t want to hear it. He gave me an incomplete and said he would email me soon about retaking the exam—or the entire class next semester.
    This morning, I was out of my dorm and had already moved into my apartment in Santa Barbara. However, before I could settle in my new temporary home, I had to do a pit stop at my therapist.
    I was trying to focus all my thoughts and energy on the fact that I had an incomplete. Me, the perfect A student, who barely ever missed a class my entire life. I felt pathetic for having an incomplete, and the possibility that the professor would just decide it wasn’t worth it and ask me to retake the damn class. However, hovering around those thoughts were the main reason I had come to the therapist: my dear panic attacks.
    From a chair a few feet from mine, Dr. Walker pushed her red-rimmed glasses up her nose and stared at me, her dark brown eyes calm. “It’s normal for your fear and panic to surge again during situations like this.”
    “Will I always react like that to these kinds of situations?”
    “In extreme situations, probably. Yes. But you will be able to control your reaction. You won’t shake as much, or feel like fear is seizing you.”
    “Hopefully,” I muttered.
    “Be positive, because positive thinking brings good results. Say definitely.”
    I scrunched my nose at her, not believing her. “Definitely.”
    She winked. “I’ll pretend you meant that.”
    I let out a little laugh and sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why do I think every male, regardless of age, only thinks about sex, about having sex now ? That they see a pretty girl and immediately lust over her and imagine her naked?”
    “Well, the truth is, most males do. But that doesn’t mean they are all perverts.” She gazed out the window. “Try to remember how you were before the incident when you met a strange person for the first time, or the people you walked by on the street. Even if not consciously, you processed how attractive they were, and you weren’t even aware of it.” She returned her kind eyes to me. “That’s the same with most men. They don’t will their minds to go there, to lust over girls and imagine taking her to bed. It just happens, and most of them are so used to it, they don’t even notice it anymore.