Eye Opening Panic
Exhausted didn’t begin to describe the way Genesis was feeling. The emotional fallout of the last few days was catching up to her in the worst way. As they returned back to the house, after hours at the aquarium followed by a shopping trip where Egan was spoiled rotten by both his father and uncle, who bought him everything he even glanced at, she was over it all.
Kiefer was respectful and gave her space for the remainder of their time out. While she didn’t want to be with him, he’d kept his distance, and it felt unfamiliar. When they arrived, before entering the front door, he turned to Egan, Tadgh and Jerren and asked if they’d do a rematch of the soccer game from earlier since he’d missed out and she noted he didn’t include her in the invitation. Egan was delighted of course, and they’d all gone to the side lawn to play while Kiefer told her to go inside and get some rest and some quiet time while she could. She’d been grateful for the reprieve from their company.
But then, the old feelings of fear and panic which used to fill her each time she was in the mansion when Kiefer would leave for work suddenly slammed into her. Her heart pounded with vigor, smashing against her ribcage, and leaving her breathless. Entering the house with him not inside was rendering her into a steaming hot mess of
terror.
Her legs didn’t feel capable of supporting her and she automatically moved to where the bench in the main foyer always sat only to find it gone, replaced with a giant fishtank
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which used to sit in the library. Stumbling towards the stairs her head was reeling, a buzzing noise filling her ears as blood pounded through her veins at an alarming rate out of nothing but sheer panic.
Memory after memory assailed her brain.
“Oh, look it’s the fat–ass green card wife. I can’t wait for my brother to get his citizenship and then put a bullet in your head, so we don’t have to look at you anymore.”
“Genesis, you’re so pathetic. Did you know Kiefer told me I suck his cock way better than an inexperienced little girl like you ever could?”
“Laoise’s ashtray is full to the top. Hold her down so we can put the cigarettes out without getting ashes on the floor since her arse is so wide.”
“You’re pregnant? Not in this fucking lifetime. I won’t allow you to have my future husband’s child.”
She could almost feel their smacks, the burns, the kicks, and the taunts as she fought against them in both her mind and her body. All the times she’d tried to fight back, ignore them, not engage, or engage, all haunted her with a vengeance as her mind played horrible tricks on her.
She was swinging her arms wildly and when one of the housekeeping staff approached her, Genesis landed a solid right hook to the woman’s face causing her to stagger back.
Eye Opening Panic
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“Leave me alone!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and tried to crawl up the stairs away from the woman.
Scrambling to the landing on her hands and knees, she gripped the wall all the way to the room she’d once shared with Kiefer. Later she’d probably consider her automatic seeking out of his bed was because it was where she’d felt safest when forced to live here in the past but in the moment, all she knew was she needed to get away from the main floor of the house.
Her feet felt as if they were leaden, dragging as she pulled. herself into the room and crawling into the bed, yanking the blankets and pillows around her, his scent soothing her twisted mind. Curling into a ball, she wrapped her arms around her knees and let the tears fall. Her entire body ached with at physical searing agony as her chest felt it was being ripped apart and her head was filled with sirens of noise she couldn’t control.
The pounding of feet on the floor coming down the hall was lost on her in her haze of pain.
“Genesis,” Kiefer’s horrified gasp of her name as he found her in the bedroom rocking back and forth in the bed.
“What the fuck happened, Kiefer? We left her outside and she said she was coming in for a shower and nap.” Tadgh’s
confusion was evident as they both crawled on the bed, on either
side of her.
“Shh, Gen. It’s me. Baby, open your eyes. Look at me.”
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “If you touch me, I’ll tell!”
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“Oh baby,” Kiefer’s voice broke at the sight. “It’s me. It’s Kiefer, open your eyes and see me honey.”
“This is some kind of fucked up panic attack. Did this happen all the time when we were away from the house before?” Tadgh asked. He tried to reach out to touch Genesis, but her fists swung wildly. “Christ, Gen. It’s me Tadgh.”
“Genesis,” Kiefer tried again, his hand reaching to cup her cheek, “honey look at me. It’s me. Come on. Come back to me.
Something in his tone forced her eyes to open and she started sobbing at the sight of him.
“You’re home.”
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“I’m home. Come here, a ghrá, let me hold you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Tadgh get a cool cloth and some water for her to drink.” He rubbed her back as she sobbed against his chest. “What the fuck did we do?”
“This is bad. I’m going to pull in the old housekeeping staff and find out how many panic attacks like this she endured in the past. I’ll also call the guard watching Aoife right now and have him interrogate her again. I want to know if Genesis ever did. this before.” Tadgh’s fury was palpable. “If this was happening back then, why the fuck did nobody tell us?”
Kiefer held Genesis in his arms while she cried pitifully, watching his brother walk away towards the bathroom. The sound of running water as he got the cloth Kiefer requested
Eye Opening Panic
making Genesis tense in his arms.
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She could hear their quiet conversations and as the panic and terror ebbed away, embarrassment and humiliation took over. Her tears dwindled as she felt the cool cloth pressed to the back of her neck.
“Can you let me go?” she asked Kiefer as she tried to slowly extricate herself from his arms.
“I’m worried, Gen. You were completely out of it. You didn’t seem to know who we were, and you punched a housekeeper and called her a bitch.”
“I don’t recall calling her any names.” She blinked as she pulled away from him. “You’re crowding me, and I don’t like it,” she pushed both men from either side of her. She looked around the room and gave a laugh. “Don’t even know why I came up here.”
“Autopilot,” Tadgh backed away from her. “You were running. on autopilot.”
“Whatever,” she scuttled down the middle of the bed until she reached the end and climbed off.
“Genesis, did this happen before? When you lived here before?” Kiefer asked as if praying her answer was no
“A couple of times in the month before I left,” she sniffled as she took the cloth off her neck and threw it into a bin. “I’m not
weak.”
Eye Opening Panic
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“Nobody is saying you are.” Kiefer shook his head. “You are not weak. You are extraordinarily strong.”
“Whatever,” she repeated the word and went into the bathroom, locking it behind her with a quiet click. Quickly she removed her clothes, wanting to dispel the scent of Kiefer’s cologne which now clung to her after grabbing at him like a crazed child, Genesis berated herself for her actions. She couldn’t keep falling apart when she entered this hellhole. First last night with the vomiting in the plant. Now this with the full–blown panic episode which felt hazy and disjointed.
“Get it together, Genesis,” she gripped the edge of the vanity and glowered at her reflection, “you can’t fall apart all the fucking time when you have a son who needs you.” She smacked her cheek with an open palm noting in the mirror it didn’t even register since her entire face was bright red from all the crying and screaming. She looked like a blowfish with her swollen eyes and nose, her cheeks puffy and crusty with tears and snot.
Beating herself up was not going to make things better she decided as she moved to get into the cool spray of the shower. Tilting her face upwards, the water from the rainfall showerhead gently soothed the burning of her face, washing away he
remnants of her sorrow. He’d always insisted on a great shower
in his room.
“How could you be so stupid as to come to his room?” she questioned herself dully. Tadgh’s comment about her running on autopilot was probably on the mark. Astra’s comment from earlier in the week mucked with her mind. “The minute you locked eyes with Tadgh across the street you knew it was Tadgh
and not Kiefer because he’s the other half of your soul.”
Despite all the ways she’d grown to hate him, there was part of her which was convinced Astra might be right. She was angry with him. She loathed him. Yet for the last seven years it was always his eyes following her in her dreams. It was always his touch she craved. It was always his affection she’d wanted.
Kiefer gave her something as a person nobody else since she was a small child ever did. Her own birth mother hadn’t wanted her. Her adopted parents left her with a babysitter when she was six and despite her crying and begging to be allowed to go with them to dinner, her father was very stern with her and told her she was not welcome at the party they were going to. In her six–year–old little heart, he hadn’t wanted her. They died that night. Then her first foster family pushed her out at ten because she started her period. and was hormonal and more importantly, they didn’t like spending their income on her pads, as if it was her fault she started so early. Then at thirteen, her second foster parents found out they were having their own biological child after many years of trying and they needed her room for a nursery. Her third foster family kept her until she was finished high school. While they were really nice to her, once she left for college, she never heard from them again, despite her reaching out a few times.
Yet, Kiefer from the minute he saw her, promised to never let her go. He was bold, in her face about what he wanted and told her point blank when he said until death do them part, he meant it.
“I love you Genesis Jones and O’Reilly men don’t say those
Eye Opening Panic
words lightly. You’re mine until I take my last breath.
His words the night she accepted his marriage proposal echoed in the chasm of her mind. For her those words were a fulfillment of a need in her to know the man was vowing to never let her go the way everyone else in her past did.
“Except he did leave you, Genesis,” she punched the tile wall angrily. “He did leave you all alone in this house for people to hurt you.” She sucked her knuckle into her mouth as she realized the tile was
marble and hard as hell.
“Hold onto this pain, Genesis. Do not let it go because the minute. you do, this family is going to suck you back in and destroy your soul.”
With this warning in her heart, Genesis strengthened her resolve and reminded herself she could live on her own without needing anyone except her son. She simply needed to get her head back on straight and in the game.
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