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“Hi. I’m having a panic attack.”
Madeline was well aware of what a destructive opener that sentence was, but in truth, she cared very little about it. Instead she was much more preoccupied with curling up in a ball as tightly as she possibly could, balancing the smartphone between her shoulder and cheek, and trying desperately not to pick at the skin around her fingernails.
“Oh, shit.” It was nice to hear Theo’s voice, even if it did seem like it was coming from a mile away.
“Yeah.”
“Are you somewhere safe, Maddy? Are you in danger?”
Madeline shook her head before realizing that Theo was, in fact, hundreds of miles away. “Yes,” she choked out, voice wavering. “I’m fine. I’m in my apartment.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Theo sounded worried.
“I’m trying to do the feather thing,” Madeline said, her voice scratchy from the brief bout of hyperventilation she experienced before picking up the phone. “I’m trying to see the feather, Theo, but it’s not working.”
“That’s less good,” Theo said, in what Madeline could only assume was an attempt at a joking tone. “Do you want me to try and help or do you just need someone with you?”
“Of course I want you to try and help,” Madeline spat back.
She instantly wished she could suck the words back in. She said in a hurried tone, “I’m sorry. Yes. Please. May I have some help.”
There was a second of silence.
“Okay,” Theo said, rustling something around as if he was moving into a more comfortable position. “It’s really late so don’t blame me if I get sleepy.”
Madeline almost smiled. “You know I won’t.”
“I know you won’t.”
Take a breath.
“Do you remember that one night, on the mountain? After you pulled me from the temple?”
A chill ran down Madeline’s spine. “Yes.”
“Do you remember the conversation we had?”
“Of course I do,” Madeline replied, before pausing. “But… remind me anyway.”
Theo sighed in a way that could almost be happy. Or regretful, Madeline supposed.
“We talked under the night sky on that rickety little ice bridge just outside. You started a fire to keep me warm while I was out. I always thought that was the sweetest thing.”
Madeline didn’t respond.
Take a breath, Maddy.
“We talked about the mountain and why we were there. I talked about my grandfather, and you talked about the–”
“I know who I talked about,” Madeline said flatly. She didn’t think she could handle talking about her right now, even with Theo listening.
“R-right. Of course,” Theo said. She could almost hear that dumb embarrassed blush creep into his voice. “You talked about her, and about your family, and about why you were on the mountain to begin with.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Madeline said, trying desperately to keep as much sarcasm as she could from poisoning her voice. She didn’t want Theo to leave.
“It’s supposed to remind you, Maddy, that there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable. That there are other ways to handle talking about tough stuff. I’m really proud of you for bringing that stuff up. That night is one of my most cherished memories from that whole trip.”
Madeline’s heart rate began to slow.
“You confided in me a lot that night,” Theo continued softly. Madeline was able to hear almost every word now. “You told me things that were very personal to you, and I will always treasure that experience. And nothing you said and nothing you’re suffering from will change that.”
Madeline felt the tears coming.
“You are a good person, Madeline,” Theo said, as earnestly as possible. “I’m so proud of you for coming as far as you have. Even reaching out to me tonight must have been really difficult, and I’m so proud of you for doing it. You’ve come so far from where you were when we first met, and I want you to know that I know that.”
Madeline let out a shuddering breath and, very slowly, closed her eyes. Theo was quiet for a second, but when he spoke again, his voice was low and calm.
“Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how to do it?”
“I think so.”
“Your breath keeps that feather floating, Maddy. I’ll do it too with you, right here, right now.”
In.
Hold.
Out.
Hold.
It was easier than Madeline remembered.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Hold.
“Your breath keeps that feather floating. And as long as you keep breathing, as long as you keep yourself safe, it’ll never leave you.”
Madeline tried her best to keep her breathing steady despite the tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
“You’re okay, Maddy.”
“I’m okay,” Madeline choked out. “I’m okay. Thank you, Theo. Holy shit, thank you.”
“No problem,” Theo replied.
Good job.
“Hey, umm… Theo?” Madeline whispered.
“Yes, Madeline?”
“Can you… umm… can you… stay on the phone with me?”
Madeline realized far too late the undertones of a statement like that and immediately flushed deep red. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to, or can’t, and I’m safe, I promise, so if you have to go that’s okay–”
Theo chuckled. “Of course,” he said, and Madeline was delighted to hear that dopey smile in his voice. “Of course I can. It’s no trouble. I’m practically falling asleep over here anyway.”
For the first time all night, Madeline let out a chuckle.
The two friends lay there together in the dark, in silence.
“When was the last time you did something to your hair?” Theo asked rather abruptly.
Madeline spluttered, taken aback by the question. “Oh, man, I dunno. It’s been a long time, because, y’know, I’ve been growing it out.”
“You do know that doing something to your hair is the number one cure for panic attacks, right?”
“Okay, I understand that’s a joke and everything, but–”
“It’s not a joke, it’s tradition! Maddy, you have to do something new with it. I’m decreeing it.” Pause. “And send me a selfie after you get it done.”
“Theo–”
“It’s the law. You have to do it now. If I have to, I’ll come up there again and bring the scissors myself.”
“No, Theo, please don’t cut it, I don’t want to cut it! I spent so long growing it out!”
“Then a dye job! Something! Something to break up the horrid monotony of everyday ginger life!”
“Oh, don’t call me a ginger, you weirdo,” Madeline said, a smile crossing her face.
“I’m just callin’ it as I’m seein’ it, strawberry,” Theo said. Madeline could tell he was beginning to get sleepy.
“Maybe,” Madeline said slowly, “I could go to the store and look for some kind of dye. Something nice, nothing too out there. Just to shake things up.”
“Mhm,” Theo mumbled.
“Does that sound acceptable to you?”
“Mmm,” Theo grumbled.
Madeline sighed. “You’re hopeless, y’know that?”
“Mhm,” Theo hummed with a smile.
-o-
Madeline turned the empty box over and over in her hands, pacing back and forth under the buzzing bathroom light.
“You did do the allergy test, right?” Theo said from his position propped up on the sink. In his words, he had been generous enough to bless Madeline with his presence, only agreeing to video call after Madeline had pestered him for the last two days straight.
“Yes, Theo,” Madeline said, exasperatedly, “I did the allergy test. I’m good.”
“Okay!” Theo said, clapping his hands together. “Okay, cool! This is exciting!”
Madeline gave a thumbs up into the camera, fixated on toying with the single bleached strip of previously-ginger hair running from the crown of her head, brushed behind her right ear, and down past her shoulder.
This could be a horrible mistake, she thought. But, she rationalized, screw it.
“So…” Theo said, in a voice that Madeline knew was his ‘trying-to-diffuse-tension’ voice, “what made you decide to go with this color?”
Madeline didn’t answer immediately, and instead focused on lathering up the small hair brush with lavender dye. She took a deep breath and said, “Her.”
It wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone else, but out of the corner of her eye, Madeline saw the glint of realization on Theo’s face.
“Why her?” Theo asked.
Madeline brought the aluminum foil up to her neck and began to paint on the dye in long, thick strokes. “Because,” she said slowly, intensely focused, “I can’t imagine it being anything else.”
Theo furrowed his eyebrows.
“When I was up there, on the mountain,” Madeline said, “there was a moment towards the end where I fell.”
“I remember, I hauled ass to get to the bottom so I could meet you there and carry your backpack like a pack mule.”
Madeline chuckled as she gave Theo the finger.
“Continue,” Theo said.
“So when we started to climb again after that fall, it was different. After all the stuff she’d done… we started to work together. We climbed together. We made it all the way to the summit because of each other. And when we left, there wasn’t really anything I could do to keep her with me. She was only alive because of the power of the mountain.”
A glob of dye fell from Madeline’s hair and plopped onto the porcelain of the sink. Madeline cursed under her breath.
“So when I left,” Madeline continued, “she disappeared. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I knew that she couldn’t follow me back home. And I felt… Theo, I felt sad. After everything she did to try and hurt me, after everything she did to make that first climb a living hell… I missed her. I felt like we had just started to be better together, to work together to achieve that common goal. So when she left, I almost felt as if she left me hanging.”
Theo nodded. “Makes sense to me,” he said matter-of-factly.
“This way, I figure,” Madeline said, brushing the last of the dye over her hair, “I can still have some kind of connection with her. I can still pretend that she’s still with me.”
“But Maddy,” Theo said, “you know she is still with you, right?”
Madeline didn’t answer.
“She’s not going anywhere. Sure, the mountain brought her out, but she’s still a part of you. That’s what you called her, remember? Just because she’s not hanging off your shoulder doesn’t mean that she’s gone forever.”
“I know,” Madeline said defensively. “I know that. I put in the work and I made my peace with her. And it was worth it, I’m not saying it wasn’t. But, this way…”
“It’s a more tangible connection,” Theo said.
Madeline nodded.
Theo pondered the statement he’d made for a moment, before nodding sagely. “I understand,” he said. “That makes sense.”
“Well, good to know my reasoning still works,” Madeline said with a smile.
Theo chuckled. “It makes sense because I’ve been through the same thing.”
Madeline raised her eyebrows in questioning; Theo took a deep breath and continued. “When my vovô was still alive, he used to pick me up and put me on his knee, and he would bring out his guitar and move my little fingers around to get the feel for the strings and the frets. Obviously I couldn’t play like he could, but it was because of him that I started to play when I was young, and why I kept at it all these years. I still play because of him. It’s a connection to someone who isn’t in your life anymore, for whatever reason. Be it that they passed or they fizzled out of reality as soon as you left their operating radius.”
“You are such a dork, Theo.” Madeline paused. “But yeah. It’s the same feeling, I think. Obviously I’m not you–”
“A damn shame.”
“–but I guess this is my way of connecting with her. Letting her know that, even though she may not be here anymore, she’s still a part of me. She was real, and that trip was real. The mountain was real. And what she did for me was real.”
Theo paused, before suggesting, “What you did for yourself, you mean.”
Madeline nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. What I did for myself.”
Madeline closed the foil over her hair and rolled it up into a tight cylinder. Stepping back from the mirror and peeling off her latex gloves, she looked at herself, standing there in the flickering light. She looked tired.
“You okay, strawbs?” Theo asked quietly.
Madeline closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“Is it tough to think about her?”
“A little.”
“You know, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can talk about something else if you want.”
Madeline shook her head. “No, it’s okay. Thank you. I just…”
She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
“I miss you, Theo.”
“I miss you, too,” Theo said, almost immediately.
“Being on that mountain with you,” Madeline continued softly, “was an experience I don’t think I’ll ever have again. And in some ways, I don’t think I was ready for it to be over. I feel like I have so much left to do.”
Theo was quiet for a second. “You know,” he said in the same calming and soothing voice that he knew worked wonders for Madeline, “you don’t have to stop working, just because you’re not up there anymore.”
Madeline put her hands on both sides of the sink, still looking into her own eyes. “I know,” she said to her reflection. “I know that getting better doesn’t stop because I’m back here. I know that burden is still on me to get better and learn to manage myself. But…”
“It’s different down here.”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Theo said, “now whenever you look into the mirror, it’ll be like a little bit of her is looking back. Do you think you could still talk to her like that?”
Madeline scoffed. “That makes it sound like I’m going crazy.”
“You’re the one who brought it up!” Theo said, smiling wide.
“Well, yeah,” Madeline said, smiling back. “But I’m not going crazy. I’m trying to make peace with myself. I’m trying to accept that part of me in whatever way I can, that’s one of the reasons I did this in the first place.”
“How long do you have to keep that dye on, by the way?” Theo asked.
“Thirty minutes,” Madeline said. “Longer than that and it’ll get too vibrant.”
“Excuse you, I don’t believe in the concept of ‘too vibrant.’ You’re doing this so you might as well go all the way, right?”
Madeline cast him an exasperated expression, before smiling and sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. “I wish that I could just… hold her hand again.”
“Hold your own hand, Maddy.”
“It’s–”
“And yes, I know it’s different. But technically, it’s really not, right?”
Madeline paused, taking a second to look down at her hands. Her fingers had dye around the edges. How the dye managed to seep through the gloves, she had no idea.
“If she’s part of you, you’re part of her,” Theo continued. “You gotta be nice to her, right? So… you gotta be nice to yourself.”
Slowly, she interlocked her fingers, taking extra care to notice how the pad of each fingertip felt against her skin. The sensation was soothing; Madeline felt her breathing come a little easier.
“Does it feel nice?” Theo asked.
Madeline nodded gently.
“You’re holding hands with her right now,” Theo said. “And every time you do this in the future, you’re gonna be holding hands with her then, too. Got it?”
Madeline looked up at her phone, smiling sadly. “Got it.”
“Now. You have done so much and come so far from where you were. She’d be proud of you. I know that for a fact because I’m proud of you, and I know that deep down in that frozen heart of yours, you’re proud of yourself too. Don’t let your own sentimentality take that away from you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You’re gonna be nice to yourself?”
“Yes, Theo. I promise.” There was only a little bit of sarcasm.
Theo chuckled. “I am so glad you got a smartphone. I don’t know how you’d function without these little fireside chats.”
“Oh, I’d be helpless,” Madeline said. “I’d be six feet under by now, I’m sure. It’s not like I climbed an entire mountain twice.”
“And look at you now! You got dye all over your fingers.”
Madeline held up her hands and wiggled her fingers in front of the phone camera, smiling wide.