Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

No, there were no voices in my head. No, the walls were not closing in on me. The starliner was completely normal.

It was not normal.

My breath stuttered slowly out as I exhaled, and I focused on trying to still it with a long inhale. A calm therapist's voice was coming from the video in the pad hovering in front of me coaching: "Inhale slowly. Press your fingertips just below your eyes gently. The stress response is calming. Exhale slowly. . ." I followed her instructions.

I wasn't claustrophobic, but the walls felt too close. It was like everything in the starliner was pressing in on me. I had searched the stream for, "How do I handle starliner claustrophobia?" and had found this video. Lightly pressing beneath my eyes was supposed to calm the panic response.

I took slow breaths. Yes, the room was small. Yes, I could feel the minds of everyone on the starliner. Yes, it felt too loud and crowded. Yes, I felt like everything was closing in on me, but I was breathing. I was going to make it through this.

My breaths were trembly. I could sense all the people on the starliner. I could feel everyone. They were nervous, bored, excited, anxious. Anxiety everywhere. So much anxiety.

No, I was Ryst. I was me, and I was breathing. I could feel my fingertips on my cheeks, lightly tapping. I was a strong person. I could do this. I wanted to travel, didn't I? Didn't I need a holiday?

Yes, I wanted this trip. I could do it. I was here in this little cabin, and I could do it. I could keep tapping my cheeks and breathing. I wasn't out there with all those people. I was in here, in my own private room. I just needed to separate myself from everyone else. Like— like pulling a curtain closed to block out the daylight. I could do that— couldn't I?

Yes, yes, I could pull an imaginary curtain around myself. I didn't need everyone else right now. I just needed to be Ryst. I was safe in my own space. I was here, and I could do this.

I was successful and intelligent. If I wanted something, I did it. I left home at fourteen. I was top of the class in boarding school. I reached Level 9 in Jendo martial arts at age 17. I completed medica training at age 22. I was 23 and a lead researcher. I was a teacher and beloved obgyneca at one of the top university hospitals on Skylend. I was tenacious when I wanted something, and I wanted this trip.

Okay, okay, good. I was within a curtain, and I was safe. And I was more than just a hard-working obgyneca. I genuinely cared about my patients. I listened to them and talked to them about what was going on in their lives. I had always felt like being an obgyneca was half being a counsellor. I nurtured my patients the way a mother cares for her children. Couldn't I do that for myself?

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I was wounded. I had been hurt, and it was more than a skull fracture. Something in me was wounded, and it needed tending. I could do that for myself, right? I could treat myself the way I treated patients. With kindness. I could choose to be kind to myself while I was going through this hard time.

"Move your fingertips to just below your collarbone, and keep tapping," the therapist continued. I obeyed. My breathing calmed, and the panic receded.

This trip felt right. And I could do what felt right to me, even if it seemed crazy. I felt crazy. I mean, it wasn't normal. People don't sense the anxiety of other people on starliners. Hearing other people's thoughts didn't happen. What was happening?

My educated mind demanded an explanation. Was it mini-strokes? No. Brain scans normal. Delusions? No. Mentally ill people don't know they are having delusions. If it were a real delusion, I wouldn't be questioning it. And I was questioning it. So, I wasn't losing my mind.

Was it all just a trauma reaction? Was I just too panicked about being around people after suffering such an astonishing attack? Was I just wounded emotionally? That really wasn't a logical conclusion either. Because I wasn't making it up. I really did sense other people in a way that I hadn't before the coma.

Or, was that really true? My brain started spitting out information that I seemed to have forgotten.

A non-verbal, elderly patient in pain and an internal voice nudging me: "Ryst, check for a bladder infection."

A baby who just couldn't come out of the birth canal: "Ryst, look for the umbilical cord around the baby's neck."

"Ryst, watch out, Darwin is out of his mind."

I had some inner sense that knew things that my educated brain couldn't explain. It was like a tiny whisper in the back of my mind, and it had never been wrong.

So, maybe, just maybe, something was happening to me that was real, and there wasn't an academic explanation to it. Maybe my academic mind wouldn't be able to explain it. Was I just going to ignore it? Pretend I didn't notice it?

Obviously, that strategy was not working. I had to do better.

Why? Why did it matter? What was I doing all of this for?

Me. It mattered to ME. I mattered. My life mattered. I didn't know why, but it mattered to me. And that was my choice. I was choosing this unpredictable, unknowable side of me that I couldn't explain. I was glad I wasn't dead on the kitchen floor. I was here, and this was really happening, and there was something more for me. I'd had my skull cracked open, and something had poured out. I'd come back to myself, but I came back different.

I wasn't the same old Ryst. So, I had to decide who I was going to be now. Not the old me, the now me.

I was on the edge of something I didn't understand. I was scared, but I had never let obstacles stop me before, had I? No, I was determined when I wanted to be, and I would let that unstoppable part of Ryst Nova propel me into whatever was coming next.

Because something was coming. I knew it in my belly. I had some inner sense that knew things that my educated mind couldn't explain. And it was telling me right now that Shurwinn was where I needed to be.

And I was finally listening.