Only God knows how many shots of Smirnoff I took, but it didn’t help. I tried to drink myself into oblivion, but apparently, even that was too much to ask. The pain was still there, cutting deeper than I thought possible.
I felt useless, insignificant—like I had no place in anyone's life. Did my mom know about this? About him? Who the hell was my dad? What kind of man had he been? He was dangerous. A liar. A stranger.
My mind drifted back to earlier, to how my heart felt like it was being crushed, how I couldn’t even breathe. I never wanted to go through that again. I didn’t want to die, even if it felt like everything inside me was breaking.
I pulled out my phone, my fingers trembling as I typed into the search bar: panic attacks. I whispered the words out loud, like saying them might help me understand what had just happened.