The sun began to disappear, the evening air was cool and light. The wind blew the flowers lightly in the meadow which made everything so calm, so beautiful, so delicate.

Yet I sat there and thought to myself: How can I take control? How do I stop this? How do I handle this? Will I just continue to gain pressure and allow my anxiety level to rise? How can I control my breathing? How do I allow this to happen without panicking?

He put his arm around me as if to comfort me, and suddenly my heart began to race. I felt the sweat begin to form at my hairline, the very thought of him getting closer made my breath increase.

With every breath, I felt my heart pound more and more; every inhale and exhale got faster and faster. My heart increased in speed; it felt as if it was going to beat right out of my chest. My mouth slowly dried up. With every breath, my eyes wandered somewhere else, yet they stayed glued to the floor.

I remembered the flowers, there were sunflowers that trapped over, multi-colored lilies, lupines, wildflowers, and foxtails. I could see the roots of each flower, how they are intertwined, causing there to be no path in the meadow, just flowers upon flowers.

I took control of my breathing and my heartrate slowly decreased back to a normal speed. Suddenly I felt his eyes staring at me -- my stomach dropped to the floor, and my heart rate increased speed again. With my head still down, I slowly looked up at him.

He used his finger to lift my head, and stole a kiss; a deep, stern, yet refreshing kiss. His smooth lips brushed over mine, it felt like he had painted a picture with his lips, and mine were the canvas. It had instantly brought my heart rate to a normal speed. His touch of a kiss had calmed me.

After a while, he pulled away and stood up. He then gestured his hand toward me to help me up and walked me through the meadow, one hand wrapped around his, and the other traced the flowers as we walked. It was calm, cool and relaxed.

We walked through the meadow, through the forest, through our neighborhood, and to my front door. There at my door, he stood in front of me now he held both of my hands. He explained to me how he had a wonderful time with me.

With that in mind, I began to take shorter breaths once again. My heart rate increased. My ears began to ring. With everything around me, I started to see double. His excitement, the thought of him, he had a good time with me....with me, excited me too much. I closed my eyes to try and take over my anxiety attack.

I thought to myself: Learn, learn how to take control. Breathe, decrease heart rate, take control: the ringing in my ears turns to muffled noises. It felt like so much time has passed by when I heard something past the noise in my ears.

The noise was him. He began to rub my arm and softly said, "Breathe, slowly, with me, in 1, 2, 3 out, 1, 2, 3 again, in, out, there you go."

As he helped me take control, I thought: How… How does he do it? How does he control it so well? How are his attacks minimized? How does he know how to cope with it so well? How does he know how to help me?

I know he suffers from the same disease. Yet he handles it so much better than me. Still, I am comforted by his touch, his voice, it now calms me, it now has a new effect on me. But at times it's the cause of my anxiety; I wonder what triggers and what calms?

I continued to think and wonder, as half of me listened to him. He instructed me, calmed me. Finally, I was back to a normal heart rate. We talked about him picking me up again the next day for another picnic in the meadow. I agreed, which gave me a small increase in heart rate that I quickly took control over, with a squeeze of his hand.

He said goodbye, with a small kiss that was placed on my forehead. As he walked away, he waited to let go of my hand until our arms couldn't stretch any further.

I stepped inside the house, closed the door behind me, leaned against the door, and slowly sank to the floor with a smile on my face. I recapped the day. Every moment replayed in my mind, the emotions sent my body into shock. My brain started to scramble. Breaths got shorter and my chest-recoils increased.

My eyes began to float and became heavy as I saw my mom run to me in despair. Trying... trying... she's trying.. to get... to get to me before I black out, almost reaching me before my eyes dropped and my head hit the floor. Before everything went dark…

Jennifer Martinez is young, new writer attending Downey High School. She hopes that you enjoy reading her story just as much as she enjoyed writing it.

The Attack