Here are the symptoms of a panic attack.

Accelerated or pounding heart rate, palpitations, sweating. Chest pain or discomfort, shortness of breath, trembling. Nausea. Dizziness. Faintness. Unsteadiness. Derealization—the sense that you are no longer connected to reality—and depersonalization—the sense that you are no longer yourself. Fear of losing control. Fear of death.

I didn't know any of this at the time.

But I knew, instinctively, that Blake wasn't okay.

He stood on the far side of the room, my bed wide as an ocean between us. There were still happier traces from a few minutes ago—the rumpled hair, the twisted shirt, the flush in his cheeks—but now they were buried beneath a blanket of ice-cold panic.

"She's gone," he said, again. "She left."

"I mean," I mumbled, "technically yeah, but—"

Blake interrupted me with a stilted, mangled laugh.

"She didn't even take Isabel!" he cried in disbelief. "She—what a bitch. She left the kid."

Rachel, who was still standing beside the door, took a step toward him with her palms out.

Blake seemed to look right through her.

"She didn't take Isabel because she'll be back," Rachel explained very calmly. "I didn't mean to startle you, Blake. I'm sorry. George was just worried that the two of you had talked at home and things had escalated. That's all. Chloe didn't—"

"She ditched us."

Blake shoved his hands into his already-messy hair, fingers tugging it up into unruly peaks, and shook his head in disbelief. His movements were jerky. Strained. His whole body was a rubber band that'd been pulled too tight, then plucked.

"She wouldn't do that," I pointed out.

"No."

"Seriously, Blake, she—"

"No, no. No."

He buried his face in his hands and rubbed at his eyes. Then he dropped his arms to his sides and started towards my bedroom door with frightening determination.

"I need to—shit," he spun on his heels and rushed back to where he'd left his muddy sneakers under my window. He stood on one foot, then the other, to tug them on. He didn't even bother untying the laces. "I need to borrow your car, Ms. Lyons."

Rachel blinked at him.

"Blake," she said, "I don't think that's a good idea"

It was actually the worst idea, but it seemed like a dick move to make that clarification when Blake was clearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

One of the heels of his sneakers was giving him trouble.

He roared with frustration and dropped to the floor to fumble with the laces, eyebrows knit and mouth twisted in a scowl.

"I have to find her," he insisted, shaking his head. "She can't do this to my dad."

"Let's wait until it stops raining," I offered, "and I'll drive you into town."

Blake lurched to his feet, sneakers on, and yanked on his dark green crewneck sweatshirt.

"I'm not waiting," he told me.

And then he turned, yanked open my bedroom window, and slipped out onto the roof. I took two steps after him, then thought better of it, because scaling a roof in the pouring rain seemed like the kind of thing I'd break both my legs attempting.

"What just happened?" Rachel blurted, looking as horrified as I'm sure she would've been if she'd barged into my room without knocking.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I'm going with him."

It was possibly the most dramatic thing I'd ever said before exiting a room.

I sprinted across the hall and tore down the stairs, where I paused at the front door and searched frantically for a matching pair of shoes that weren't flip-flops.

Rachel's footsteps thundered down the stairs after me.

I steeled myself for an argument.

"Waverly, it's pouring out there—" she began.

"I have to go!" I blurted, one sneaker clutched in my hand as I turned and squared my shoulders. "We can't let him run around alone. He needs someone. He needs a friend. I can't—"

Rachel interrupted my heroic monologue by tugging a giant clump of bright red plastic out of the front hall closet and chucking it at my chest.

"I know, I know! Take this."

The clump of plastic was, on closer inspection, a cherry red poncho with Mickey Mouse on the front (giving a somewhat mocking thumbs-up) and the Disney World logo on the back.

"You—you're okay with this?" I asked, a little dumbstruck.

Rachel nodded.

"I don't know the first thing about parenting," she admitted. "But I know you kids don't need parents, right now. You need each other. Go catch up with Blake. I'll call Lena and Jesse and let them know what's happening."

I made a little choked sound in the back of my throat.

Then I lurched forward and threw my arms around my aunt's shoulders, tugging her into a tight hug.

"Thank you," I whispered.

She rubbed her palm between my shoulder blades.

"Go get your man," she whispered back.

Rachel stood over me, her eyes suspiciously watery, as I laced up my sneakers and tugged on her poncho.

She pulled open the front door.

I took off into the storm.

And I made it about halfway down the front lawn before I lost my footing in the mud and absolutely ate shit. Distantly, over the thunderous pounding of rain, I heard Rachel inhale sharply through her teeth.

"You good?" she hollered from the front porch.

I climbed to my feet.

My flannel pajama pants were caked with mud.

I turned back towards the house, so me and Mickey could both shoot my aunt a thumbs-up.

"Maybe don't run?" she suggested, eyebrows pinched in a way that said she already regretted letting me out of the house.

"Got it!"

I took off into the storm, again, but slower.

There was nothing romantic about trudging through the rain in pursuit of Blake. The grey skies and relentless deluge didn't feel like some poetic reflection of his inner turmoil, and there was no Adele song layered over a montage of me marching down the sidewalk with a mud smear on the ass of my Mickey Mouse poncho.

It was cold, and wet, and miserable.

The air in Holden was so thick with condensation that I couldn't see more than four or five houses ahead of myself.

It didn't help that the wind was brutal. The palm trees shivered and the rain cut down at sharp angles, so even the hood of my poncho couldn't protect my face from the icy spray. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was glad Blake had already helped me remove my eye makeup, because it wouldn't have stood a chance against Tropical Storm Donald.

I made it three and a half blocks before I spotted Blake through the haze of rain.

He was soaked from his hair to his sneakers, his shoulders hunched against the wind. He seemed to be losing the frantic momentum he'd had back at Rachel's house. I was able to catch up to him without breaking my promise about not running.

I didn't know what to say to Blake, so I didn't say anything.

I just fell into step beside him.

He must've been deep in thought because it took him a solid five and a half seconds to notice that I'd appeared. When he did, he stopped walking abruptly.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

I turned to face him and shrugged, a bit sarcastically.

"Felt like a walk."

Blake sighed and shook his head.

"Go home, Waverly," he said.

And then he had the nerve to shoulder past me and keep walking down the street, footsteps a little harder and faster than they'd been before.

"So where we headed?" I asked, jogging after him.

Blake ignored me.

"Can we make a pit stop at Trader Joe's or something?"

His hands balled into fists.

"I'm feeling snacky."

This proved to be the last straw. Blake stopped walking.

Gotcha, I thought.

My triumph was short lived, because when he spun around to face me, his expression was something awful.

"Stop talking," he snapped.

It hurt like he'd prodded a bruise.

"I will when you start using your brain!" I retorted. "This is stupid, Blake. This is the stupidest thing you've ever done. But I'm not letting you do it alone. So, once more, where are we going?"

He clenched his teeth and shook his head, his eyes roaming to the other side of the street—anywhere but me.

"This isn't your problem," he said.

When someone is under extreme stress, they can say things they don't mean. I know this, logically. I knew that Blake was lashing out because he was angry and afraid that his relationship with Chloe had reached a point of no return.

Maybe I should've been gentle.

Maybe I should've been a doormat, with a big welcome scrawled in cursive across me.

But instead I lurched forward and shoved his chest.

Blake stumbled backwards a step, wide-eyed with surprise.

"What the fuck?" he demanded.

My heart was hammering.

I was angry. Furious.

"It is my problem," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "I have your back and you have mine, you giant asswipe! That's how it works."

"How what works?"

"Love!"

All at once, the tension in Blake's shoulders deflated, like he was a balloon that'd been inflated to the point of popping.

"You take care of the people you love," I barreled on, my words coming like a giant boulder I'd accidentally shoved over the crest of a hill. "You don't ditch them. That's how I know Chloe didn't leave for real. Because you're a family, and you don't ditch your family."

Blake shook his head.

His breathing was as shaky as my voice.

"I'm not her son," he argued.

"It doesn't matter!" I screeched. "Who gives a single, flying shit about technicalities like that? I'm not Rachel's daughter, but who's been feeding me? Who's been asking me about my day when I get home? Who let me read one of her romance novels? Her. Families are messy, Blake. Chloe isn't a replacement part. You don't have to swap her out for your mom. You just have to give her a fucking chance."

It was not lost on me that the gravitas of my words did not at all match with the cherry red Mickey Mouse poncho and flannel pajama pants I was wearing. But sometimes life's biggest moments happen when we're severely underdressed for them.

The rain, at least, suited the occasion.

Blake sniffled.

Then he started to cry in earnest. I worried he might crumple to the sidewalk and curl in on himself, so I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, squeezing him tight enough so that I could feeling the erratic thumping of his pounding heart against my chin.

A moment passed before Blake returned the embrace, the plastic of my poncho crinkling under the weight of his arms.

He croaked out a weak laugh.

"What are you wearing?" he asked, voice hoarse.

"Talk later," I grunted against his chest, "hug it out now."

I don't know how long we stood there, clinging to each other, as the rain pelted down and the wind tossed palm fronds onto the sidewalk around us. Blake's breath caught in his chest every now and again, hitching with a muffled sob, but he just pressed his lips to my shoulder and held me closer.

We finally broke apart when a pair of high beams cut through the rain, casting us in light.

From the haze of the storm emerged a white Range Rover. It rolled to a stop at the curb beside us, so that I could see Lena's face in the passenger side window. Her eyebrows were furrowed with worry.

I waved.

Then I tipped my head up to look at Blake. His eyes were red and puffy, and his nose was a little bit runny, but he'd calmed. He looked like himself again, to me.

"Can we get out of this rain now?" I asked.

He nodded.

Then he sniffled.

And then he leaned forward and brushed his lips against my cheek.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"Of course," I whispered back.

He kissed my cheek one more time, for good measure, before pulling back.

"Also, you look really hot in that poncho."

"Don't push it."

The back door of the Range Rover flew open and Jesse Fletcher's head popped out into the rain, curls bouncing and eyes squinted.

"This isn't The Notebook. Get in the car already," he said.

Distantly, I heard Lena say something that might've been knock it off, Jesse.

Blake crawled into the back seat first. I followed after him, cringing when I realized how much mud I was about to smear all over Alissa's leather interior, and tugged the door shut, sealing out the wind and rain.

"I'm so sorry about your seats," I blurted.

"Don't worry about it," Alissa said, the corner of her mouth twitching as she twisted in the driver's seat so she and Lena could both face the back in the gap between the driver's and passenger's seats. "I'll just get it cleaned and send my dad the bill."

I beamed at her and settled back into my seat.

For a moment, the car was quiet, save for the patter of rain against metal.

"You alright, bud?" Jesse finally asked, resting a hand on Blake's knee.

Blake took a shaky breath and nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm okay."

I put a hand on his other knee and gave it a squeeze.

"You scared us," Alissa murmured.

Then she stretched out her hand.

Blake took it. Lena slapped hers on top of theirs. Then Jesse added his to the pile before nodding at me, which was my cue to set my hand on top of everyone else's. It was a little awkward, and slightly clammy, but it said what we didn't have to.

We're here for you.

We have your back.

We're a family—messy and disjointed and wonderful.