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I was exhausted when I came back to my apartment, which was still dirty, and I began to realize there were lifeforms growing in my sink and along the edges of my refrigerator.
I put the TV on channel 51, where all of the entertainment news would come on, and was jolted out of my dreamlike state when I saw a familiar blonde-haired face.
There she was, sitting next to a square glass table that had the word ET in bright neon lights. She looked more tired than me, and I immediately leaned in.
Nancy O'Dell, the host, wore a red dress, and the two looked like sisters ready to spill all the Christmas drama.
"Later on tonight we will discuss the Palace's reaction to Kate Middleton topless photos and the upcoming Emmys with Homeland being a favorite, but we are joined here with Emma Roberts."
"Thank you for having me." Her bright black eyes looked off to the side, probably at her manager.
"How was it like working on your first rom-com? Celeste and Jesse Forever. Nice change of pace." She had a smile plastered across her face.
"Great, it was much needed." Emma nodded her head.
"Did you take inspiration from your own relationship?"
There were three theater-sized screens. Two had ET written in golden letters, and in the middle was a photo of me and her at the Looper premiere.
"Actually, me and Ryan ended our relationship."
Nancy's eyebrows rose, but only by a tiny amount. Her Botox limited her.
"Yes."
"What happened?" She leaned in.
"He cheated on me."
I threw the remote, and the batteries flew out—there was only a thin piece of tape covering it. I was so frustrated that I walked around my apartment before realizing the interview was still going on.
I stood by the couch on the far side of the living room, and from this angle I saw Emma's face strangely: half of it was brightly lit while the other half fell into a deep shadow. I pictured a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, each trying to convince her to lie or tell the truth.
I must have missed part of the conversation. I felt like my heart was exploding as Emma continued, "very sudden and unexpected, but when you date someone that dedicated and who's obviously good at it, can feel like you're in the way."
I felt incredibly dizzy and put my hand on the couch. I was about to search on my phone for heart attack symptoms, but I decided to look at Twitter's trending page instead.
The first thing I saw was #DNC2012, with people praising Bill Clinton's lengthy speech and loving Michelle Obama's address.
I scrolled down and saw #RyanStone spiking in tweets, while the phrase #aheartofstone exploded as well.
@kaitlynsharpe2: Can't believe he would do that. And I love Looper. What a dick.
↳@mckenziealpha: all men are like that, it's like when you become famous you are a different person. Probably his friends are blowing smoke up his ass.
There were a ton more every second, with people threatening to kill me, to drive all the way to Los Feliz and try to find me.
There were more:
@rebeccacollins: Imagine cheating on EMMA ROBERTS after she supported you before anyone knew your fucking name 😭 #AHeartOfStone
@cineslut92: Ryan Stone speedrunning the Hollywood douchebag transformation.
@kellymarie7: somebody check on Emma because WHAT THE FUCK.
I crouched down on the floor and pressed my forehead against it. My heart was beating incredibly fast, and I put the phone down.
I took a deep breath, but it felt like the air stopped somewhere in the middle of my chest. I kept trying and couldn't breathe. I crawled toward the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and, of course, there wasn't any. My phone was blowing up with notifications, but I was distracted by the TV—all I could hear were their LA accents while my ears rang.
I pressed my palm against my chest. There was pressure, and my arms began to tingle. My first thought was that I was dying, that I was having a heart attack.
I just turned 21.
I picked up my phone, swiped over to Google, and searched for heart attack symptoms: Chest pain or discomfort, shortness of breath, feeling weak, light-headed.
"No."
I closed my phone and could still hear them chatting. I disconnected the TV wire from the outlet and threw it toward the window.
My heart rate got worse, and I pictured myself collapsing onto the floor of this disgusting apartment with nobody finding me.
Just like last time.
I dialed 911, and immediately a woman's voice rang out, "911, what's the address of your emergency?"
I didn't respond and just focused on her voice.
"What's your address?"
"4643 Los Feliz Boulevard. Los Angeles."
"Tell me what is happening."
"I think I'm having a heart attack."
"Are you awake and breathing?"
"Yes. No. I can't breathe."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
"Tell me what you're feeling."
"My heart's beating really fast. My chest fucking hurts. Can you just send someone, Christ."
"Yes, there's someone coming already."
"Where is the pain?"
"Middle of umm my chest, please I don't want to—"
"Where else, sir?"
"When did this begin? What did you do before?"
"Umm I did some drumming, but I was watching TV."
My phone vibrated against my chest. There was a message from Andrew, but I glossed over it.
"Sir, are you still here?"
"Yes."
"If you're able to safely do so, unlock the door for the responders."
I started walking. My legs suddenly felt incredibly light.
Halfway there, another wave of dizziness hit me.
I grabbed the couch.
"Fuck."
"What's happening?"
"I feel like I'm going to pass out."
"Sit down for me."
I lowered myself onto the couch.
"No, I need to open the door."
"If you feel like you're going to faint, don't stand up yet."
"But how are they going to get in?"
"Help is on the way. Stay with me."
I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees.
"Am I dying?"
"I have medical responders coming to you. Stay on the line with me."
"I don't want to die."
"We are doing everything we can. Keep talking to me."
For the first time, her voice sounded rushed instead of automated.
I stared at the blank television and saw my reflection in it. Then I saw Andrew Neiman there, and with another blink I saw Elio Perlman, and finally Seth Bregman. All three of them were sitting on the couch, chatting among themselves. After what felt like an eternity, they all looked at me as if I were some pet.
Then, somewhere outside, I heard a siren.
The siren became louder until it sounded like it was directly underneath my window.
"Is that them?"
"It may be. Stay on the line with me."
There was another sound underneath the ringing in my ears.
Someone was pounding on the door.
"Fire department! EMS!"
"I'm here!"
I tried standing and immediately grabbed the couch.
"Sir, stay seated if you're feeling faint."
"They're outside."
"Can you unlock the door?"
I stumbled over and unlocked it.
Two paramedics entered carrying black bags and a cardiac monitor. One was probably in his forties, and the other looked young enough that I wondered if he was actually allowed to do this.
The older one crouched in front of me.
"Ryan?"
"Yeah."
"You're having chest pain?"
"I think I'm having a heart attack."
"Okay. Sit down for me."
"I can't breathe."
"We're going to check you out."
The younger paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm while the other clipped something onto my finger.
"When did this start?"
"I don't know. Ten minutes ago. Fifteen."
"What were you doing?"
"Watching TV."
"Did it come on suddenly?"
"Yeah."
"Point to where you're having the pain."
I pressed a finger against the middle of my chest.
"Right here."
"Does it stay there or travel into your arm, jaw or back?"
"My arms feel weird."
"Weird how?"
"Tingling."
"Both of them?"
"Yeah."
"Any medical problems?"
"No."
"Any heart problems?"
"No."
"Medications?"
"No."
"Any drugs tonight? Cocaine? Amphetamines? Anything like that?"
"No."
"Alcohol?"
"No."
The younger paramedic looked at the monitor.
"Heart rate one-thirty-four. Sat ninety-nine. Pressure one-forty-six over eighty-six."
I looked at him.
"One-thirty-four?"
"Your heart rate's elevated."
"That's fucking high."
"It's fast. We're going to get a twelve-lead and take a look."
The older paramedic pulled several stickers from a package.
"I'm going to put these on your chest. It's an ECG. It'll show us the electrical activity of your heart."
I pulled my shirt up.
My hands were trembling so badly that I had trouble holding it there.
He placed the stickers across my chest and connected wires to them.
"Lie back and stay as still as you can."
"Am I having a heart attack?"
"Give me a few seconds."
The machine started recording.
I watched his face.
He didn't move.
"What?"
"Hold still."
"What do you see?"
"Just give me a second."
A strip of paper came out of the machine.
He studied it.
The silence was unbearable.
"Am I having one?"
"I don't see an obvious STEMI on this ECG."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not seeing the pattern we'd expect with a major heart attack right now."
I let my head fall against the couch.
"So I'm okay?"
"I didn't say that."
I looked back at him and had trouble finding the right words.
"It means this ECG is reassuring, but you're having new chest pain and shortness of breath. We're going to take you to the hospital and have you evaluated."
He looked at his partner.
"Sinus tach, one-thirty."
"Copy."
The younger paramedic brought the stretcher through
the doorway.
"Think you can stand?"
"Yeah."
"Take it slowly."
I stood.
The room immediately tilted.
I grabbed his arm.
"Whoa."
"I've got you."
"I told you something's wrong."
"I know. Sit back down."
They helped me onto the stretcher.
I looked around the apartment.
The television was unplugged. My phone was on the floor. Dirty dishes filled the sink. The refrigerator door was slightly open.
"Wait. My phone."
The younger paramedic picked it up and handed it to me. There were so many notifications that they blended together.
I turned it facedown against my stomach, and they rolled me into the hallway.
The cardiac monitor came with us.
One-thirty.
One-twenty-eight.
One-twenty-six.
I watched every number.
"Twenty-one-year-old male, sudden onset chest tightness and dyspnea at rest about thirty minutes prior," the paramedic rattled off to the charge nurse as they wheeled me through the sliding glass doors. "Initial rate one-thirties, sinus tach. Sat ninety-nine on room air throughout. Denies stimulants. Symptoms improving en route."
"Good luck, man," the paramedic muttered, unclipping his leads.
And just like that, they disappeared back out into the night.
The next hour was an impersonal blur of sterile routine. A nurse wrapped a cold cuff around my bicep and stuck another round of adhesive patches across my chest, running a hospital-grade ECG while I stared unblinkingly at the acoustic ceiling tiles.
"Is it a heart attack?" I asked, my voice scraping against my dry throat.
"Nothing jumping out at me," she said evenly, tying a rubber tourniquet above my elbow. "Drawing blood for troponin and basic labs. The doctor will review everything."
A sharp pinch, three dark tubes filling up, and then she vanished behind the curtain, leaving me alone in the dim cubicle.
The silence was the worst part. My heart rate slowly dropped into the nineties, but every time the digital display flickered back toward a hundred, a phantom spike of adrenaline surged through my ribs. I stared at the green digits so intensely that the glow burned into the back of my eyelids.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-four.
Ninety-one.
A tall physician with shadowed eyes pushed the curtain aside twenty minutes later.
"Ryan? I'm Dr. Fonseca." He pulled a stool closer and planted a cold stethoscope against my chest. "Deep breath."
I inhaled.
"Lungs are clear. Heart is regular, just slightly fast." He looped the stethoscope around his neck and glanced down at my chart. "Initial troponin came back completely flat. Bloodwork is normal. The ECG shows simple sinus tachycardia—no ST elevation, no arrhythmia."
"So my heart is okay?"
"Structurally? Yes. You didn't have a heart attack."
I let my head sink back into the thin plastic pillow, the relief washing over me so heavily it felt like nausea. "Then why did my arms go numb? Why couldn't I breathe?"
"Your body had an acute hyperventilation response," Dr. Fonseca explained calmly. "A massive dump of adrenaline hits your system, your heart races, you breathe shallowly without realizing it, the carbon dioxide levels in your blood plummet, and that triggers the tingling in your hands, face, and chest. It's a textbook panic attack."
"I wasn't panicking," I mumbled, though the memory of Emma's face on the television screen flickered through my head like a flash fire.
Dr. Fonseca gave me a knowing look that doctors only give young, stupid men. "You don't need to feel anxious in your head for your nervous system to pull the fire alarm. The physiology takes over." He tapped the metal clipboard. "We'll pull one more repeat lab just to be thorough, but you're going home tonight."
An hour later, my heart rate had settled to eighty-four.
The chest pressure was entirely gone. My breathing was effortless.
That almost made me angry. After everything my body had just put me through, it had casually decided that nothing was wrong at all.
The nurse returned to strip off the monitor leads and peel back the tape from my arm. The constant, electronic beeping died with a click.
"Hold pressure there," she said, handing me a stapled packet of discharge paperwork.
I looked at the bold header on the first sheet:
CHEST PAIN / SYMPTOM RESOLUTION
I flipped it over to the next:
PANIC ATTACKS AND ACUTE ANXIETY MANAGEMENT
I sat on the edge of the stretcher in my rumpled clothes, looking down at the plastic hospital bracelet banded tight around my wrist.
"I called 911 because Twitter gave me a panic attack," I muttered to myself.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
The lock screen was an endless cascade—436 notifications, missed calls from practically everyone
Right as I looked down, the screen lit up with another incoming call.
I took a breath, pressed the green button, and brought it to my ear.