Panic Attack by Jason Starr

how to do our job, and I think we do it very well.” He put his pad away in his pocket, then said, “Sorry again for your loss,” and left.
Marissa remained with her parents in the dining room, watching them exchange looks. Then her father said, “That was brilliant, insult the whole NYPD, why don’t you?” and that set her mom off again. Marissa couldn’t take it anymore and went up to her room. She heard her mother shouting, “You still think everything’s okay? You think it’s going to all miraculously blow over?— and then she turned up her stereo— more Tone Def— to drown her parents out.
She hoped this wasn’t just the beginning, that her parents weren’t going to start having marital problems again. In high school, it had seemed like her parents were on the verge of divorce, at each other’s throats 24/7, and they always argued about the stupidest things. Like her dad would leave some dirty dishes in the kitchen sink or pee on the toilet seat, and her mom would lay into him about it. Or her dad wouldn’t like a look her mother had given him or her tone of voice, and it would lead to a huge fight. And, because her dad was a psychologist and they were in marriage counseling, they would both go into this weird therapy- speak in their arguments that only led to more fighting. Like during a fight her mother might say,“You’re so annoying” and her father would say,“You’re generalizing” or “There you go with your rage again,” and then that would lead to a fight. Or sometimes they would be arguing and her mother would say, “You’re being defensive,” and her father would fire back, “There you go, projecting again,” and they’d be off, shouting at each other in their ridiculous mumbo jumbo about who was projecting and who was being defensive. Of course there was never any resolution to their fighting; no one ever won or conceded. It seemed like they had the same argument over and over again, like an annoying song stuck on repeat play. Marissa never understood why they bothered to stay together. If they couldn’t get along, why make each other miserable? Why not just get divorced? She’d hoped they weren’t staying together for her, because she would’ve preferred that they just split up and move on with their lives. What kid wanted unhappy parents?
Marissa turned down the music, and she could still hear her parents going at it; it sounded like they were in their bedroom now. She took a quick shower and was toweling off when she heard her mother shout, “What’re you gonna do then? Get your gun again? Shoot him?”
God, were they still arguing about the gun?
Marissa headed back to her bedroom, passing her father in the hallway. He marched by and went downstairs. He was in sweats and sneakers, probably on his way to the gym.
Sitting on her bed, Marissa texted Hillary, who worked in midtown. They arranged to meet for drinks at five thirty. Marissa typed:
cant wait I SO have to get out of this crazy fucking house
    She got dressed quickly— skinny jeans, a black lace cami, and the cute little leather jacket she’d bought last week at UNIQLO in SoHo. As she left the house, she saw her father on the sidewalk, talking to several reporters. They’d probably come back to ask him questions about Gabriela and she could tell he was into it, furrowing his eyebrows and moving his hands a lot as he talked, acting like he was a movie star giving a press conference.
    Marissa walked several blocks, through the gates of Forest Hills Gardens to the subway on Queens Boulevard. Riding on the R train, she wore her sunglasses because she was crying and didn’t want anyone to see. She still couldn’t believe that Gabriela was actually dead.
    When she arrived in Manhattan, she had some time to kill, so she went to the Whitney to see the Man Ray exhibit. She’d sent a job application to the Whitney, as she had to practically every other museum in the city, and hadn’t heard anything yet. She’d been applying to a lot of galleries, too, and had