Chex Mix

Tuesday is the single-most stressful day of the week. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s because my parents drive me to school. And my parents just love to over-load me with a very lengthy to-do list.

“Now, Ryan – “ That’s Ry, thank you very much. “Today, you need to ask your teachers about extra credit, and when you get home today you need to work on your flexibility for cheerleading tryouts,” my mother lectures as we three pull up into the drop-off at the school.

I draw in a deep breath. “Yes, mother,” I say as I exhale.

My mother takes this the wrong way and is about to start yelling at me for back-talking, but I hold up my hands in a defensive manner to try and stop her. “I’ve really gotta get inside the building, otherwise I’ll be late,” I say quickly, and dash out of the car, slinging my backpack over my shoulders and rushing into the building.

Once inside, a feeling began to harden in my chest, almost like my heart is solidifying. And when I get into my classroom the feeling intensifies, making my muscles stiffen. Stiffen almost enough that my whole body begins to tremble.

I sit down in my desk-chair and start to take deep breaths, hoping that it’ll calm me down enough that I won’t have a full-fledged panic attack.

The bell rings, making me jump, and students that aren’t already in their desks get that way as the teacher, Mr. Reagan, begins passing out slips of paper. He hands me one, gives me a look of disappointment, and sighs. I hate that look. It’s the look that means I have obviously done something terribly wrong.

I look down at the slip of paper that has my name on in written in purple felt pen. My solidified heart begins jolting inside my chest cavity and blood rushes to my head so I can’t hear very well. I know what this paper is: it’s my grade so far this year.

The reason I’m freaking out about it so much is because this class – which, by the way, is sophomore algebra even though I’m a junior – is the one class that I just can’t seem to get into the swing of. I’ve never really understood math to begin with, and throw in the alphabet and you get for a very confused Ry.

I very slowly open up the slip of paper with already shaky hands and my heart drops when I see my grade: a good, solid “C.”

My heart now feels like a brick being thrown continuously at my chest, and I can’t hear worth crap. My muscles tense uncontrollably and I’m shaking worse than a Chihuahua. There are little black spots swimming in my vision and I’m hyperventilating – very loudly, from what I can tell. My face is completely numb and doubtless tears are streaming down my face and dribbling from my chin into my lap. This is what we would call a full-fledged panic attack.

Suddenly, I’m on my feet, grabbed by my elbows by two separate people and led from the classroom on Jell-o legs. Before I know it, one of the people is gone and I’m in the nurse’s office, being patted on the back and having a cold wash cloth placed on the back of my neck.

My panic attack lasts about five minutes, and once completely through with it, since afterwards there was still some left-over trembling, I simply sit on the bed thing in the nurse’s office, staring at the ground and breathing deeply. I look up for a moment, not completely focused on anything, and see a girl with brown-ish hair sitting in the bathroom, barfing her life into the toilet.

“Ugh, there’s puke in my hair!” I hear her moan over the dying sound of blood pounding in my ears.

I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Barfing sucks major-league monkey butts.

There’s also another person in there, a boy. An Asian boy, at that. He’s limping over to a chair in the corner and as he sits down he winces for some unknown reason to me. He holds his ankle gingerly and just looks at it.

Sucks for him, he’s got an actual injury.

I look back down at the ground and tap my feet nervously and try my hardest not to think about anything but cotton candy clouds and turkey legs on bushes (my “happy place”).

For a while, it works.