Shield Me From the Storms

Acting with Josh was pretty embarrassing, I wasn’t going to lie. When he grabbed my hips and pulled me against him…I was tempted to just leave. I didn’t want to be in the club if it was going to stress me out. And being held like that by Josh was definitely going to stress me out. I managed to get through that first drama club meeting, though, which I was proud of. And I’d managed to sound relatively confident, even though I was far from it.

Once Sophia had said goodbye to everyone, I hurried to grab my bag from the back of the room so I could leave. But, evidently, I wasn’t quick enough. “Hey,” a voice said from behind me and I sighed as I slung my bag over my shoulder and turned around.
“Hi,” I said anxiously. I didn’t know what else he had to say, but all I wanted to do was put some space between us now.
“So do you want to go get some coffee or something?” he asked and I looked up suddenly. Was he asking me out? As in out?
“Um, I don’t drink coffee,” I said. That wasn’t necessarily a lie; I could drink it, I just avoided it.
“You don’t have to have coffee, they have other stuff too,” he said with a soft smile. I bit my lip at that smile. Part of me wanted to say yes, just so I could see it more. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew I couldn’t go on a date with him. Dates were stressful right? They were full of anxiety and nerves. I wouldn’t be good in that situation. Especially seeing as Josh had no idea that I had epilepsy. He wouldn’t even appreciate the severity of what was going on.
“Um, thanks, but maybe another time,” I said quickly before I all but ran away, not even giving him a chance to respond.

I had enough to think about just from having acted with him, but now he’d asked me out! My mind was going a mile a minute and I knew I needed to calm the hell down before something bad happened. No way was I going to have a seizure in the middle of the school. Sure there weren’t many people around now, but still, Josh was around and I definitely didn’t want him seeing that.

The walk home did me good. Getting fresh air was an easy way to calm down. And I really needed to calm down. Having a seizure in public? That wasn’t going to happen, I wouldn’t let it. Deep breaths. Making sure I was getting enough oxygen was always good, too. Over the years, I’d developed strategies to keep myself from getting too worked up and so triggering a seizure. Sure, they were inevitable really, but at least I was somewhat in control. Especially thanks to my meds, I could sense when a seizure was coming. Usually. Sure, there was the occasional time when they hit out of nowhere, but when that happened, I just accepted it. I was lucky that I had the warning signals for some of them – not everyone had that luxury.

When I got home, neither of my parents were around, which I was glad about. My dad was okay, but I was in no state to deal with my mum’s pestering and questions about my seizures during the day. Even as I thought about it, I could feel myself getting wound up. I went up to my room and pulling the curtains closed. Once my room was relatively dark, I took another deep breath. I could feel myself starting to shake and I desperately shook my head but I already knew it was no use fighting. I quickly lay on my bed as I felt my muscles starting to seize and shake. I fell out of consciousness but only a moment later, I was aware again. My body was suddenly beyond tired and I reached over to pop the lid off my meds and swallowed 2 pills before collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep.