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Brady
I waitat the coffee shop for two hours. Just in case her class runs long. Or she has second thoughts and decides she wants to show up. Or maybe she is caught in traffic.
I make excuse after excuse as I sit staring at the front door, praying for the bell above it to ring and announce her arrival. But it never does. And every time it sounds, a little part of me dies. My anxiety rose. And when I couldn't take it anymore, I finally headed home.
Even though I didn't want to leave. Because I was going to tell her that I'd changed my mind. That I was willing to try.
Over the weekend, after dropping her off, I realized a few things.
One, my anxiety is higher when she's not around. There weren't more than a handful of people wandering around the Kappa house as I sat there and talked to Max, but my anxiety still got the best of me.
Two, thinking about her and knowing that she's angry with me, that I screwed things up, makes my anxiety worse. Which is what I did all weekend. I thought about Mya. Jacked off to visions of her. Took cold showers when I couldn't control my raging hard-on. And popped a few extra pills to try to manage the feelings that were overwhelming me.
And finally, just this morning, I realized one last thing.
We stood in that hallway, with people walking around us, and I never once felt anxious. The need to run out of there never crossed my mind. Because she was there. She was with me. And the world was silent. My hands didn't shake, and my brain wasn't rapid firing.
Mya is my calm.
She’s my very own drug.
Which makes sense now that I look back on it.
All the time we spent studying, I never once had a panic attack. No matter where we were, though, we spent most of our time in the corner of the coffee shop. It became our place, and it became comfortable, safe, in my mind.
I used to come back here after our class ended. Every Tuesday at the same time. I'd order a drink for her and one for myself, hoping she might show up. Watching the door the same as I did this afternoon. Listening to the bell ding, the disappointment in my heart compounding every time a customer walked in the door and it wasn't her.
I've tortured myself where Mya’s concerned for over a year. Constantly thinking about her. Imagining how things could be different. It was worse when she was seeing that asshole. My anxiety would skyrocket any time I heard her name or caught a glimpse of her. I did my best to avoid seeing her, to avoid seeing them together, but the few times I couldn't, it felt like I was having an out of body experience.
My feelings would overwhelm me. I didn't know which way was up. How to pull myself from the funk. And I'd hide away up here for hours, sitting in the dark, catching my breath.
The roof was my secret place.
I come here to unwind after a tough day. To find clarity when I'm confused. For solace when I want to be alone.
Mostly, I escape here when I feel like I can't breathe. And that's what seeing Mya withhimwould do to me. It would steal the breath from my lungs. Every tiny breath I would take felt like I was breathing in fire.
And even though she's not with him anymore, that's what it feels like right now.
I can't breathe.
There is no peace.
And I certainly have no idea how to release the tension in my body.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It's almost midnight now. I've been up here for hours, searching for a semblance of normal. Attempting to figure out how to feel like myself again. The version I was before I saw Mya in the bookstore two weeks ago.
He wasn't a happy guy, but he was content.
When my phone vibrates again, I remove it from my pocket and check my notifications.
MAX: Any update on Evie?
MAX: Or Leo?
Sometimes it's taxing to have Max as a friend. Sometimes it's more work than it's worth. It's not that he wouldn't return the favor—he would, and knowing Max, he's trying to out-do whatever I do for him, taking things to a level that isn't required—but it always seems he asks for the most difficult favors.
Babysitting his sister.
