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Someone coughs. “More like green.”
Kevin sighs and shoots the guy slouched to his left an unimpressed look.
“Um, I—” I try to speak, but my breath hitches and I snap my gaze toward the closed door, wishing Nolan was here. Not because I sucked his dick, but because there’s something about him that just…I don’t know, settles me, even when he’s the source of my anger. Just like on our hike.
He saved your life.
I shake my head.No, no, it’s more than that.
“…gonna puke…” a voice says, trickling into my awareness.
“…what’s wrong with him?”
Someone snickers.
“Can’t you control yourself, Skyler?”I hear my mother’s voice thrashing around my skull.
NO!
Bolting for the door, I barely notice the chair I kick across the room. I distantly hear someone calling after me—Kevin, I think.
I know I’m being ridiculous, but when I get like this—when my thoughts spin out of my control, and I get swept up into the chaos—I can’t stop it. I really, truly can’t, no matter how hard I’ve tried to master it over the years.
I need to be alone right now, because if I’m not, I will tear that room apart. I’ll bash my head through a wall. I’ll make a complete idiot out of myself, more than I already have.
And none of this is because I’m angry, though I am angry, and getting angrier by the second. But this is more than that.
I’ve taken anger management courses over the years, and I know I’m not like others who struggle with episodes like this.
My vision doesn’t turn red.
I’m not bloodthirsty. I don’t need to punch someone…though I will in the heat of the moment, blindly and without intent.
What happens to me is strictly internal, as if my brain is a computer that’s overheated, and every sound and texture and emotion being perceived is being amplified to the nth degree. Grating against every single nerve in my body.
Sensory overload.
Sensory overwhelm.
Meltdowns.
All terms my doctors and therapists would throw around when I was growing up, when it was clear it wasn’t just your run of the mill temper tantrum.
You hear about it all the time. People make light of it, use it as an excuse to get out of shit, tack it on as a personality trait.
They don’t get it. No one fucking gets how bad it can be until you’ve lived it.
Until you find yourself sitting in the wreckage of your own making, fists bloody, nails frayed at the ends, chest heaving, and fingers twitching with little aftershocks.
At best, it’s a nuisance.
At worst, it can be deadly.
My vision tunnels, blackening around the edges as I hasten my steps toward the stairs. There’s an elevator, but I can’t risk losing my shit in there, only for someone to witness it.
My room. I need my room. My bathroom.
Dark, quiet, nothingness.
