Peace of the Sun

Chapter I

Separation Anxiety. Recurrent and excessive distress about anticipating or being away from home or loved ones. I was diagnosed with Separation Anxiety Disorder when I was three years old, and now fifteen years later it still hasn't gotten any better. It hasn't gotten better because, although I know I need therapy, I don't have money, I'm absolutely terrified to get a job, my parents have never cared about me or my mental illness, and they probably never will. The only person in my life that ever did care was my grandmother, Ingrid. Unfortunately, she passed away only a few months after my diagnosis, which did not help whatsoever.

Music helps a lot. As a dancer and a musician, it's always been a huge part of my life, and my passion for dance only helps my passion for music grow stronger. I've always been known to grow passionate about things very quickly, and usually stay passionate about them for a very long time unless they're people. I have a hard time keeping people in my life. Everybody I have ever felt close to has left me permanently, including my own damn parents. As soon as I mentioned the fact that I wanted to go to Juilliard when I was only nine years old, they practically wrote my college essay for me and shipped me off right then and there. When I got my acceptance letter, they jumped for joy as my heart may as well have shriveled up, and sunken down to the bottomless pit that was my stomach, staying there to rot. I didn't want to leave, but my parents needed me to. They were sick and tired of me clinging to them every second of every day like a caterpillar, not yet ready to become a butterfly.

My parents barely even stopped the car when they dropped me off at the Toronto airport to catch my flight to JFK. That was what caused the anxiety attack. If they had just simply given me a hug, or at least said goodbye, I probably wouldn't be struggling to breathe inside an enclosed metal bird, beside a complete stranger, who kindly traded his aisle seat for my window seat. I always hated sitting by the window on airplanes. It forced me to stare down at the place that I had called home, slowly getting smaller, and smaller, farther, and farther away, as I could feel my heart beating more rapidly, and my chest getting heavier by the second.

I finally got off of the plane, still struggling to breathe, and managed to get myself a taxi to take me to the campus. My parents had given me endless amounts of money. Whatever it took to get me as far away from them as possible.

I walked onto the beautiful grounds of The Juilliard School for the first time since I went on a campus tour last summer. Straight ahead of me, placed right in front of the beautiful, modern-looking building was a staircase, with a small surface area on the top, covered in bright green grass. I knew as soon as I saw it, that it would be a place where I would be spending a lot of my time. I walked up the stairs, and it was exactly how I expected it to be. Tranquil. The only word I could use to describe it. It smelled fresh, and I could see students milling around the campus. I always loved to people watch. I was an observer. I often sat back, stayed quiet, observed peoples' body language, and made up stories for them inside my head.

I sat on the soft green grass, as I watched all of the people below me, everybody living their own lives. This campus was full of beautiful souls, I could tell. One, in particular, caught the corner of my eye. He was sitting peacefully, on a different staircase, under a tree, playing his guitar. He was too far away for me to hear but I could tell by the way people stared in awe as they walked past him, that whatever he was playing was absolutely breath-taking. Or maybe they were staring in awe as they took in his beautiful appearance. He had glowing emerald green eyes that were brought out by his army green, baggy, button-up shirt, that was undone and placed delicately over a soft, cream-coloured t-shirt. He was wearing light blue jeans, the ankles rolled, revealing his one purple sock and one green sock, that were sticking out of his black and white high-top vans. His dark brown curls piled perfectly atop his head, with just a few falling down to his face, barely brushing his eyelashes. His sleeves were rolled up just enough to reveal the ink imprinted into his forearms, and he had the facial structure of a Greek god, while his eyebrows furrowed together as he was concentrating. He might have been the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.