Smoke Me.

Chapter 17: Bloody Soap

'Ah, I must pretend that I am a normal person again.'

I rolled from under the heavy arm that Namjoon had over me to have a glass of water. Skip the shower to hang out on the edge of the bathtub in yesterday's clothes instead just so I'd be able to smoke in peace before he'll wake up. And that's all I did before brushing my teeth twice while throwing something clean on while trying to ignore any thoughts which loudly announced that by grabbing the backpack and stepping out of Namjoon's house, I will become visible to the rest of the world.

And that didn't just freeze the blood that previously flowed through my veins just fine. But sucked most oxygen out of my brain and left me begging for an invisibility cloak.

I could blame the weed for a lot of mishaps, but I knew, deep down, that all thought, reason, and identity ceased to exist at the smallest sign of conflict. In fact, I expected the worst to happen inside and outside any confined place, and even when it didn't, I simply considered myself lucky. Fooled by the universe in its one million and one attempts to make me drop my guard until the day it will inevitably strike again.

'I wonder why.'

"What did your therapist say about it?"

The guy with whom I share most shifts, Todd, asked, yet his fingers never ceased texting.

"That parents have social patterns. Like, mm...if you do or say something they don't like, they'll punish you. Or reward you when you do something good, in their opinion or society's opinion. Anyways, my parents simply lacked any concise patterns..."

"I don't get it."
"Hmm...Let's say there's a jar of cookies on the table and they don't tell me if I can or cannot take one, so I just take one whenever and they sometimes punish me for it, other times, they didn't even react. Sometimes, they'd praise me for eating well and went as far as eating one with me. There's no pattern that tells me when I should or shouldn't take one. It's like I am pressing a random button every time I reach for the same cookie. It basically gives me an unpredictable reaction each time that is dependent on how my parent felt in that moment, which had, most likely, nothing to do with me. Making little me utterly...powerless."
"Ok...But what does that have to do with your anxiety?" He looked up with a raised brow.

"When you're young, that's when your brain learns how to...cope with people. And mine learned that no matter what I do, the parent will do whatever it wants. I can't control a thing. So, at some point, I thought it was better to stop eating cookies altogether. I made it all about myself since I could control it and denied, suppressed, and rejected having the need for the cookie itself. As an adult, I froze, hid, or ran away in front of most decisions to protect myself," I cleared my throat as various memories popped up without my permission, "Either way, I remained clueless as to what made them angry or happy. And now I can't predict if someone will slap me for no reason or if what I did to get that slap is due to a good reason at all. She said that makes me what other people call: anxious."

I made an unnecessary tight knot on the apron and threw my jacket in the corner as if it was its fault for all my emotional problems. He kept typing without batting an eye, yet concluded:
"That's a very elaborate thing you remembered... I think it's a safety thing then."
"Exactly. Better safe than sorry, I guess."
"That sucks."
"Don't I know it..."

His face lit up.
"I think I get it though. It's the same thing with my claustrophobia. I mean...if the elevator breaks or something, you don't know when it's going to happen or if you're going to ever get out or not. So, I'd rather avoid the slightest possibility by taking the stairs even when I'm feeling sick."
"Yeah. Like that. The only difference is that I can't avoid...all humans."

'At least, not all of the time.'

I bit my tongue and took my phone out of the backpack.

"True. Hey, is that guy you told me about, is he still bothering you?"
"Nah. It's all good now."
"Oke. But keep me posted."