I'm On Your Side

8 | I overthink the best

I DON'T THINK I've ever been the one who made a move in our friendship (I don't think I should have said that because now I'm realizing how weird that sounds), I realize as I stare at my phone screen. My heart keeps on palpitating as I look at it again. I should probably stop staring at my phone screen, but what good will that do? It'll only haunt me more. I'm making a big deal out of this. God! Mason's right: I'm such an overthinker.

And, even if I can stop it, which I desperately want to, I can't. It's like it's ingrained in my head or something. Which makes sense. I mean, I've been overthinking for probably six years now (I'm guessing I started around sixth grade since that's when math started becoming categorized with honors and everything else and that was when my insecure self started showing through. Don't ask me how I know this. God, I can't believe I still remember this. This is really bad).

Now if only there's a spell in Hogwarts that could make me stop from overthinking. I know there's a "spell" in real life that could, for a lack of better words, cure my brain from overthinking: meditation. But it's not that easy. Which, yeah, no shit, everything takes time―I've gotten that lecture many times from my mom―but every once in a while I wish that it wouldn't take time and it would just happen in an instant. Like, life should be about living and doing things that make you happy, not practicing things until they make sense (*wink, wink* Math. Huh. I didn't even know how much of a reference this is to math until I acknowledged it).

Yeah. Maybe that's why I wish aliens would invade this world so that people would prioritize their things (this is so off subject, there's literally no correlation between these two subjects. Welcome to my mind, I guess).

I stare at my text―Hey, do you want to play badminton today for my activity?―one more time in hopes of something happening, like a reply because that's the only thing I can expect from this, before diverting my attention back to the thing that my sixth-grade self had a hard time accepting: Math.

Now don't let that statement confuse you with the obvious meaning of me having a hard time accepting math as me having trouble understanding the concepts, because the sixth grade math was easy as fuck―no shit, I was placed in the lower spectrum of sixth grade math and all we learned about was fractions and dividing. The real meaning, at least in this case, is that I had a hard time accepting my stance in the lower sixth grade math because everyone (well, most) in the same race as me was in the higher sixth-grade math (odd how people called it lower and higher math because I am now finding this humorous).

I still remember the breakdowns I had when my mom would tell me about other parents who would praise their kids for getting into the higher sixth-grade math and I would find a quiet place after our conversation to burst out in tears.

Damn. This is really bad―I still remember this... and now I understand the meaning of "it feels like it just happened yesterday" because I used to think it was an exaggeration, but I guess not because look where I am.

I guess I've been in my head for so long because my Pre-calc teacher announces that it's time to sort out into breakout groups and "work" on the classwork ourselves. Like we even will, everyone turns off their camera and does God knows what. I do too, but only because I don't want to be the one who turns on their microphone to tell everyone to turn on their cameras (and wait awkwardly for a few minutes for a response) and also because I could care less about what other people do.

My eyes divert to my iPhone screen. If I thought TikTok was addicting, then I'm mistaken because this is more addicting. It's bad too. And I keep on thinking that I did something wrong yesterday. I didn't though, nothing happened. All we did was talk about our past and then he left a minute before my parents and brother showed up (thank God. I don't know how they would react to Mason and me being alone). I keep on circulating to that past thing because I brought up calling a girl suicidal and, I don't know, I mean, I didn't intentionally mean it, I was concerned―Mason's right―but what if, after a day, Mason thought I'm a bad person for saying that and now he doesn't want to be associated with me?