Panic Attacks // Ruel // English

Chapter 97

This afternoon I'm going to Maeve, I just don't know whether I should be afraid or really like it. There is a double feeling in my body. On the one hand I always have a lot of fun with those girls, okay especially Maeve and June. Usually when I'm there and I've actually really dreaded it, I always feel good. Not looking forward to it happens often. Very much more often. At home I sit with a disinterested feeling. I'm just wasting time because I don't want to arrive there. I just sit there sighing and getting myself sick. Then I really have to convince myself to go, or someone else does it for me. Otherwise I surrender to the feeling and I don't come at all. My feet don't get a signal that it might have to walk to the front door to get there. I just do not want to. And when I'm there then I have to get used to it again. Like I haven't seen my friends in years, maybe they even feel like strangers. It seems like I need to figure out that I can trust them again. Then later, when I'm there longer, I'll be fine. Then I can see the fun in it. I get a bit more loose. I have more talks. I participate more in the conversations. But now it feels different. There's something in my gut that tells me not to go at all. That I'm not going to have any fun anyway and that it's just a waste of time. That I might as well not come because it's not going to do anything useful to me. All this makes it even more difficult to leave.

Okay no I just don't feel like Grace. Especially not after she was so bitchy to me at the flower shop. That's stopping me. I don't need her negativity. Maybe she was just in a bad mood and things will get better today. I hope so, because it doesn't have to ruin the atmosphere. June will come pick me up anyway. It is not very far by car, but just far enough not to want to walk. Then I know for sure that I immediately turn around at the first roundabout.

I hear the honking of the car outside, most likely June. I quickly put on my shoes and pack my things together when I've texted that I'm coming. I don't really know how long it will go on. Whether I'm going to come home very late or if I'm sick of it after a few hours. I then ask someone to pick me up, so I don't have to walk that far. It started to rain late in the afternoon.

I quickly run to the studio and pull open the heavy door. Ruel is on a video call with Nate. I see him enlarge his eyes to the screen and want to make something clear to his manager. I don't think too much about it because I really have to go now. Ruel then turns my way. I put a hand on his cheek and kiss his lips. He smiles and says I have to get fun. Wishing Ruel good luck and saying hello to Nate, I walk out of the room. They don't resume talking until the door is nearly closed.

I say goodbye to everyone in the house and then go to the car.

June: "What made it take so long? Had a whole make-out session with Van Dijk or something?" June asks with a smile as I get into the car and close the door.

I roll my eyes laughing.

Yasmine: "Hello to you as well."

June does not drive straight to Maeve's house. On the contrary, she makes a complete detour.

She just picked me up earlier to spend some time together. Mysterious, but I love it. I love to spend time with her, even if we don't make a lot of time for it. We should. We don't have to, but that would be better for us. We are usually only together when it is also with the boys. We hardly take time for each other. That's too bad. But she solved it well this way.

We walk through Sydney together. Through the streets I've walked before, all the way to Starbucks. It was worth it. With the view over the water. The trees along the water, which are always planned every 10 feet. The benches with their backs to the sometimes wild water. It feels like walking into a perfect movie here. Perhaps a science fiction film, in which a very large monster will soon fly out of the water. The moment it is gone, peace returns. Everyone continues as if nothing happened.