One Cup of Sugar || Sasha x Niccolo

4 - Alleyways

Sashas POV:

Shortly after Connie and Jean left for work, I got up and continued to get ready for my outing. I figured that if I was going to go all the way out to Marley again that I might as well go all out.

Marley was about a twenty-minute drive from where I lived in Paradise. Marley was much bigger than Paradise so a lot of people from Paradise often went to Marley to shop, hang out, and more.

I sat down at the coffee shop in Marley, adjusting the clothing I have on. The weather was nice outside today, so I wore a white long sleeve crop top with a black crop top to go over it and a pair of distressed blue boyfriend jeans with black converse. I kept my hair down, not wanting to deal with it much.

I've always felt safe in coffee shops, no matter where they were. All coffee shops had the same peaceful atmosphere to me. The overwhelming ambiance of fresh coffee and warm pastries made me feel warm inside. I always saw coffee shops as charging stations for people. Charging stations for the tired, the overwhelmed, and more. You also saw many kinds of people there. Coffee shops were homes to the studying students, old friends catching up after years, the tired nine to five workers, and more. There wasn't just one type of person that belonged in a coffee shop. Coffee shops were safe and open to all people. They unified everyone in the world if they choose to want to be unified. Coffee was a language, a substance that many turn to for comfort and energy. And to me, that is one of the most beautiful things about life.

I pulled out my phone as I waited for my coffee to be ready, scrolling through multiple apps to pass the time. I haven't gotten a text back from Blondie yet. I wondered what he could be doing right now. He was probably busy with work or something. It wasn't any of my concern.

After finishing my coffee, I sped out of the coffee shop. The one thing I didn't like about Marley was the vast amounts of people. I blended in with the crowd of people walking on the sidewalk. Crowds like this made me incredibly anxious. People made me incredibly anxious. Large crowds of people were just a recipe for disaster for me. I walked quickly, trying to stay attentive to the amounts of people around me.

The overwhelming vast of people made my heart pound, my heartbeat becoming faster and faster each second. There was no way to control anything in my setting right now. I couldn't control the people around me. I couldn't control their walking patterns. I couldn't control if a car was to swerve and hit me. I was completely helpless with no kind of defense at all. All I could control was myself.

But the thing is, that wasn't true. I had no control over myself. If I had control over myself, I would be able to control the way I reacted. I couldn't control myself even if I tried, and I have. The fascinating thing about anxiety is that you cannot control it. There was no off switch whenever you realized you weren't in danger because your mind doesn't process that. No matter how much you tell yourself that you're going to be okay, your brain doesn't listen to you. You can't convince your brain that it's overreacting or tell it to be quiet. Having anxiety is like owning a feral two-year-old. It doesn't listen no matter what you tell it.

All I wanted right now was an off switch. I wanted to be able to control myself. I wanted control over my own body.

The sound of my heartbeat got louder in my ears, deafening the sounds of the city around me. The only thing I could hear besides my heartbeat was my shaky, uneven breathing.

I began to push past people, looking for somewhere to hide out until my brain decided to give me the okay to function again. I look around, seeing an alleyway past a bakery that I could potentially slip into. I continue to push by people, muttering a quick "excuse me, sorry" to people as I stumbled into the short alleyway.