Like You Mean It

6. Cam

I was going to puke. Or have a heart attack. Or faint. Or have an arrhythmia attack and actually go into full blown atrial fibrillation this time and die on the field in front of every other New Hampshire band a day before I turned seventeen. Something bad was going to happen and I knew it deep down. It was the day of our opening competition so something bad had to happen today because there was no way it would go well at all. An acidic feeling sat stagnant in the back of my throat from the moment I woke up and I felt like there was an elephant squeezing around my heart. And I had even taken my stupid meds the night before that was supposed to make me not feel like this!

I checked my watch, my left knuckles gently rubbing over the heart surgery scar down the middle of my chest. My sinus rhythm was normal, my heart rate was just slightly elevated, and I could fix that. I was ok, I was fine. I had to be fine. I just needed to fucking breath before I got so stressed that I actually started having an arrhythmia attack.

I couldn't eat without feeling like I was going to die, and I had to wear my stupid band polo shirt even though it was so uncomfortable and pressed into my skin in all the wrong ways. It hugged my waist, making it so obvious that I wasn't like other guys. It pulled against my chest, hugging tightly against my still not flat enough chest even though I had top surgery last year. It made it obvious that I was small-shouldered and made me look smaller and weaker than I already was. It just made me look like a girl. It was bad.

And I had to wear jeans too which I hated to wear because they hugged my hips too tightly and always made it so obvious that I wasn't like other guys. But we had to look uniform in our group picture before we got changed into our actual uniforms at Durham. So, I was in sensory and dysphoria hell at 4:30 in the morning. I just wanted to lie down in my bed in my dysphoria hoodie and stay buried under the covers all day.

Tom, Gabby, Reese, and I got to Valley at 5 am. We loaded the bus and our equipment truck at 5:30 am. I had to individually check that every drumline member had their drum, harness, and sticks because I did not want a repeat of Nick's stupidity from last year. We were on the road to Durham University by 6 am.

I was on bus two, second row from the back. It was the seat I sat in every time we went to a competition. I had a recording of last night's halftime show on repeat in my headphones while playing along to my part on the head of the seat in front of me. Luckily, Mal was sitting in front of me and nearly dead to the world, so I didn't get yelled at.

"Jesus Christ Cam, can you shut up?" Tom hissed from across me.

"I need to practice, Tom." I glared back, "We're trying to win, aren't we?"

"Practice quieter, idiot." He threw a juice box, that Mom had packed, at me, "Drink it, your sugar is starting to get low. I know you skipped breakfast."

I drank the juice box. It was way safer than trying to keep down food right now. I kept practicing. I could picture the sets in my mind, my moves, my stick flicks, my breaths, everything. But I just couldn't play. It was like I was back on the practice field on Thursday night again, fumbling through my music and moves. I was worried about today, but I didn't let anyone know.

I couldn't let anyone know that I was falling apart at the seams or else they would start panicking. I was always the calm and collected one, never worried or afraid in public. Tom was too openly worried about everything, Kayden was always so high-strung, Maddie would always have too many things on her plate, so I had to be the one to keep things together. If drumline saw me freaking out, then they would freak out. Then Tom would freak out. Then the winds would freak out. Then our entire show would be derailed so horribly that we got banned from ever competing again because of me. Because I couldn't stay calm and stop fucking worrying.