Brie Sheridan has had her heart broken way too many times. Rhett Price is usually the culprit, but, this time, he might be the solution.
*****
Brooke 'Brie' Sheridan wouldn't necessa...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
RHETT
The past couple of weeks have been a true emotional whirlwind.
I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been doing this for a long time at this point, so, to me, there's no plausible reason for me to wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, heart racing like I'm halfway through running a marathon. It makes me feel pathetically weak, unable to control my own body and trapped in a battle I can't win.
The worst part of it all is that I don't know exactly what is triggering these feelings. Yeah, sure, that's the whole point of anxiety—it acts up for no reason, preparing you for impending danger without telling you what the danger is—and I'm stuck in a perpetual sense of doom, just waiting for tragedy to strike.
It's like there's a comically large anvil hanging over my head by a thin, frail thread, except I can't see the anvil and don't know when the thread will give out; I just know it will. This might be my brain's idea of being prepared for the worst, which I should be giving it credit for, as it's, in theory, only trying to keep me alive instead of trying to keep me happy, but sometimes a guy would just like to get a break sometimes. Get a second to breathe without having to worry about tragedy being about to strike. It's Damocles' sword, anvil style.
So, whenever someone tries to ask me what's wrong, I do have an answer for them. Funnily enough, it no longer involves shrugging or letting out a noncommittal groan, as everything about me runs away from any sort of commitment, obviously. I need to stay on brand.
Everything is.
Everything is fucking wrong and it hurts deep in my bones, a pain far greater than that brought by any injury, and I've torn my ACL. Recovery from that injury, albeit draining and seemingly never ending, didn't feel nearly as gruesome as this.
At least back then I could explain what was going on, what I was feeling, and which parts of my body were aching and I knew I'd be understood and validated; now, even with all the mental health awareness campaigns and even though increased attention is being paid to men's mental health, no one really understands unless they've been through it.
It starts off as quiet rumbling in my brain, something that almost sounds like distant white noise coming from the television in the room across the hall. It's the kind of thing you learn to ignore and build your life around for as long as it's convenient. It's bothersome, but negligible. The longer you go on living around it and pretending it's not there, it feeds off your forced obliviousness more and more, and does everything in its power to get your attention.
It makes you worry about valid concerns at first and it even turns you into a more grounded, attentive person. People are touched to know you think before you open your mouth to say anything to them and are amazed that you think about the consequences of your actions. They congratulate you for being focused and for having a good head on your shoulders, oblivious to all the turmoil going on inside your brain as you obsess about potentially ruining your life and/or every single relationship over doing or saying the wrong thing.
