I was nervous, so nervous... Like a thousand chainsaws in my stomach, ha, what an exaggeration. Wait, no, more like anxiety. I'm beginning to feel nauseous and my heart is racing. Oh God... I hate anxiety attacks.
"You okay, bro?" Mike, my little brother, asked me. I guess the war going on in my nervous system was showing. I put my hands to my chest and stood there looking toward the ground. I noticed Mike kept walking three steps before realizing I stopped.
"I'm fine, just dumbass anxiety acting up again," I shrugged and continued on our walk home from school.
"Haven't you been taking that medicine for it?" He asked. I guess I didn't tell him how that all worked out.
"Of course, anything to stop this five times a day crap. It hardly works, only thing it really does is slow down my speeding heart rate. Mom and dad really don't understand how bad I hate this," I said, ignoring the feeling that my hips were gonna be cut off by my belt, the belt wasn't even tight.
"Five times a day? I'm sorry Vic. I thought it was only every once in a while now," Mike looked down and said those words sad. He seemed to feel like he should of been aware.
"Hey, look at me Mike. Everything's going to be okay, I promise," I smiled at my brother, and he did the same.
"Besides, I've been playing the guitar a lot lately, I'm pretty decent. It helps take my mind off the stress and anxiety," I assured him.
He smirked, "I know, I listen sometimes,"
Three more miles 'til home. My brother and I prefered the relaxing walking instead of that crammed, loud bus. Well, at least I did. Mike felt the same, I think. We took a short cut past this neighborhood everyday, than we crossed a field by a lake to get to the dirt road we lived on. As we were passing the neighborhood, Mike noticed something, something big.
"Holy shit! That house burnt down!" My little brother explained the obvious. I probably wouldn't have noticed, I mean all the houses seemed the same, this one would be the unique. Caution tape marked the property line, no cars were there. A whole mess of glass and the smell of burnt wood was alarming.
None of that concerned me, but one thing in particular did... A picture frame, on the sidewalk. It's glass wasn't broken, and the wood work of the frame wasn't burnt. It had a picture of a man in it; about my age.
"He looks like he could be your age, you know him?" Mike asked. I shook my head no.
"I've never seen him before. Must be a senior or something," I stated. I thought about leaving it laying there on the sidewalk. But, I then thought about how I would feel guilty about it later on. While Mike wasn't looking, I put the frame in my backpack. He didn't notice the picture gone, and we continued on walking.
