Anxiety Girl

Chapter 1

Blinking her eyes furiously, she tapped her pencil perpendicular to her fingers on the desk. Her legs bounced up and down, shaking to distract her from other business. She ran her brown fingers through her curled hair that was about to become messy over the nervousness she felt at the moment. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and her brain was screaming at her. Her teeth chattered bringing her eyes to an overbearing of continuously glancing everywhere. Her stomach felt hollow and her lips quivered.

This was how it felt to Samantha Carter. This was how her anxiety always felt. She always overthought things. She prepared herself for the inevitable but was never prepared for anything. She was what some called a nerdy girl. She wore big round circular classes, wore long dress shirts, business casual, and a long skirt that flowed to her knees. Nonetheless Samantha was beautiful and many have told her that, well they should've seen her high school year book pictures, not exactly the same girl.

Samantha knew she should've called in sick. It would have been easier if she noticed before hand, but she was out of her anxiety medicine that she usually took before the day. Being around all of her social workers was killing her in the inside. She had not prepared for a moment like this, anyone could call her name and she would have a emotional heart attack. The anxiety was extreme, extreme to the bone.

"Sam!"

Samantha-or what they like to call-Sam, stood up abruptly knocking over her various objects of pencils and office accessories. Her eyes flew everywhere except for Ms. Halls, the secretary for the Finance and operation systems. She was an old lady who had her arms folded in a demanding way. Her eyes crinkly and narrowing. "Come here my darling." She said in a poetic voice. Her tone caught Sam off guard. Sam took one step, allowing herself to slowly stop the beating in her ferociously beating heart. Falling in the next slow footstep, Ms. Halls yelled, "get over here child!" Sam's feet never moved faster in her life. She was shaking as she stood in front of the lady. "Y-yes M-Ms. Halls?"

"Come with me child."

She quickly followed in her footsteps into the elevator. Once they got in, there was an uncomfortable silence that dreaded and masked the area. Or at least to Sam it was. Being around one person solely spiked her anxiety more than being With a group of people. The elevator promoted a few sounds that kept the silence afloat. Once the elevator stopped at the 20th floor, the two women got out and walked into a wide open space hallway which led them down to a tall lonely door plastered at the end of the hall. Ms. Halls opened the door and kindly moved aside for Sam to move in, but Sam stood there dumbstruck, for she was confused as to what was going on. She strolled in the room gently and quietly. A few men were present in the room, along with one man who was dressed differently than the others. He wore a black silk shirt in which was tight enough for you to see his body line and pecs in which was like a three dimensional road trip for the female eyes-may be even men's.

He wore black pants, his shirt tucked in. Shielding his eyes were sunglasses. His hair swift and black. He was Asian, yes, and he was pleasing to the eyes. His stance was like that of a young thug, staggered and hip, hands tucked in his jean pockets.

Ms. Halls greeted him with a smile, "this is the old CEO's grandson. He is our new CEO." She looked at Sam, "you said you studied Korean at Harvard?" Sam nodded. "I-I uh...I uh...also translated some papers of English to Korean for the old CEO." She nodded. "Very well, well you see he needs an assistant, and I believe that you should get this promotion, you've worked hard enough."

"Y-yes ma'am..."

"I will leave you to talk with him, gentlemen, let me show you to the planning department." The other men followers Ms. Halls to the door. When they left. Sam was struck with anxiety over again. She grabbed at her chest as it had felt to tighten. The new CEO didn't notice and started introducing himself.

"My name is Jang Ji Joon. I hear you are proficient in Korean."

"N-n-n-not really..."

"Why are you shaking like that?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do you liar. Wait why are you crying?"

"NO REASON."

"Jesus..." He was taken aback by her sudden outburst. At that moment, he knew that she had it. He sucked in air through his teeth and smacked his lips. He spoke in Korean towards her, "are you more comfortable speaking in this language."

As if magic, a burst of wind collected her anxiety thoughts and threw them out of the house that bore the nervousness. She stopped shaking and tipped her head in confusion. He looked around awkward as soon as she stopped shaking, and the tears in her eyes slowly dissipated. She spoke to him back in the same language, "yes...how did you..."

"You have social anxiety don't you?"

She was silent.

"Anxiety is very...hard to deal with. How is a woman with your...looks...able to handle the stress?"

"What?"

For the first time in her life she felt utterly offended. She placed her hands on her hips and furrowed her brows. "What? My looks? What do you mean?" She switched to English. He stood stiff when he realized that her attitude changed. "What do you mean my looks? Huh? Does my social anxiety make me look different? Huh? I didn't know that my job performance is based on my looks!" He put his hands in the air, "whoa! Whoa! Your anxiety disappeared fast!" She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She didn't even realize that her anxiety temporally disappeared. As soon as she realized this, she could feel her anxiety crawling back into the trapped door called her brain.

"By the way what's your name?"

"M-my name is Samantha Carter. Call me Sam...if you'd like."

"Well Sam Carter, it looks like we will be working together for now on."