Control

Chapter Five

The one thing that still drives me absolutely insane all the time, was the fact that I had no idea what he was feeling. I would look at him and it would be gone. My ability would vanish in the moment. Today, I looked at Lucas and felt something completely different. I lost my ability to see what others could not, not just in him, but in everyone else as well. I couldn't decipher if this was a good thing to alleviate others' worries from mine, or a bad thing because I was now just as clueless as everyone else. I, Annabelle Martin was normal.

What hurts worse is that when I looked at him, he was with her.

When I looked at her, I grew a strong feeling of nervousness in the pit of my stomach.

When I looked at him I saw my whole world light up.

When I looked at them, I couldn't breathe.

I turn to my right and look at Nicole. "Can we go to the dance room please?" We are watching the basketball game at the school, Nicole and I do this every Friday.

She immediately shows a look of concern and worry on her face when she sees my eyes filled with tears. She takes my by the wrist, "Of course."

We leave the upstairs track and then we exit the C wing hallway and enter the K wing. I sit in the corner. Nicole sits next to me.

"I-I-I-" I cannot breathe. I try to spit words out of my mouth but they just won't come out. There's not enough air in my lungs. I cannot breathe.

Nicole, who had sat next to me when I sat down, moves closer and gives me a hug. "It's okay, take your time."

I continue taking short and quick breaths trying to fill my lungs with every single oxygen molecule in this room.

Tears are streaming down my face. Nicole asks, "Is it your foot?"

I shake my head no and it becomes more difficult to breathe because now I am focusing on my injury as well as everything else.

"Do you want to get some water?" she asks.

I shake my head, and bury my face in my hands temporarily, until I realize that doing so makes it even harder to breathe. I start tapping a steady rhythm with my foot. I try keeping my breathing steady with they rhythm of my foot. This helps a little bit.

After a few more minutes of silence, I start to apologize to Nicole, "I'm so sorry." I turn to face her. "Everything has been coming down on me lately, and now I can't take it anymore."

"Don't apologize," she says, "things happen, it's okay. Hey it is better out here anyway. There is about a million people in there."

I smile. "I know, right?"

"This is just insane, more people are still coming."

It is the crosstown game, Oswego East vs. Oswego. It is just after pre-game for the boys' varsity game, more people are still to come, but the bleachers are already filled.

I stand up. "Let's go downstairs."

"Okay," Nicole agrees and stands up.

We walk past the room our bags are in and there is nobody there. We walk by the dance room and find the same thing- an abandoned room.

"Everyone must be downstairs." I say to Nicole. JV dance team must be watching the game, but Varsity was for sure doing sidelines at pre-game.

Nicole's phone rings as we enter the stairwell, which is empty as well.

"Sorry, it's my mom." She explains as she hits "Accept Call."

"No that's fine."

We start walking down the stairs; she walks slowly with me as she talks on the phone. Going down the stairs had never been more of a struggle. I thought I was getting better at walking with the boot, but I relapsed. With about eight stairs left of the twenty or thirty, I sit down. I can't do it. It starts to get hard to breathe again.