Tyler

Panic Attack- Seven

Her heart races, she can hear it in her ears. Feel it in her stomach. Her fingers tremble and she has to place them under her bottom to keep them still. She tries to catch her breath but it only makes it worse and she has to hold her chest because the pain is like a knife. She feels her clothes soaked with sweat and she gets up slowly using her dresser to keep her steady. Black spots clutter her eyes and she feels dizzy opening the door to the bathroom, grabbing a towel and wiping away the sweat from her brow. As she lifts her head to stare into the mirror the world falls away around her and she feels a breeze pass her by before she smashes into sleep.

She wakes not surrounded by people but by faces of people. Worried, tear soaked faces. These weren't faces she knew- no these were faces of people she has interacted with her whole life but never once fully tried to understand. Understand what was behind these faces and now here the stand with faces for her. In motion they become, moving closer to her, touching her face, exhaling in relief for she had woken up to see people and just people because now they feel cold and distant to be around, like a stranger. Strangers she knew everything about outside for fifteen years but nothing about inside for the rest before her life.

She falls back into sleep and remembers the day before, where she had just gotten home exhausted from a football game with her friends.

Bright lights and yelling fill the air all around the bleachers full of people and a field full of high school kids participating in a memory. She watches girls pass her by with their boyfriends and cut off shirts showing their stomachs and she smiles pretending she didn't wish she were them. Brittney returned back to her side with two cokes and her off and on future husband, Hunter.

Brittney and Hunter pulled her around the field and to the other side where behind the visitor bleachers was a party full of smoking, alcohol and shirtless boys wrestling in a crowd. Soon they were all surrounded by faces she'd never seen but were definitely pleasing to look at. It was almost like she wasn't there, like she was a ghost that only Brittney occasionally recognized. She felt butterflies tearing at her stomach and she excused herself backing away to escape to the bathroom alone. On her way back to the other side of the field an older boy ran up from behind and lifted off the shirt of her less than impressive body. This scene brought attention from every angle revealing her pudgy belly and premature breasts to hundreds of eyes.

She grabbed the shirt stolen from her chest and rushed to the bathroom, locking the door and and collapsing on the tile, letting the tears fall to her cheeks. She looked at the shirt in her hands and stood up to see herself in the mirror. She stared. Hard. at the shame she wears everyday and couldn't keep composure, these tears falling down her face would be the last because she pinched the fat on her abdomen and thought this is not me- this will not be me.

Wiping the tears away and pulling her shirt back on she exited the bathroom where Brittney was waiting for her. She started to ask "Are you o..." But Tyler cut her off with soft steady words. "I'm good." And she exited to the parking lot where she started her walk back home in the dark and cold. She didn't care that she was freezing or even that she couldn't feel her feet because she wanted to feel it- everything and she wanted to remember this night so she would never want to feel this way again.

Quietly she climbed through her window and found herself sitting in front of the toilet just starring and replaying the night over and over and every time she replayed the memory that made her cringe at herself she stuck her fingers down her throat so her stomach could be empty but flat and she could be broken inside but beautiful outside.