House Of Cards

4. "Lauren, your fans are waiting."

Camila was a dream and I was a nightmare. It's the only real way I could put it. You see, it's been a week since the softball tryouts and, subsequently, a week since we spent a total of three hours, something I only realized as I headed home, at the coffee shop. That means I've spent roughly a week giddy like a middle school girl getting asked out by the cutest boy in school. In a way, it was the same thing; she was definitely the prettiest girl in school just that neither of us attended the school.

Camila was perfectly put together, doing so well in her life, and having accomplished so much. It was admirable, really, and admiring her was exactly what I was doing. I, on the contrary, have just come back from literally running away from my problems, leaving the state, and left wondering why 'just leaving' didn't work. You need to know to laugh at yourself, right?

Camila laughs at herself, in fact, every two sentences is a joke or a witty pun and, even though they're usually really bad, I find myself laughing harder than I ever have. I think it mostly has to do with the smile or look of pride in return when I do laugh or, if I'm really lucky and Camila finds the joke extra funny, the stray giggles that manage to sneak out even when she's so blatantly trying to keep them in.

Anyway, back to my point, Camila has completely invaded my thoughts. Whether I'm thinking about how pretty, or accomplished, or amazing she is, I'm still thinking about her. I keep flirting with the idea that maybe someone so perfectly tangled as she is could be exactly what I need. Now, I don't want to, and I quote my mom, 'sound like my artsy friends', but maybe the timing is completely perfect, maybe there's a completely logical reason Normani brought me with her to visit. I'm not one to believe in fate, I'm too bitter and pessimistic, yet I can't help but think that fate asked me to coach the softball team this year; not Camila.

I was a the result of a truck of hopefulness and a truck of hopelessness colliding on the highway, each going upwards 100 kilometres an hour. As weird as this may sound, my current state seemed oddly familiar. The familiarity of feeling like an absolute mess somehow calmed me. I lived through it then, I could probably live through it now.

Above all the Camila thoughts, I was anxious again and that scared the living daylights out of me. I wasn't anxious about anything logical, in fact I was basically anxious about everything. If I had an endless supply of softballs, I would have peeled a good 50 of them by now.

My anxiety had come back slowly and stealth-like which I feared more than when it came back all at once. When it comes quickly and unannounced, it's like a slap in the face and the impact is done within minutes. When it comes slowly, it builds up inside you like someone twisting a knife after you've already been stabbed.

So I was anxious again and I couldn't exactly pinpoint about what or why, all I knew was that I would have to get used to the gut-wrenching waiting that usually came along with all of it.

I like to think my constant state is anxious and I've just become mildly immune to my daily anxieties; well that's my theory, anyway. So I figure that the more anxious I get, the more immune to it I get. Which, if I'm correct by any means, I should be completely cured by the time I'm 50. I wonder if that makes me a threat to the the people that make Xanax.

Speaking of Xanax and anxiety, I remember one time in senior year, Vero had a supposedly genius idea to cure my anxieties all together, she thought weed would calm me down. Now, as a side note, before this I had only ever smoked once, in fact even after this, I only really smoked in university. Anyway, Vero shows up to school one day and tells me that her sister's friend -or maybe it was her friend's sister- knew a guy who was kind of a drug dealer but super lowkey about it. Somehow, someway, a plate of pot brownies ended up at Vero's house so she brought half of it to school.