"Except you cannot outrun insanity, any more than you can outrun your own shadow." Alyssa Reyans
Grace Lynn
Wringing my fingers together, I smile softly at the pharmacist behind the counter, knowing that she’s going to see what prescription she’s filling and make assumption after assumption. Fluoxetine and valproic acid aren’t the most common choice of medication, but if a person knows enough about medicine and what each medication is for then she most likely will figure out why I'm here.
And I know that she’s assuming because she glances up at me as she types in whatever they have to do in order to give someone her prescription. “Okay, your total is $54.17.” Her eyes fill with sympathy as if I can’t live a normal life.
I can live a normal life.
I do live a normal life.
Nodding my head, I feel the smile fall and a frown takes its place. These things are the triggers that she told me to stay away from. People don’t understand, so I just have to make sure that they don’t have to. If they don’t know, then they can’t make assumptions or feel bad or intentionally stay away from me.
I slide my purse down my arm, digging my hand in to find my wallet, which I knew I should have done while she was searching for the medications. Taking my credit card out of the wallet, I hand it to her, my fingers shaking as I grab the bag of medicine in front of me.
Now is not the time to have an anxiety attack. Not in public.
This is why they didn’t want me going away to school, but I had to do this. I can do this. And I'm going to prove to everyone that I can go to school away from home and do well and succeed.
It’s not that they think I can’t do it. They know that I can do it and they believe in me.
They're concerned, and that’s all.
“I just need you to sign this and then you're good to go.” She speaks softly, as if I'm going to crack, which I might. Who knows at this point? The medication will stop it from being bad, but it won’t stop it from happening altogether.
Taking the pen from her hand, I scribble my name on the store’s receipt, Grace Lynn Fischer. Yeah, as if anything I do is with grace.
“Thank you,” I whisper. I'm not sure if she heard it and I have better manners than that. She should be able to hear me thank her, but I couldn’t get my voice any louder than a whisper.
I know that stress is a trigger, and everything I'm doing right now is stressful. My mood chart is going to suck.
Throwing the bags in my purse, I spin around and walk out of the Walgreens, somewhat freaking out that the Walgreens is on Main Street and I could walk into any potential classmates at any given time. I mean, what if someone knocks into me and my medication falls out of my purse and then they pick it up and look at it and then they want to ask questions but they don’t and then I have class with them and they sit next to me and they googled what the medications are for and they know.
My face collides with a black shirt covering a hard chest, and I feel my nose begin to throb in pain at the contact. Panicking, I feel for my purse, noting that it’s still on my shoulder and zipped shut like it was when I walked out of Walgreens.
And with that realization comes the next one: I walked face first into someone.
I feel my cheeks grow warm and I'm almost positive that I'm as red as a tomato. Taking a step back, I bite down on my lower lip until I'm worried I'm going to draw blood. “I, I'm so sorry.” The words stumble out of my mouth before I can look up to see who I walked into.
“Nah, it’s okay, I've never had a girl intentionally walk into me to get my attention.” His statement startles me, and I think that it angers me, but I can’t really feel anything other than embarrassment right now.
Looking up at him, I meet his soft, warm brown eyes, and I can feel my face getting warmer and warmer. It doesn’t help that he’s the most attractive guy I've ever seen, with his shaggy brown hair and toned upper body that you can practically see through his shirt. His jawline is absolutely perfect and covered by a slight five o’clock shadow. “Um, no, I didn’t, I'm sorry.” This is not what I need right now.
I'm so stupid. I should have been looking up instead of at my shoes. Of course I would walk into someone if I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.
Chuckling, he glances down at me, lowering his head slightly to meet my eyes, as he’s a good seven inches taller than I am. “Don’t worry about it, Sunshine. I can think of worse things that could happen to me, and a beautiful girl walking into me isn't one of them.”
Beautiful?
His voice is raspy, almost deeper than normal, but it suits him, it sounds like butter, soft and smooth, no matter how raspy, because it’s coming out of his mouth.
Stop, these things never work.
“Um, well, sorry again.” Nodding my head, mostly for myself, to tell myself that this conversation, if one could call it a conversation, is over and I need to walk away before I embarrass myself even more. Dropping my head, I step to the side, only to see his feet mirror mine. I bite down on my lower lip, unsure of what’s going on: nervous, anxious, and extremely embarrassed. “Excuse me,” I whisper.
Shaking his head, he slides his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, as if the action is supposed to appease me. He can tell that I'm anxious, that I don’t know what he’s doing, and I look up at him, because I've never been an open book, not to anyone outside of my family. “Listen, sunshine, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t.” That’s a lie. I'm pretty sure he offended me. The fact that I'm a female doesn’t make me a skank, which is what he implied. Hell, I barely even talk to people, let alone flirt.
You should really go, Grace. Nothing will come out of this. He’s just like the rest of the world. And that’s okay. You just can’t surround yourself with the rest of the world.
Knitting his eyebrows together, his eyes shine with curiosity. I'm sure he has girls begging for his attention. Which is fine, I'm just not one of them, hence the curiosity. “I'm Justin.”
I look up at him, confused. If he knew me, what I go through every day, what I've been through, he wouldn’t have introduced himself. And if we become friends, he’ll eventually find out, whether I tell him or he pieces it together. Then he’s going to regret telling me his name and befriending me. He’ll leave. I know how it works.
Maybe he’s different, but everything is so new, everything is a trigger.
“Excuse me,” I say again, this time with some strength behind my words. “I need to get back to my dorm room.”
He stands still, completely stunned, and slightly hurt. I get that. I hurt him. I'm completely rude and all he did was introduce himself. Well, he insinuated that I wanted to get in his pants, but that’s beside the point, I guess.
Forcing a soft smile, a perfected fake smile, I walk past him, tugging my purse closer to my body, keeping what’s inside of it a constant reminder of what I am and what drives everyone away.
