Requisites Of Life

Chapter 21

Cooper

I spiked my hand up into the air, gathering a dozen gazes from around the classroom. This only intensified every single emotion I was bottling up. 

The teacher barely looked up from her desk of before calling on me. "Yes, Cooper?" Her voice made it loud and clear that she was neither interested in what I had to say, nor the stack of papers below her chin that she was tasked with grading. 

"Can I use the restroom?" 

She looked at me with a blank stare, seemingly tossing around the idea of whether or not I deserved to release my bladder. Luckily, she decided in my favor. "Make it quick." 

"Hurry! We've seen what happens when you wait," a kid called out from across the room. I spared him a glare on my way out. Anthony--the kid who had started that whole fiasco after school with Evan just the day before. The kid who had no motive to taunt me but his own amusement, and hopes that others would see how oh! so clever he is. 

The mere thought of the kid gave me heart palpitations. 

The sight of that familiar janitorial closet pumped a dosage of relief into my veins. When I got in there, and shut the door behind me, I could feel that dosage kicking in. Sitting down in the dark, only a few sounds here and there other than my constant state of breathing, was when that relief began to take full effect. 

It's funny, really, that in my state of panic, it was the dark that made me feel better. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a nyctophile. It's just that the absence of my senses is what brought me relief in the times that the slightest sound of a pen dropping added on another level of irritation to my tightly-wound mood. Luckily, I could sometimes catch a panic episode long enough before it reached the point of no return. This was one of those times. 

But in the cases that I couldn't stop the sporadic drum solo in my heart, and I was already sweating a day's worth of water, I couldn't stop myself from getting so close to that point of snapping. But I never did snap. I just kept getting wound up more and more and more, a rubber band being stretched to its limits, and then some. In those times, I couldn't wait for the moment that I would snap; I could only wait for the moment when I would begin to stop stretching, and gradually go back to a normal state. 

I took a few more deep breaths, letting them escape my lungs as I felt my muscles relax. Just as I began thinking about going back to class, the door opened in front of me. Both me and the person on the other side of the door let out barely audible gasps. 

"Whoa," Ralph chortled. "You scared me there, Cooper." 

"Sorry, Ralph," I offered an apologetic smile. 

"I didn't see a light on, so I wasn't expecting to see someone in here," he explained. 

I nodded. "I just needed a moment to calm down. Too much light and sound and stuff." 

It was his turn to nod in understanding. I got up and moved out of his way. He stopped me before I could get out the door, though. 

"You seem really anxious lately," he said. My mind flicked back to when mom said something similar. I thought she was just being an overly-concerned mother, but having a second person point it out made me acknowledge that I had, actually, been just a little more on edge than usual. 

I scratched at the nape of my neck. "Just been having a lot going on, lately." 

He leaned against the wall, resting his arms against his chest. "Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah," I said, leaning against the other wall. "I recently got back in contact with...someone in my life who hasn't been around for a while." I knew I could trust Ralph, but I didn't feel like going around telling people that my dad left and I just started contacting him after a decade of his silence. "I also just got a girlfriend, but we got into a fight yesterday, and I sorta stormed off..." 

"Do ya like the girl?" 

I gave him a curious look. "Of course." 

"Then talk to her," he said nonchalantly. "Make up. Simple as that." 

"It's not that simple though." 

"Why not?" He said it as though he was oblivious to the obvious answer. Or maybe he didn't see the obvious answer. Maybe I'd been tossing the idea around in my head so much that I couldn't see the simple resolve to a simple problem. 

Wow, Ralph. How do you always have the right answers? 

"I don't know why I'm so anxious over meeting that person again, though," I thought aloud. "I guess I'm just a little overly excited, if that makes sense?" 

He hummed in response.

"And then my grandparents are coming over soon for Hanukkah." 

"Sounds like you're overwhelmed." 

A humorless laugh escaped my mouth. "That sounds about right." 

"Have you tried going for walks to clear your head?" 

I shrugged. "I do sometimes." He nodded, making it clear that our conversation had reached a dead-end. "I have to get back to class, now." 

He gave me a pat on the back as I took the couple steps that brought me to the door. "Oh, and Cooper." 

I craned my neck over my shoulder. "Yeah?" 

"Take care of yourself." 

I smiled back at him. 

He always knows just what to say. 

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Wow! An early update? I guess the summer has gotten me into such a nice mood that I'm excited to accomplish things. Yes, I know, odd for me. But how have y'all been? 

Thoughts on the chapter? 

Let's just say that there's quite a storm heading your way for next chapter. 

Want me to start giving song recommendations?