How To Train Your Boyfriend

Chapter 35: One Good Slap

One Good Slap

We had to pull over so that I could throw open the car's bright pink door and vomit onto the side of the road.

It was the third time that morning.

"Seriously," Francie called, watching me with a wrinkled nose from the driver's seat. "This is getting a little excessive!"

I groaned, wiping my mouth and praying that no one in the nearby Walgreens was watching. I clutched my stomach, heaving one last time. Once I was sure it was over, I slid back into the passenger's seat. Francie was ready with mouthwash and three folded squares of gum.

"Sorry," I said after spitting the mouthwash onto the asphalt. "Hopefully that was the last time."

"It's like elementary school choir all over again," Francie remarked as she shifted into drive and merged back into traffic. "You got sick before every performance. Practically ruined my elf costume during the Winter Showcase."

I winced. "I remember."

As much as I hoped the last time was the last, I could feel my stomach tense as we moved closer and closer to Oakland Prep. I was opening my mouth to tell Francie to pull over again when she snapped her fingers, earning my attention, and postponing my urge to be sick.

She lowered her sunglasses, staring me down. "Sutton. Everything is going to be fine. You have got to calm down because this getting sick thing? It isn't cute. You haven't been like this in years. Have you called your doctor?"

I shook my head. "No, but I'll be fine. You're right, I just need to calm down. I just need to calm down."

I had been caught in a recurring string of panic attacks since waking up that morning. I was awake at five, shaking in my bed at the thought of returning to school. I spent an hour focusing on my breathing and then another hour fighting for breath, hyperventilating enough to stir my mother, who found me rolled into a ball on the floor.

I hadn't had an attack since middle school. Back then, anything and nothing could set me off. Francie was right, before each performance I would shake, gasp for air, and eventually throw up. But other times a performance wasn't necessary and the attacks would just happen. They stopped when I was thirteen, after several trips to the doctor and a few meetings with a children's therapist.

"Can you focus on the road, please," I said. Francie shot me one last look over her designer sunglasses before turning away.

But just as I had managed to relax, my shaking nothing more than a slight tremble, we were pulling into the parking lot. Rows and rows of cars, students shuffling toward the towering school. I could hear my breath come out in wheezes. I closed my eyes and wished I was anywhere else.

By the time Francie parked, I was shaking again.

"Oh god," I said, watching my hands move as if they were possessed. "I can't go in there. I can't go in there like this."

"Sutton, look at me," Francie unbuckled her seatbelt so that she could face me head-on, abandoning her glasses on the dash. "Look at me. You're just scared, but everything is going to be okay. It's all in your head."

"N-no it's not," I gasped, my words barely comprehensible. I watched as groups of students strolled past, with backpacks over their shoulders and books in their hands. I sunk lower in my seat, not wanting to be seen. "Th-they all hate me."

"They don't," Francie replied sternly. "They do not hate you. Remember that time Joseph Samdon ruined homecoming for everyone by accidentally smashing the chandelier? Remember? It smashed into, like, a billion pieces and the headmaster went crazy?"