Maybe Before Today

Chapter 5

     As has already been established, school made me anxious as fuck. That was one thing when I was going into school every day. It was a whole other thing when I started taking days off. Every day off was just another twenty four hours of my throat tightening and my stomach twisting itself. So, when I ended up taking my second full week of the school year off, I was really paying the price by the time the next Monday came.
     "Mom, can I just stay off today? I swear I'll go in tomorrow," I said sleepily, my eyes barely able to stay open.
     "You said that every day last week. Get up." She threw the T-shirt I had gotten out the previous night at me and I groaned.
     "One more day isn't gonna make me fail all my exams!"
     "Alice, I'm already late. I should've left five minutes ago! Can you please not do this this morning!"
     She said it like I really chose to feel excruciatingly anxious about something so normal like a school day.
     "You're going in. I'm not having this fight this morning."
     "You know, it really doesn't have to be a fight."
     "Well you can't blame me for you turning it into one!"
     I despise conflict. I despise conversing when I'm hardly awake. Did she really think that I was willingly trying to do both of those things?
     "I had better not get a call from the school to say you've not gone in today," she said as she closed my door. She didn't quite slam it, but it was close enough that it made me flinch.
     I could hear muffled voices from the hallway.
     "Could you have a word with your daughter?" That was my mom.
     "Why?" My dad.
     "Make sure she doesn't try to stay off today."
     "Is she okay?"
     "She's fine. She's just being stubborn."
     My dad sighed. "All right."
     "I'll see you later," my mom said coldly.
     "Bye."
     After sighing once more, my dad walked into my room. "Morning, Alice."
     I rolled over to face him. "Hey, dad."
     "You okay?"
     I looked up at him, "I just don't feel great."
     "Your mom said you didn't wanna go in today."
     "Yeah, but she's never gonna let that happen. Doubt it'd make a difference if I was literally dying."
     "Why don't you get up and get dressed. Go in and if you need to call me at any time you can. And we'll just not tell your mom."
     I nodded and started to sit up. "Okay."
     "Okay. I'll see you downstairs soon."
     I nodded again and grabbed the T-shirt my mum had thrown at me.

     "You feel any better?" my dad asked as I walked into the kitchen.
     "A little."
     "That's good. What subject have you got first?"
     "English."
     "Well that's good, isn't it?"
     "I guess."
     "Well, call me if you need anything."
     "Okay. Bye, dad."
     "Bye, sweetie."
     I walked down the street to find Ziggs pacing along the fence in front of their house.
     "Alice, hey."
     "Hi."
     "How are you?"
     "Um, I'm fine."
     We started to walk up the crescent.
     "How come you were off all of last week and how come you barely spoke to me?"
     "Just didn't feel good." Well, I wasn't lying. Difficulty breathing and panic attacks did not feel good.
     "That's very vague."
     "And the most specific answer you're getting."
     "Fine."
     "Anyway, did I miss anything exciting?"
     "Not much. It was a very boring week," they said, a very telling smile tugging at the corners of their lips.
     "Something happened, didn't it?"
     "Okay, maybe. Ms Marquez shut down a homophobe and it was really funny."
     "Wow." I was half relieved and half disappointed that I didn't get to witness that.
     "Anything exciting happen in your bedroom?"
     "That sounds bad."
     They leaned on a fence as they started to laugh, "You know what I mean."
     "Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I binge watched a lot of TV and ate an unholy amount of ice cream."
     "Sounds like a pretty good week."
     "It was. Too bad it's all over now." I gestured to the school that we could see in the distance.'
     "At least you get to see your bestie again."
     "And who would that be?"
     I knew that would piss them off. And they deserved it for referring to themself as my bestie.
     "How dare you."
     I laughed, "Did you miss me?"
     "I did until this moment!"
     "Aww, love you too."
     They smiled, "Oh, shut up."

     "Hey," Lex said as I sat down in English, making my heart flutter for a second.
     "Hey."
     "Where were you all week?" She was sitting with her arms folded.
     "Dealing with some stuff."
     "What sort of stuff?"
     "Just stuff. Anyway, what did I miss?"
     "Honestly couldn't tell you."
     I had to laugh.
     "We really didn't do much in shop and I didn't pick up on much of what we did here."
     "Fair enough."
     Lex yawned, drawing my attention to the dark circles below her eyes. She didn't look like she could have slept more than a few hours. Although, at that rate she would still have been doing better than me.
     After being off school for a week, I expected going back would be unbearable. But, since I liked English, it was actually pretty fun. I had decided on the premise of my story and started coming up with ideas so I wasn't feeling like I was lagging behind.
     The idea was to write a story about a girl and a guy who both die just after admitting they're in love with one another. Yeah, I knew it sounded a bit basic but it didn't really matter. I just had to do that to get through my exams and then I was free to go on and do what I wanted.
     "Bit dark," Lex observed.
     "First thing that came to mind."
     She gave me a vaguely concerned look.
     "Happy endings never get people as emotional as sad ones."
     "I'm not so sure that's true."
     I gave her a quizzical look, fully intending on asking for some examples. But then the teacher looked at us and told us to focus on our poetry analysis. So I let it go.

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(A/N: Covid is finally starting to go away!!!)