Seventeen-year old first year college student Josie Clarke would prefer not to blush the colour crimson at every little thing, but Idiopathic Craniofacial Erythema, a chronic facial condition doesn't play fair.
In fact, it's as uncontrollable...
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"This can't be normal."
The pitch of her voice is unmistakable. It's mum. No doubt about it, yet right now it sounds as if she's speaking through a cardboard tube.
Her words are all muffled. Distorted.
I think she's been crying.
I feel like I could too. And I struggle to swallow the lump wedged in my throat from the realisation that my arms feel like dead weights and my legs all fuzzy, as if filled with pins and real, sharp needles.
I don't want to open my eyes but yet I do. And I can feel the fluorescent strip lighting burn before I have to squint it's invasive light away.
The panic starts up almost immediately.
Just like the calvary comes the searing heat. It washes over in waves. Bubbles on the balls of my cheeks and creeps to the back of my neck. A ticklish sweat pools on my top lip.
"Other teenage girls don't normally have this condition, do they?" It's mum again. I can see her petite suit jacket and skirt clad figure pace the small room now. She doesn't notice that I'm squinting through my lashes. She's too busy huffing and puffing and talking without pause.
A broad shouldered man with dark cropped hair like my dad's peers down at a clipboard before tucking it into the deep pocket of his long, white coat.
I feel sorry for him as she continues to drone on about her concerns for me.
Dad, who I soon realise is sat beside me quickly catches on as my eyelids flicker. He shoots me a look that translates roughly to - yes Josie, she is being overly dramatic but it's only because she cares. I have to swallow hard once more when his mouth whispers a blink and you'd miss it are you okay?
My thumbs poking up from the flimsy sheet over my stomach give him slight reassurance, even though it's a total lie, because my head throbs like it's a battleground for a thousand waring soldiers.
Everything aches. From the tips of my odd socked toes, which I don't remember putting on this morning to the crick in my neck, presumably from lying down for too long.
"You gave us quite the scare," my dad says warmly, all things considered. He takes my hand, gives it a gentle squeeze.
The dryness in my throat twists my attempt to speak words into an barely audible jumble. "It happened again, didn't it?"
I don't have to look up at his face to know the answer because he just sighs, "Indeed it did. Sorry kiddo."
Mum's got her back turned away now and she's trying to whisper too but she's not as tactful as dad is. I hear everything.
