Speech |a.f.i au|

1.0

"Are you ready?" Ashton asks me. I nod towards him with a smile on my face. We were at our second competition and I never felt more excited.

"Born ready, babe," I tell him, pressing a kiss to his lips. His hands are gripping my waist and I can feel him smile sweetly into the kiss we share.

When we pull away from each other, I begin to walk away to go on stage, but before I do I feel someone pinch my butt and I turn around to see Ashton with a smug smile on his face.

This boy sure is horny. I thought to myself. As I wait for the judges to call me up, I think about Ashton and me. We have been together for quite a few weeks at this point, but I knew that I wanted to wait awhile before we had sex.

Ashton made me feel comfortable with myself and the farthest we've gone has just been making out, which of course, I enjoyed. But I don't know if he already wants to have that type of intimacy.

"Original Oral Interpretation, Rene Acherson, you may come out." someone speaks into a microphone. I take a deep breath before stepping out on to the stage. 

I walk towards the podium and stand behind it, noticing the stares of the people in the room. I look around and find my mom. She smiles and waves at me and all I could wish is for is my dad to be here, but mom did call off of work to come watch me speak.

"You may begin," the judge says. I nod my head and open my mouth, ready to speak. But nothing comes out. I can feel my hands begin to tremble, my knees quivering while my brain begins to pound against my skull.

The room felt as if it were getting smaller. My stomach drops and my vision blurs from the tears. My chest rises and falls both rapidly and irregularly. My chest feels tight and I can't tell if I'm going insane or dying.

Before I can feel my feet crumble beneath me, someone latches on to me, keeping me up before I fall down.

...

"Mom-" I try to speak but she cuts me off before I can finish.

"I don't want to hear it," she tells me, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Someone in the audience called an ambulance to come check on me.

We sit in silence for nearly half an hour, before she speaks up.

"Do I need to send you to a mental hospital or something?" her tone is bitter and I can't help but feel aggravated by her question. "You're clearly not getting better," she grunts before letting a tear slip from her eye.

When she pulls into the driveway, I grab my bag and slam the car door. I open the door into the house and trample quickly up the stairs.

I was getting better. I stopped stuttering and my anxiety has gotten ten times better. I go to my room and closed the door behind me, throwing my bag across the floor and collapsing on my made bed. 

I started to cry and I closed my eyes. I shift myself so I can get under my blanket and drift off to sleep.

When I woke up, I found my mom sitting on the end of my bed, her face in her hands while she was taking deep breaths.

I shift on to my back and stretch, letting a yawn escape from between my chapped lips. When she felt the bed move, she looks up at me with her blue eyes.

I smile when I remember that I got my dad's eyes and how he told me that he fell in love with my mom's eyes from the moment he met her.

Though her blue eyes were beautiful, they were blood shot from crying and held bright purple bags underneath them. I sit up and take a deep breath, noticing the pounding inside my head that didn't seem to go away.