In the Sun ||Treebros||

Chapter 16

Tw: panic attack

♡♡♡♡♡♡

Evan's pov

Eventually, the rest of the day progressed. But I didn't see Connor at lunch and I'm not sure why he wasn't there.

Maybe he had something important to do? Like talking to teachers on how to improve your grades, which is incredibly stressful because they're teachers and all, and if they don't like you, they can fail you. It also doesn't help that most of my teachers radiate a "I am superior" aura. Or maybe it's just me, because no one else seems scared of them.

Anyways, it's the last class of the day,  and Connor still hasn't showed up. He was here earlier, so I just had this uneasy feeling.

"And Connor still isn't here," Ms. Lohst mumbled as she marked Connor absent on her laptop.

"Probably skipped and went home," someone muttered. A few others agreed, with another one snickering. "Getting stoned in his basement." More laughs. "Emo druggie." All these words were too soft for the teacher to hear.

I hated it.

I hated not standing up for Connor. I knew that if our situations were swapped, he'd immediately come to my defense. I desperately wanted to stand up for him-- to say anything-- but my mouth didn't move and no words came out.

"Evan?" Ms. Lohst asked.

I froze. "Uh-I.. Yes?" My voice cracked at the 'yes' part and I cringed, my face burning in embarrassment as my classmates laughed.

I focused my gaze on the desk in front of me, not daring to meet the stares of the others. I knew they were talking about me, although I couldn't see them behind my back.

●●●●●●●●●●●WARNING● ●●●●●●●

My heart was racing a thousand miles per hour, and I was still burning in shame. They'd only laugh even more if I make it obvious I'm freaking out.
So I try to cover up my panic, pretending to do the worksheet in front of me.

I picked up the pencil but the worksheet was moving. I wasn't even touching it! There was no open window where a breeze could flow in, no person touching it, no 'about to fall of the desk' tricks. It had been hit by a shrink ray of some sort, where the effects were slow.

After a few seconds of staring, the paper stopped. And immediately reverted back to normal.

●●●●●●●●END OF WARNING●●●●●●●

Summary:
Evan has a panic attack but tries to pretend he isn't having one, so he fakes doing a worksheet.

●●●●●●●●●

Just act normal, Evan, everything is fine, and that didn't happen. Everything's fine because you have nothing to worry about-- yes, absolutely nothing-- so just sit back, relax, and act normal. Because there's no reason not to act normal, so if you don't act normal, it'll be really obvious and you don't want to be obvious.
Well, actually, Dr. Sherman said to open up to others,  so you should probably take his advice. You know, reveal yourself to others, like taking off a cape or something. Wait, not in a pervy way which I really shouldn't be thinking about this right now.

I wiped my hands which I just noticed were extremely sweaty, on my pants.

The door was only a few feet away. If I attempted, escape was an easy option. Going undetected, however, would be much more difficult. But I didn't want to skip the rest of class, since Mom would be mad, and she wants me to have a good education.
So if I skip class, I won't get a good education since my teacher will fail me, and if she fails me, Mom's going to be so disappointed in me. If she had any good expectations for me in the first place. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised to find that I let her down because even I let myself down.