The Depths of My Mother

3: Panic attacks bring good memories

Before: The girls barged into Drea's room, Becca's singing turned high-pitched frightened Drea, and as a last attempt to save her ears from bursting and finally going deaf for life, she...

I did what I normally did.

I dived into my closet, shut the door, and wrapped my ears with all the clothes I could see, and crouched into the fetal position. I shivered slightly. The darkness seemed to be growing, growing- it got so dark I can barely make out the outlines of my hands. My heart was hammering from within, as if it'll kill me if I don't let it out of its cage. Well, won't I die if I let it out too? My throat went suddenly dry, I became aware of everything, every sound ten times than normal. I could hear distinct shouting, screaming, soft voices talking.

Toughen up, Drea! Stop being a scaredy-cat! I willed myself to stop, stop panicking, stop thinking about these walls that seemed to expand and contract into endless - stop it, Drea.

I only had a few moments to push down the drillwork my heart was doing and get myself composed when Jill opened the closet door. I think she knows what just happened. She made a notion of wiping her forehead. Beads of sweat had broken out and they were glistening on my forehead. I quickly wiped them off with the hem of some cloth that was lying around in there. Deep breath, Drea. Smile. Think of happy times. Remember the time you, Eli, and Noah pranked old Mrs. Lersinde's cat – we catnapped it, let it loose in another neighborhood. It sneaked inside a nearby grocery, we were banned from there for 3 years. Totally unfair, I know. In our defense, we catnapped Ollivander because we felt bad for the poor little guy. He had to be with Mrs. Lersinde and her other cats- Jarvis, Kelly, and Emsy (We used to call them JOKE together- get it? Jarvis, Ollivander, Kelly, Emsy- Ollivander being our favorite,) the others being mean and alerting Mrs. Lersinde if we even move out of our seats. Talk about a watchcat! We could hardly deal with her for a day, making us wear clothes the old-fashioned way.

Did we hate her? Not even a question.

Reminiscing about old times, my smile came on rather quickly. "All over?" I poked my head out and scoured the situation. All seemed pretty okay- Candace and Janet weren't strangling each other, Randy was on her phone, Jane flipping through some of my notebooks, Becca was examining her paintbrushes-that girl never goes anywhere without her brushes and spray paints.

"All over." Jill sighed, giving me a sympathetic smile. I gave her one of gratitude. I didn't quite get why she had given me an I-pity-you smile, but it seemed rude not to return it.

"Ah, you're out!" Becca smiled. I dragged myself and fell onto my bed. Exhaustion and relief crashed on me from both sides.

Well, until Randy thought it would be a great idea to drag me off the bed, to put some hoodie over me, and drag me downstairs.

"What is going on, wait, is this some kind of weird prank you guys are playing without me, is Eli and Noah on this, wait, wait, stop!"

The girls stopped dragging me, but they didn't let go.

"Hold on! What in the world do I need a dress for now?"

Now, it seemed time had froze. The girls were staring at me as if I was the Easter Bunny at Christmas with a leprechaun hat.

Randy was so shocked, she let go of my legs and they fell with a thud. It hurt my heart and my legs.

"You have got to be kidding me." Jane closed her eyes, as if she was asking herself how she had such an amazing friend.
"I'm too young for this." Jill massaged her temples.
Drama queens. They must be the ones who founded the first drama club. The Drama Club Founders. The DCF twins. Plus, they were lying! She is too "young", huh? An eighteen-year-old is too 'young'. Just lies!

Lies! High school is so over.

We're official graduates. Proud survivors of high school. I got my diploma, graduated with my magical Muggle sisters. It was pretty great- while the others were getting sentimental and emotional, and exchanging numbers, Janet, Becca and me were itching to run away. I was even nice and managed to talk more than three words to a few guys. I exchanged numbers with a few, pfft, who am I kidding, a lot of people.

We were leaving behind memories- some painful memories of getting a suspension for starting a food fight, long, boring detentions.

In my opinion, the whole school was being very unfair- Becca painted the walls of her art classroom. According to parents, teachers, and everyone who's not a teenage student, painting on walls is the very meaning of vandalism. Wasn't that what Becca was doing?

I have to admit, her artwork was beautiful. All of us seven took pics with her work, and some just as work.

I had done almost the same thing though! I just painted the cafeteria walls with food. It just started when someone tripped, sent food hurling into the air, and I had sounded the war cry: FOOD FIGHT! I had taken the first initiative too: I had thrown a croissant, it landed on the dude with the afro hair. It got stuck in his hair and had looked down-right hilarious, he tried to get even with me by throwing a cupcake at me. Me, I did a classic duck-n-roll, it hit someone else and dun-dun-dun! Food fight!

Those were some good memories.

934 words... This has got to be a new record of a short chapter. So here!

Peace out!

P.S. How's NaNoWriMo going on?