The Beginning, Middle, but not the End

Take a deep breath, you can do this. You know where you need to go. My worn and ragged red converse take me a familiar route down the crowded, white halls. I force my eyes to stay open while the feeling of exhaustion starts invading my body, trying to shut me down. My lungs gulp for air, as if I were suffocating. Tears continue to drip down my cheeks, leaving behind wet and sticky trails. People ignore me as they nudge my shoulder, while rushing to their classes or rushing to their friends waiting to go to lunch. One of the tall, muscular football players throws a ball over my head. Another jock, who is slightly shorter than him catches it. Further down the hall, I hear my friends laughing. My feet turn the opposite direction. I make my way into a small, dimly lit office containing a cot and two chairs seated across from a large desk.

A woman with red hair and gray roots barely glances at me, “Jodie, you know the drill,” she exclaims as if she had done this a million times - and she had. Of course I do. This has happened more than twice.

I sit on the uncomfortable cot as she fetches me a single pill, most likely my Xanax, from a cupboard and puts it into a cup. She fills another cup with a small amount of water, and hands me both of them. I down the pills, then sit up against the wall with my legs crossed. My eyes close as the nurse’s assistant comes into the office and places a few crackers in my hand.

“What period are you in?” I hear the nurse pull out the clipboard from the files in her cabinet, where all the students’ records are kept.

“Math,” I snack on the crackers while she writes. I hear her pen quietly hitting the board every few milliseconds, she must be writing in cursive with how little she picks up her pen. The

sound of her writing slowly becomes distant. Soon, everything is distant. Muffled voices leak in from the hallways. The bell for the start of fourth period rings, but it sounds as if it were miles away. My mind starts to pull me under some sort of spell. I wish I was literally anywhere but here; I really want to be as distant as everything around me sounds. After a moment, there is nothing but an abyss of darkness surrounding me. The feeling of being present in this life fades in and out. My breathing finally starts to slow down, almost to nonexistent puffs. Then, I’m gone.

“Jodie? Jodie, wake up!” A woman calls in the distance. After a moment of following the voice, I realize she’s not far at all. The fluorescent lights blind me as my eyes slowly open. I’m still in the nurse’s office sitting on the cot, right where I was for what seemed years ago.

“Miss? It happened again. You slipped away,” The nurse shines her penlight in my eyes. My own voice startles me with how groggy the words come out of my mouth, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Til.”

“Don’t apologize. Have you talked to your therapist about this? I swear, it’s like every time you come in here after a panic attack and you sit, you slip away into something...almost like a deep sleep, but different,” She trails off as she scribbles something in her notes.

I stand up, “I’ll mention it when I see her, I just keep forgetting to bring it up.”

“You always forget. Try writing a note or creating a reminder on your phone, isn’t that a thing you kids can do now? Either way, just remember to do it this time, okay? This is important to me, Jodie.”

I nod in response to her before walking out of the room. I retrace my steps through the school, which is empty besides the occasional student wandering. In the bathroom, where I was earlier when I freaked out, the big stall door sits wide open. I walk in. My things are still scattered across the floor. Pens and pencils spill from my pencil bag, and papers are scattered across the floor. How did everything get like this? I must’ve blacked out again and had a fit. Cracked, I pick up my dark, tortoise framed glasses from the floor. Great, this will be the third pair in seven months and nine days. Mom and Dad won’t be too happy about this.

A red Honda Civic pulls up to the main school entrance and stops along the curb from where I’m sitting. Mom flashes a smile to me and sets down her phone as I climb into the passenger seat. “Hey, Jo! How was school?” She sounds overly enthusiastic and her smile looks weak.

“You don’t need to pretend to not know, I’m aware the nurse calls when this stuff happens.”

Mom pulls out of the parking lot and onto the highway towards home, “I know you know. I just don’t want to overwhelm-”

“Mom, that’s the whole reason why this happens. I get overwhelmed!” I raise my voice slightly.

“I’m sorry,” Her hooded, fudge brown eyes are full of pity. I wish no one would look at me the way she does now. It hurts when they do. It makes me feel weak, like I’m sick or dying, or both. What am I even thinking, I’m probably just being stupid. Usually overthinking the small things makes me have panic attacks and I’d rather not have another one. I need to stop dwelling on this. It’s probably why I’m so weak. Maybe the guys at school are right, I’m just a hopeless and pathetic girl.

No - what am I saying? I need to stop before this gets out of hand... again. Mom breaks my train of thought, “Do you want to stop and get something on the way home? My treat.”

I take in a deep breath, “Sure.”