Quicksand

Inhale. Exhale.

I focused on my breathing, trying my hardest to keep it flat and even. In for three seconds, hold for one, out in three, hold for one. Again and again, the same never-ending loop. It kept me calm...sort of.

“Hey, dude,” Noah said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You’re doing great, Andy.”

I couldn’t respond. Responding would have meant breaking the cycle, and that could not happen. That would start a spiral and I would be done for.

“Dude...dude, look at me,” Noah said. I slowly turned my head toward him. He had his usual goofy grin plastered across his face. “You’ll be fine. The front door is always the worst part.”

I nodded, moving my head up and down at a breakneck speed. Noah knew how it was for me: he was my oldest friend. Entering was always the hardest part for me, and he knew. One time he took me to the aquarium and I was sobbing before we got out of the car. But this was different. I had to be stronger because this was going to become part of the routine.

“Do we need to take a break?” Noah asked. “There’s a bench right here and the door is still, like, twenty yards away.”

I shook my head no. If I stopped, I wasn’t sure I’d start again.

“Okay, yeah,” he said. “Okay, cool.”

We kept walking, and the closer we got to the front doors, the more people were around us. Noah put his arms around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him, shielding me from the others around us. My feet were getting heavy and I had to push the panic away.

It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.

The doors were just in front of us, probably six feet or so. “I’m gonna open the door now,” Noah said, pulling away a bit to reach for the door handle. I gasped when he pulled and a burst of cool wind rushed over me.

Oh shit.

The breathing, the goddamned breathing was off now. I couldn’t hold it back any more. I froze as my breath quickened. My feet got heavier and I looked down to see them sinking into the earth.

“No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no,” I murmured to myself. “Not now.”

“Hey, hey Andy,” Noah said, wrapping me in a bear hug. “Shhh, you’re good. Everything is okay. Let’s go inside, okay? It’ll get better inside.”

I noticed that people were looking at us strangely, waiting annoyedly behind us to get in as my lungs collapsed, no longer allowing me to breathe. My trachea tightened and I grabbed my throat as I wheezed.

I kept sinking into the ground. I could feel Noah’s arms were still wrapped around me, and I knew he wouldn’t let me sink, and I knew it wasn’t real, but none of that mattered because it felt real, it felt like I was sinking, it felt like the earth was trying to swallow me whole. Noah kept holding me tight. I began to sob into his chest, soaking his shirt in my tears. I was shaking, but Noah just squeezed me tighter. I knew what he was going to do before he did, but it still felt impossible until he did. He lifted me up, pulling my feet from the ground. It couldn’t swallow me if I wasn’t standing on it. He carried me a little ways away, letting the people behind us flow into the building.

The farther away we got, the more relaxed I became. I felt my throat open back up, my muscles loosen up. Noah sat me down on a bench and I took a deep breath before restarting my cycle.

Inhale. Exhale.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“Ah, it’s all good,” Noah said.

“But we were so close,” I said.

He sighed. “Yep, we sure were.” He leaned back on the bench and put his arm back over my shoulder. “We can just wait here until school starts and walk in after everybody else is inside.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want you to be late.”

“Ah, it’s no biggie. I’ll probably be late most of the time anyway.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” I said. “Especially not for me.”

“I’m not gonna leave you alone to walk into your first day of public school by yourself,” Noah said.

I groaned internally. I was fourteen and had been homeschooled my entire life. I was aware that I would already be an outcast among my peers from the stereotypes of being homeschooled alone. It didn’t help that I also thought I was sinking into solid ground like quicksand when I was around other people.

Social anxiety was a bitch.

For my whole life, I couldn’t hang around anyone without having a panic attack. I had absolutely zero friends until fourth grade. That was when Noah moved next door. They’d been moved in for no more than three hours before he knocked on the door wondering if I wanted to come over and play on his brand new PlayStation. I lasted for almost fourteen whole minutes before crying, running out of his house, into mine, and upstairs to my room.

It was actually a personal record.

Luckily, my reactions hadn’t freaked Noah out, so we remained friends. Through my activities with him, I’d managed to become much more capable of keeping my cool. At least with smaller groups.

By some miracle, I’d convinced my mother to let me attend public school. And now here I am, crying on a bench on the sidewalk to the front door, my best friend trying to calm me down enough to continue. He was willing to get in trouble for me.

“Go on ahead,” I told him.

“Seriously, dude, I’m not going to,” he said.

“Dude,” I teased, “get to class and save me a seat. If we wait any longer, all the good seats will be taken. I’ll meet you after the bell.”

He frowned and narrowed his eyes at me. “Alright,” he said, “but don’t take too long. If by some chance a cute girl wants your seat, there won’t be much I can do.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “I’ll take my chances.”

He stood up, fist-bumped me, and walked away. I watched him until the door closed behind him, cutting him off from my line of sight.

I watched as the other kids passed by. I kept my eyes downward though, as to not attract eye contact from anyone. I noticed a few gave me curious glances, but I just kept my head down as they walked by.

It wasn’t long until no more people were walking up the sidewalk. When the bell trilled, I counted to three before standing up. Now that there wasn’t a crowd to make me nervous, I wasn’t wound up so tight. My breathing didn’t have to be an exact way. My feet didn’t have to avoid every crack. Now that there weren’t a million people around to judge me, I didn’t have to focus on doing everything absolutely perfectly.

As I walked, I gave myself the rehearsed pep talk I’d memorized last night.

You’ll be fine, Andy. Not everyone is constantly judging you. It’s all in your head. You’ll be in a classroom with some twenty-odd kids. That’s not that many. And they’ll be way too focused on the lesson to actually notice you. As long as you don’t do something completely stupid like slip on a banana peel or pee your pants, you’ll do great.

I got to the front door and reached for the door handle. Half of me was screaming bloody murder, telling me to flee immediately, but the other half was encouraging me to go on. After a moment’s hesitation, the encouraging half won and I wrapped my fingers around the handle, pulling the door open. I fought through the PTS the cool air from the doorway gave me and stepped inside.

The foyer smelled like bleach and it was eerily quiet, but otherwise not bad. There was no one in sight to trigger my anxiety. I smiled to myself and turned to find my class. This was going to work. I actually would be fine, great even.

I opened the door to room 118 and found a completely empty classroom, well, except for the teacher behind her desk.

“Ah, you must be Mr. Garcia,” the middle-aged woman said with a frown. “You would do well to arrive at my class on time. If you had, you would be with the rest of your classmates in the auditorium. Principal Little is holding an assembly.”

I tried to respond, but this was worse than the worst case scenario from last night’s nightmare.

“I...I--”

“I...I,” she mocked, “don’t wanna hear any excuses, mister. Now get to the auditorium or I’ll write you up.”

I slowly backed up, and the second I was out the doorway, I bolted. The auditorium was just inside the front doors. I slid to a stop and reached for the door handle. Just before I pulled, I made the mistake of glancing through the door’s small slit of a window.

There had to be at least six hundred kids in there. How was I supposed to survive in that can of sardines? My pep talk mentioned twenty kids, no more no less. This couldn’t be happening. This worst case scenario was getting worse and worse. I could walk in and sit in the back row alone, but if the door made even a little noise, every single pair of eyes would turn on me and I would melt from the pressure.

Just seeing all the people made me sick. I could feel my feet sinking once again in the quicksand the linoleum tiles had become. I stumbled back and fell onto my butt. Fortunately, no one saw. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted towards the door.

I burst through into the morning light and kept going. I didn’t even stop to think about what I was doing until I unlocked my front door, ran up the stairs, and flung myself on my bed.

I finally sat up and slammed my fists on my pillow. “Damn it!”