"Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."

— Oscar Wilde

Medication. A word George desperately tried to avoid; or at least the topic of it, anyway. He was never comfortable talking about it with his parents or the friends that he didn't have. The only exception was Kristy, but even then, George still felt wary of the topic.

"Has your medication helped you decrease your panic attacks? Do you feel calmer?" She'd ask.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Totally." George would nod, and they would move onto the next topic. Today, Kristy was more insistent.

"Would you like to tell me about what caused your last panic attack?" She requested.

"No. Don't wanna." George pouted.

"Was it serious?"

"No, it was, um, on the bus ride home from school. I didn't have my pills on me, so I called my mom, and she calmed me down."

"Do you feel calm around your mother?"

"Yeah. If she isn't overloading me with questions. My dad knows what he's supposed to say, but he doesn't relieve my stress all that much, so I prefer mom."

"She's still your emergency contact, yes?"

George just nodded.

"Mhm, so let's imagine a little scenario. You're walking out and about when, suddenly, you find yourself in the middle of a panic attack. Your phone died, so you can't call your mother, and you left your pills at home. What would you do if this situation ever occurred?"

"I'd just... have a panic attack...?" George laughed awkwardly.

Kristy couldn't help but crack a smile. "George, come on," Kristy couldn't help but crack a smile, "do you think you would be able to calm yourself down?"

George looked down at the floor between them and pondered the answer.

"I don't know. I'd at least try."

"Next time you have one, please try and focus on some of the methods I taught you."

George gave another nod.

"Now, do you remember the 54321 technique?"

"Yeah, but it's too tedious and makes me even more stressed. My mom and I did it once, and it didn't help at all. Square breathing is a bit easier, but sometimes I forget to do it since I'm breathing so quickly. I mostly just rely on pills..."

"How would you like to learn another method to calm down, then?"

"That'd be nice." George mindlessly nodded.

"Okay, one of my patients told this to me a while back, and it seemed to help them, so I wanted to see if you would be interested in this as well. What you do is take out a piece of candy, or anything that's extremely sour or spicy, and put it in your mouth. It causes your attention to shift and focus on the flavor on your tongue. But you have to keep them in a spot where you can quickly get to them since most sour candy is wrapped in individual packaging and can be hard to open if your hands are shaking. So it's best to carry them around in a small box or ziplock bag that you can carry with you."

"Okay... I'll keep it in mind."

"... And how would you feel if a random person went up to you to help you if you were in the middle of a panic attack?"

George thought for a bit. He probably wouldn't even be able to see them with the blurred vision he had, which would triple the panic he would feel. "I'd panic even more and try to get away from them."

"That's interesting. Stopping a panic attack is easier when someone else is there to guide you, yet you'd refuse the help of another person anyway?"

Well, I don't know them. They could hurt me."

Kristy gave a short, understanding nod. The two stayed in silence for a bit, and George shuffled around nervously in his seat. Maybe he'd said the wrong thing, and Kristy was trying to find the best way to tell him he was an idiot.

"Would your bubble be able to help you calm yourself, then? Maybe it can guide you to stopping your panic attack. Have you tried that?"

"No. I don't think so. I'll have to try it out, then."

Alright, that sounds good. Well, I think we'll call it a wrap for today. See how you feel and tell me if anything worked for you."

"Okay. Thanks, Kristy." George sighed but nodded anyway. He'd have to try for Kristy.

🫧 Several days later:

"Alright guys, before we leave, I've graded all your tests; feel free to pass them onto each other so no one has to stand up. George Davidson, please see me after class."

George's heart spiked at the sentence. He felt his classmates glance around in search of the boy mentioned but couldn't find him. They probably didn't even know what George looked like, if he was being honest. He hid himself well, right in the back of the class, to avoid looking at anyone, and vice versa.

Tests started getting passed around, but George never got his. He'd have to go up to the teacher and get it from him.

George considered slipping out with the rest of the students to head to lunch, but Mr. Dalton was, in fact, very aware he was in class at this very moment. So George tried his very best to calm his breathing. He practiced his square breathing technique in the meantime.

He breathed in for one... two... three... four...

He held his breath for one... two... three... four...

He exhaled for one... two... three... four...

He held himself, depleted of breath, for one... two... th-

A ringing bell interrupted George's thoughts. George looked up and took personal offense to it. That bell was mocking him.

It didn't matter if he was ready or not; the students trickled out of the classroom, and soon George was left alone with his teacher.

After a few more deep breaths, George grabbed his math notebook and backpack and made his way to the front of the classroom.

"You... wanted to see me?" He asked quietly after gulping down the saliva that had collected in his mouth.

"Yes! I needed to go over some of the questions that were on the test with you."

George's teacher pulled the test out amidst the large stack of papers he had on his desk. George's heart fell to his feet as he saw 5/21 marked in red on the test he swore he studied for.

"You're usually not like this. Is something going on that's distracting you?"

"No, no, nothing." George shook his head quietly.

"I'm not mad at you, I assure you. Have a seat." Mr. Dalton pulled out a seat nearby and placed it next to his own. George sat down in it, careful not to get too close so as not to hurt his bubble. "So let's go over some of the mistakes most people made as well."

He flicked the paper and stopped at a question. George read it over.

"A shop sells bicycles and tricycles... There are seven cycles... Cycles include both bicycles and tricycles... and eighteen wh-"

"Nineteen, George." Mr. Dalton gently corrected

"Y-Yeah, nineteen. Sorry." George placed his fist in front of his mouth and cleared his throat. His heart was beating like crazy. He wanted to crawl into a hole and permanently die.

"D- Determine how many of each there are if a bicycle has two wheels and a tricycle has three wheels."

"So, do you remember the step-by-step process we did in class?"

George nodded and started fishing out his notebook to take it out. He opened it to the notes he'd written a few days ago and read them off.

"Step one is assigning variables to unknown numbers." George took his test paper and gripped the pen he held in his left hand. Well, I put b for bicycle and t for tricycle. There are seven bikes, so b plus t equals seven."

"Yep. That's good." Mr. Dalton nodded and pointed his own pen to go over George's work. "And you set up this other equation here correctly, but when you go to solve it, you messed up here. Try to see if you can solve it by yourself."

George furrowed his eyebrows and looked through what he wrote, but ultimately decided to ignore it and began writing next to his incorrect equation.

If I need to rearrange the equation to find out the number of tricycles...

George scoffed under his breath and wrote out his own equation.

"Oh. I put twenty-two instead of twenty-one here. So if the number of tricycles equals seven minus b, I need to put two b plus twenty-one minus three b to get nineteen, so I would have two bicycles and five tricycles."

"Yes! There you go. I knew you were capable of doing it. How about you take this home with you, find out what you did wrong, and I'll let you retake it tomorrow? How does that sound?"

"Um... good. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Dalton." George softly nodded. He hasn't torn his eyes off the paper yet.

Well, I wouldn't want to hold you for too long; go have lunch." There was a pat on George's back, and George nearly flinched from how unexpected the hand at his back was. He hurriedly stuffed everything in his backpack and left the classroom. George wasn't exactly hungry, so he'd just head to his staircase and sit there. He was so drained from that one-on-one talk with his teacher that he seemed on edge; all his appetite had suddenly disappeared.

George was looking down at the ground, as per usual, so he didn't expect a bunch of legs to be blocking his way. George looked up and nearly stumbled from the swarm of people he nearly ran into. It was a large group of students that were probably late to lunch as well. They were just standing around, blocking the closed cafeteria doors and the entire hallway. Why the door was locked was unknown to George, but it didn't really matter because soon he was tangled in the group like they were all sardines.

"Watch where you're going, idiot!" One person hissed at him.

George tried to gasp out an apology, but the air was pulled straight from his body. He tried to get his breathing under control, but more breath seemed to be going out than in.

George was stabbed in the ribs by an unforgiving elbow, and in a matter of seconds, was tripped by a leg he couldn't help but trip over. He'd nearly fallen to the ground; the fire on his cheeks blasted all over his face in embarrassment. George tried to get up but was knocked into someone again; he stood his ground on shaking hands and knees. People seemed to not realize someone had fallen yet since they all started to trample and push over George. He tried to get something out, to yell out to stop, but his voice was lost. He couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his ear and the drowned-out sounds of people talking and laughing. George's juddering hands failed to support his body from the weight of his backpack and the legs that repeatedly knocked him over. The air in his bubble felt so dense that it was getting hard to breathe. George tried to get his backpack off to get to his pills and swallow them, but he seemed unable to move. The only thing he could do was watch what looked like black clouds slowly making their way into his vision, almost mocking him. His bubble was squeezing him in further, being the only thing to protect him from the people around him. His bubble will protect him. His bubble will protect him. His bubble... will... protect him...

~~~

George groggily opened his eyes to be faced with fuzzy black vision, like a non-existent TV channel that was pressed up against his face. He didn't have to wait long for them to snap open in shock and let the feeling of the unfamiliar room sink in. George scrambled to look for his backpack but couldn't find it. A hand gripped his chest tightly, and it took a second for George to see it was his own hand that was gripping the place in his heart, as if he could forcefully take it and stop it from pounding in his body.

"George, are you awake?" George jerked his head to see the school nurse, Mrs. Amber, walk up to him. "Oh, good. Do you remember what happened?"

She handed him a glass of water, which George gratefully took. He knew what had happened. He knew there was a crowd. That he couldn't breathe. His bubble didn't help his panic attack. But he didn't want to speak, so he just settled for a simple, "I don't know."

"A few students came in carrying you and said you walked into a crowd and soon collapsed onto the floor and passed out.

"Oh." He gulped. "I must've not been able to get my medicine..."

Mrs. Amber knew about George's disorder and that he had to take medicine to treat it; she had it written down in her files. George wasn't afraid to tell her about his pills because she would understand. Other people wouldn't understand.

"Do you feel the need to stay here for a while and rest?"

"W... What time is it?"

"It's almost three o'clock. Do you want your parents to come pick you up?"

"Uh- yeah. Where's my backpack...?"

"Oh! Right. Let me bring it; I took it to my office so no one could get to it." Mrs. Amber left George alone. His bubble expanded, and he felt he could breathe again. He was talking so much that his mouth became dry, even if he did just drink water. He had to stop talking.

When he got his backpack, George laid on his side and took a few deep breaths before trying to call his mother. George ended up just texting her.

George:

Hey mom can you pick me up

I fainted at school Im at the nurses rn

He had to wait a few minutes for a reply, but he didn't mind. It was better than speaking.

Mom:

No, darling, I'm sorry, I'm at work until seven, I can't pick you up :(

Will you be alright taking the bus?

George's bus had left thirty minutes ago, but he just gave a one-word response of: Alright

He sat up slowly to avoid the feeling of dizziness and being teleported into outer space with the way his vision darkened. The backpack was picked up and slung over George's shoulder.

"My mom's coming in ten minutes, I'll wait outside for her. Thank you, Mrs. Ambers." He mumbled.

"Alright, I hope your day gets better."

George sighed when he exited the school. The clouds had darkened; they threatened to release the water they had been storing in themselves on George. He hadn't brought an umbrella with him.

He swore under his breath and went off to walk home. And calming himself with the fact that it was almost a two-hour walk wasn't thrilling to hear.

George wished Clay were here. He'd probably make a stupid joke in an attempt to make George laugh or start rambling on something stupid, but at least it would be better than walking in silence. The sidewalk was all the same and repetitive. George liked repetition; the familiarity was calming. He hated unpredictability and surprises. They were unsettling. Clay was that same unsettling and unpredictable factor. So why did George even want to entertain the fact that he would like having someone walk with him? It was absurd. His bubble would prevent Clay from getting too close, but it wasn't a problem if he just thought about it, right?

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