It felt weird, walking besides Jonathan as the group walked in the direction of Tyler's house. The blue-eyed boy was excitedly explaining something, Evan watching him with a smile as their shoulders brushed against one another, which both made Evan happy and filled him with anxiety. He wasn't used to this kind of behavior. It made him happy, a real, genuine kind of happy.

"I'm very excited about this sleepover." Tyler says from where he walks at the front of the group. "I think it's going to be awesome." Evan rolls his eyes, looking away from Jonathan, who has now stopped speaking, instead paying attention to how close they were getting to his best friend's house. With every step bringing them closer and closer, Evan tried his hardest to not openly panic, instead keeping his worries locked up inside, like usual.

On the outside, he smiled.

--

"I'm gonna use the restroom." Evan excused himself from the living room, leaving behind a half-eaten slice of pizza as he slips into the downstairs washroom. Closing the door behind him, he's calmed by the sea-foam painted walls, the pale shade bringing down his nerves, which had skyrocketed with every second he had spent in that living room, sitting next to Jonathan as they watched movies, the urge to throw an arm around the boy's shoulders had been overwhelming, yet he refrained.

He took a deep breath, standing in front of the vanity and staring into the mirror. Brown eyes stared at him, an innocent looking face and messed up black hair was the image that reflected back at him. Evan looks at himself, slightly bloodshot eyes, hair that he hadn't ran his hand through at any point during the day, surprisingly, perhaps he had been so anxious the whole day that he feared he would pull too hard. Cautiously, he brings his hand up to fix it, only to stop when he notices his hand is shaking.

Evan backs up against the wall, sliding down until he's sitting on the floor, his eyes glued to his shaking hand. "Stop it." He orders himself, on the verge of a pleading tone. "Don't do this, please, not right now." He can't stop the breath that catches in his throat, the tears that well up in the corners of his eyes. "Please." His voice becomes quiet, cracking at the end of the one syllable word as his hand still shakes in front of him. Slowly, he curls it into a fist, uncurling it after a few seconds, his breathing quickens as he begins to feel his lungs refusing the air he desperately breathed for. He stayed as quiet as he possibly could, not wanting to alert anyone. He couldn't alert anyone, it was bad enough that Tyler and Jonathan knew about it, no one else needed to.

His phone buzzes, and he becomes frustrated as he loses more control of what's going on, he pulls out his phone with his last bit of it.

Jonathan: hey you ok?

He swallows hard, both of his hands now shaking as he types out a reply.

Evan: anxiety, don't worry about it, I'll be out in a few :)

Jonathan: are you sure?

Evan: yes now please just let me deal with this

Evan didn't mean to come off so harshly, but as he collapsed onto his side he couldn't focus on the text, so caught up in trying to control his breathing, trying to calm down so he couldn't cause a scene. The second he gave into his anxiety was the second he would start crying, and he couldn't do that, not now, not ever. Fuckboys don't cry. They do what they need to do and they move on. Fuckboys don't cry.

"Please." He mouths the word to himself, unable to find his voice as he lays on the cold bathroom floor, the tiles smooth under his cheek and arm, he breathes against the one near his mouth, making it warm very briefly before it returned to its natural cold state. "Please stop." He closes his eyes, wishing for everything to stop, for it to just go away, leave him alone to be normal and happy. All he asked was just one night, he didn't ask for the world, so why couldn't he get what he wanted? By this point he is gasping for breath as quietly as possible, nothing being able to calm him down, not even the palely painted walls, the sea-foam color slowly merging into a gray as his eyes blink slowly, he tries to fight himself into staying awake.

Don't pass out. He told himself, begging to just go back to his friends, his chest aches from all the heavy breathing, his lungs feel like they've contorted into such a shape that makes it impossible to pump the air he was taking gasps of. Please stop. He pleaded silently, helpless to find control of himself again.

Then, by some miracle, it all goes away, or rather, fades away slowly, and soon Evan is able to breathe once more, his hand is still shaking- he tells himself he just needs water- but, other than that, he feels better. Not happy, just better. He stays on the floor a little longer, still in a nervous daze, until he realized that he's been in the bathroom for quite a while now. So, he stands up on wobbly legs, fighting the small urge to collapse once more, quickly fixes his hair so that it doesn't look like a mess, and walks out with a few more deep breaths.

Evan returns quietly, sitting down and not even noticing that his half-eaten slice is missing, his appetite gone. He leans back into cushioning of the couch, trying to calm himself down and get back into the movie they're watching. Suddenly, Jonathan leans in, a look of concern present on his face. "Are you okay?" He whispers, genuinely concerned.

Evan should be honest, he really should be, he should tell the boy that he wants to go home, that he doesn't want to be there anymore because he still feels like crying. But, he doesn't.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He lies, whispering back to Jonathan.