Someone Out There Loves You (Adopted by Frank Iero)

57

ALEXA

Getting home on Friday after my final midterm felt like I was a soldier returning from war. I was broken, defeated, lifeless.

Today was maths. They really came through and saved the best for last.

Kidding.

It felt like prolonged torture having maths last, every night I had to continue studying for it, building to the eventual doom. Sadly, all that study didn't pay off the way I hoped it would. I felt fucked from the moment reading time began, my heart rate picking up as I read the first question. I didn't know how to answer it, my mind drawing a blank. When I skipped to the next one, it required my answer from question one, the one I didn't know how to do. That got the panic going because I wouldn't even be able to attempt that question if I couldn't get the first one. There were a few more questions like that throughout the paper, each one feeling less and less doable. The numbers and letters and equations weren't making any sense, and I couldn't for the life of me remember how to graph a linear equation even though I knew I had gotten the hang of it when I was studying it - I had literally been doing it last night. My brain just felt wiped.

I felt like I had hit the point where I was coming undone and everything was collapsing in on me. The increased panic from every question I couldn't answer was stopping me from thinking clearly, in turn fueling the fire by making it harder to understand the next one. I wasn't reading and comprehending, I was reading and panicking. The questions still weren't making sense after re-reading them over and over, and then writing time started. I didn't know how to answer a goddamn thing. It was the worst case scenario.

I was dancing on the edge of a panic attack the entire paper. When reading time was over and writing time began, I didn't even touch my pencil. I sat there staring at the pages, flipping between them, trying to work out something so I could at least get one thing answered.

I was thankfully sitting at the back of the room, allowing this whole situation to go unnoticed by everyone but my teacher, who saw my panic and the tears that went along with it. She grabbed the box of tissues from the front of the room and came to the side of my desk, crouching down and whispering for me to take some deep breaths. It was useless - I was past the point of deep breaths. I couldn't answer anything. I was doomed. I was straight up doomed.

She was nice enough to talk me through the questions, coaching me along. She explained to me what every question was asking, including what I needed to do for them, and stayed with me while I wrote down my uncertain answers with a shaking hand. I didn't think she was allowed to help me like that, especially in a test setting, but if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have got a damn thing down on the page. I put it down to her pitying me, but I would like to think she was kind and saw me struggling.

In the end, I had an answer written for every question, though half of it I couldn't remember nor understand because I was just doing what she coached me to do. Whatever grade I would end up with wouldn't feel genuine. But then again, had I not been panicking throughout it, perhaps it wouldn't have felt so difficult in the first place.

I walked out of the room humiliated, Vic trailing after me as I headed straight to the loft in the drama storage room. Without words, she began rolling a joint and handed it to me, and we smoked it in a comfortable silence. I needed it so fucking bad.

My self harm had become a nightly thing, serving as an outlet for my disappointment and frustrations in myself for the day's midterm and relieving some of the stress about the following day's one.

But now, it was over. It was all over. At least until the end of the semester, but that wouldn't involve learning everything from scratch and playing catch up. That was a relief.