Four Kinds of Broadway - Oneshots - 1-8OO-BROADWAYTHINGS

💙TreeBros: Comin' to get me🌧

Evan had been working at the park for two summers now, and just a week or two ago he entered his third summer. When he first started this gig, he was more than excited to learn about all the trees of the national park and teach all the kids at summer camp all about nature.

The kids liked him, even in the second year when they came back a year older as teenagers, the kids he bonded with were excited to know all about the new things Evan learned over the school year, since he was a bit older than him. They all admired his charisma and desire to learn all about everything, they wanted to be just like him.

But as Evan took his quiet, early-morning nature walk before dealing with scrawny, dirty teenagers for the day, he realized how different he had become. His emotions morphed, he was now aware of what was wrong with him; anxiety.

Since he was a little boy, Evan's mother described anxiety as a thing everyone had, just that Evan was very special and just happened to get more than most. She told him it would affect how he would handle situations in life. Now, at the time, Evan didn't know exactly what that meant but he didn't want to ask because he didn't want more confusion.

But now that he was older, he began to realize that his mother was sugarcoating it. Not only did it affect how he handled situations, it also affected how he thought, spoke, moved or reacted to things. Even his therapist whitewashed it.

"It will be difficult, but with my help and your mothers, you'll be able to handle your anxiety just like a soccer player handles the ball."

Too bad it wasn't as easy as everyone claimed it was. There was much more to it than kicking a ball and making the goal. This field had obstacles, but not easy ones like at dog parks, like hurdles or hoops. These obstacles were life or death situations, and if your ball landed in one of them, you're met with indescribable consequences. And even if you missed every obstacle, the question remains in your mind for the rest of your life.

"I could've made that much easier if I had done it a different way."

"Why did I do that? Stupid idiot!"

"What if I did this? Would things have been better than they are now?"

Every question remains unanswered as you follow the way of life as hurriedly as possible. Because if you were even a second late to something, something bad would happen. But you've never been late before because you always get up bright and early, giving yourself three hours time to do something that would take ten minutes. But those three hours before the task is to be finished you spend panicking about having to do said task. And when the time comes, you must rush to finish it because you spent the time procrastinating.

Some parts of anxiety were even indescribable, unexplainable. Why do we rip at our skin on our lips and fingers when we're nervous? Does causing pain to ourselves release some of the pressure on us, or does it just add more pressure, since now you have to spend time tending to the wounds? Why do we prepare so much for the most casual things, like going to school as everyone else does? Why make a list when we're just going to ignore the things we need to do on them?

Today was the day that Evan's brain asked all these questions that he did not have the answers to. And of course, that day just had to be the day where everything went wrong.

"Gah!" Evan hissed as he slipped over a rock and fell nearly face first into a pile of poison ivy, staring at it. It was so close to his face that it was blurry. But thank god he didn't touch it.. with his face, at least. The whole side of his forearm happened to catch his fall. Now his knees were bleeding from the collision of the rough, coarse dirt.

And if that wasn't bad enough, but the kids were extra antsy to strain every groan out of the whole staff of camp directors. Evan just so happened to be the smallest and youngest, the easiest target. Like a baby bison born just a few weeks ago, much easier to catch than a veteran bison with horns and a recipe for rage.