this chapter briefly mentions a character's anxiety attack and how they cope alone and with others, and mentions self-doubt.
please read with caution and enjoy <3
THE COMFORT PLAYLIST BILL MADE LORELEI was not working. lorelei's breathing was unsteady despite streetcar by daniel caesar playing faintly in the back. she just couldn't get enough air in her lungs.
this night, in particular, lorelei hadn't done much out of the latest ordinary. she was crying, her hair in what you couldn't consider an aesthetic messy bun with her legs clothed in sweatpants and her torso drowned in karl jacob's merchandise. shameless plug.
her body was in the corner of her room curled into a ball with her knees pressed against her chest. lorelei's phone was in the middle of the room playing music as she tried to breathe in and out to the tune of the song. the laptop that showed a video from tommy's channel paused at ten minutes forty-five seconds.
she was in this situation because lorelei was watching a tommy video. she enjoyed the video and was truly laughing. the video was titled something about a mod being the funniest thing in minecraft, and lorelei couldn't help but smile. realizing she was actually smiling, she paused and shut the laptop, and started crying.
lorelei was at a standstill.
on one side of the balance, lorelei felt like she was being irrational. she had never met of tommy or spoken a word to him, so why was her brain making her believe he was the worst of the worst? tommy probably didn't know of her existence at all nor did lorelei know about him a month ago.
this was something her mind made up, truly, and lorelei knew that. her mind often did this, but never to this extreme. nothing was happening, though, and lorelei was just blowing this out of proportion.
was she?
lorelei wiped her glassy cheeks as she looked up to the ceiling in hopes of stopping her salty tears.
was she being too irrational? is this justified?
on the other side, lorelei felt like this was morally right. everyone in her life has failed her in some way. whether it be her parents not being home on one of lorelei's good days, bill not talking to her because of a childish argument, or ranboo not picking up the phone due to time differences. calum was one of the biggest influences on this, but still: everyone failed.
she had a point in doing this. her heart was broken so many times platonically and romantically that at some point the option of medical tape to fix it, isn't there. there's not enough it's gonna get betters because in lorelei's eyes, it never truly does.
ranboo was coming back to london in four days, which meant that lorelei had four days of constant pulling her hair in stress and letting her eyes water over pure panic for hours. she hated it. she hated every minute of it.
amidst all this worrying and crying, her phone began to ring.
at first, lorelei thought she shouldn't pick up her phone. bill or ranboo could be calling and she didn't want to worry her friends with her burdens.
already, both boys have had to deal with lorelei's past traumas and lorelei was starting to believe the two were doing it out of pity. the phone stopped ringing after the third charm.
were they even her friends?
lorelei's head began to spin faster as her phone rang again. lorelei was still balled in the corner watching her phone screen light up with a photo of bill and her doing peace signs.
he doesn't like you, he's calling you over pity.
lorelei let the phone ring until it didn't. her mind was clouded, her eyes were starting to sting from her mascara dripping down her cheeks and once the ringing stopped, it started up again.
crawling over to it, her breathing still unsteady, she swiped the bar right, picking up the discord call. the music stopped as she picked up after the second charm.
"hey, lore! i was starting to think you were dead or something. i called three times!" bill chuckled over the phone, but lorelei didn't reply. she just closed her eyes, trying anything at all to get her breathing steady. "anyways, you up for some billzo monitoring?"
silence.
"lore?" bill said, his tone quiet. "you alright?"
lorelei couldn't tell him the truth. despite two years of friendship, she couldn't drop her mask sometimes.
"yeah-" her voice cracked as her lungs were starting to lose their air. "i'm okay."
"are you sure? what were you just doing before i called," bill broke through the speakers on his end. "and don't lie and tell me you were dancing to streetcar by daniel caesar because i made the playlist you were listening to and that is not a dance playlist."
"i um..." lorelei hiccuped, her lungs starting to fail on her. "i was- help."
"help? oh fuck- okay." bill exclaimed, his keyboard clicking faintly on his end.
lorelei tried to breathe in but failed.
"lorelei, i want you to take a deep breath in. ready? inhale."
lorelei inhaled as bill commanded, and bill could hear. "yeah, that's good. now hold it, and exhale." holding her breath, lorelei closed her eyes. once she heard bill start to let go of the breath, she followed.
bill and lorelei followed these motions until lorelei could breathe on her own, no inhale-exhale needed. soon the sound of a new person joining their call chimed, and hastily lorelei looked at who it was: ranboo.
"lore," ranboo hummed, his voice soft. the boys treated her like porcelain whenever she would have an attack, simply because they never knew the causes of them sometimes. "do you want to talk about it?"
"not really..." lorelei blubbered, the two boys respecting her wishes. her sobs were reduced to quiet noises, the faint hiccuping and heavy breathing the only thing that filled the voice channel.
lorelei was never the type to open up and talk about how she was feeling easily. it took bill seven months to learn about how badly calum was treating lorelei, ranboo two months after. lorelei knew that if she let her mind win again, it just made her snap more easily.
a side effect: the temper change. it's not a bad thing, rather it's a coping mechanism when someone gets too close. lorelei wouldn't consider herself an emotionally reserved being, but her therapist says she does portray those habits.
"actually-" lorelei broke the silence, both boys still on the line. "yeah. i do."
bill hummed, letting her know she was heard. ranboo just smiled, despite his camera not being on.
"i'm scared of everything." lorelei started. "i'm scared of crowds, large ones because i get lost easily and can never find those who i came with and am too far in to learn my way back. i'm scared of mirrors because all i can see is a shell of who i used to be before calum, but i know i'm not that. it's frustrating, ran and bill, it really fucking is."
"but i'm scared of tommy more than anything. it's stupid, it really is, because he doesn't know me! he doesn't know me- yet i... i don't know! i can tell he's a genuine guy and that fucking terrifies me. i can't let him in, i just can't." lorelei finished and both ranboo and bill could tell she was spiraling.
"why can't you?" bill questioned, helping her as best as he could.
"i let you, ran, into my life two weeks after i met you. i let you in, bill, a week after i met you. i let you both into my life so easily, so fucking easily, and i got hurt. you both didn't do anything at all, yet my mind said oh- they don't care about you anymore! im so stupid"
"you aren't stupid, lore." ranboo assured. "you are smart, and we would never intentionally hurt you and your mind is just wired this way, you as a person are not."
"i- i know. i'm scared of tommy because i was watching his video, and i found myself being happy. i can't let him in because what if he hurts me? i can already see myself being good friends and letting him in, but you both didn't intentionally hurt me but it happened, you get me?"
"i get you, lore," bill broadcasts. "but you've got to stop being in your head so much. tommy is a good person to be around, i promise you. you would be letting a good person into your life, ran and i can testify."
"vouch!" ranboo joked, making lorelei sniff and rub her nose against her sleeve. "tommy is filled with just - light. he's got a good heart and you have nothing to be afraid of. if he hurts you, we know where he lives and we will kick his ass."
"don't do that-" lorelei breathed, wiping her eyes. "but do you promise me he's good?"
"i, the creator of the boobers, promise lorelei that tommy, tom simons, is worth letting in." ranboo said as he turned on his camera, his right hand raised.
"and i, creator of get billzoned," bill said as his camera turned on copying ranboo's motions, "promise tommy is a good person to let in."
lorelei can't lie, her heart swelled at her friend's antics.
but lorelei can't lie, her walls were in place. they rose and lorelei was scared of letting them down despite her friends saying tommy was good.
four more days until the walls were up.
four more days until lorelei couldn't avoid meeting the blonde boy anymore.
NATA'S NOTES ┊͙✧˖*°࿐
erm.... i kinda uh... hate this?
also normally i update thus story every wednesday but i wanna start updating every wednesday and saturday so lmk if yall want that or not :]