VII• Caring Connor

It had been days since Hayden had seen Raven.

Somewhere in him, he could hear a malicious voice taunt him.

'She finally knows how worthless you are', 'What did you think? , that she actually became fond of you?', 'She only pitied you, and now she knows better', 'You are just a boy with nothing to offer her, did you think she wouldn't get tired of your nerdy talks and trashy clothes?'

Hayden wanted to cry.

In fact, he had cried the past night,.... and two nights before that.

Each breath he took was laboured, and the oxygen he breathed had become sandpaper that scratched at the insides of his throat, creating a bloody mess that travelled to his heart, tearing at it bit by bit.

"Hayden?" Hilda called, and Hayden was pulled out of his thoughts, back to the cafeteria.

While the rest of the table ate from their trays, munching on pizza and banana, Hayden held the apple he'd brought from home.

"Are you okay?" Hilda asked, concerned. Hayden could feel the curious stares of all of them at the table, and a particularly harsh one from the direction Connor sat.

"He's probably wishing he was at the library. Lord knows what he does there. Probably some weird, nerdy stuff" Connor said, bitterness laced in his voice.

Hayden wasn't offended by what Connor said, even though Hilda took enough offense for the both of them combined.

In his voice, Hayden could hear his hurt.

Under the hate in his eyes, Hayden could see vulnerability.

Hayden couldn't help but feel bonded to Connor in a way, and though their methods of expression might be different, Hayden could see the pure, unadulterated longing he felt in himself, in Connor.

And so, despite everything that was going on, and every snide remark that he sent his way, Hayden smiled at the boy.

****

Distracted, Hayden fiddled with his shirt.

If there was anything that intrigued him more than reading books, it was another form of reading.

Reading body languages.

And so Hayden watched, silently taking bites of his yellowing apple as he ignored the noise around him.

He could tell, from where he sat, how everyone around him felt to a great extent. He noticed the little things in people's behaviours, how they operated, what made them tick.

There was the girl some tables away who was laughing loudly at something a boy said, another girl sat to her side, shuffling her food around with a fork.

Hayden noticed the way the girl who had the fork stroked her thumb around the utensil repeatedly, soothingly.

That was most likely a habit she had developed over time to soothe herself. Just like how some people twisted their fingers, or bit on their lips or hugged themselves by folding both arms around themselves.

Little things that were done without much thought, but spoke volumes.

She clearly felt uncomfortable.

The laughing girl would take a pause in between laughs, hitting the boy on his arms playfully.

The boy would smile back at her, but one of his hands continued to rap against the table almost unnoticeably, if one didn't know what to look for.

The boy was impatient.

Hayden could roughly presume that the boy had some sort of interest in the girl who shuffled her food, but her bolder, more outgoing friend had an interest in him.

The shuffling girl felt very uncomfortable, probably because she also had feelings for the guy but couldn't do a thing since her best friend was hell bent on getting him for herself.

Hayden averted his eyes from them, feeling something well up in his throat.

"Hey, I have something to do. I'll see you guys later?" Hayden asked, turning his attention back to the table.

He didn't wait long enough to hear their responses before he bolted out of the cafeteria.

Hayden needed to breathe.

He'd constantly had emotions bubbling in him, growing till he point he felt suffocated.

Hayden had only just passed the restroom when he felt a hand loop around his neck and cover his mouth and before he knew it, he'd been pulled into the restroom.

Hayden fought to get the hands off his mouth, his heart beating sporadically. He struggled with the person behind him, unsuccessfully.

The only thing he got, was the wind knocked down out of him as his back was slammed against the tiled wall.

Hayden felt scared.

Soon his trashing stopped, as he went into crisis mode.

Hayden had had panic attacks for the most part of his life, and while they had been mild the past few years, he'd gone through the worst kinds at certain points in his life.

The worst of his panic attacks were his body going into lockdown, his limbs going into paralysis as he struggled to breathe.

His heart would be running at inhuman speeds but he wouldn't be able to call out to anyone or make any moves.

If he wasn't found during that period, and continued in that state for a good while, there was a possibility of death.

Presently, Hayden could feel himself slip into that stage again, his limbs failing to function as he remained still against the wall.

Silently he stood, screaming internally but not able to make a sound as blow after blow was pounded into his mid section.

The only thing that worked in him were his eyes, leaking tears uncontrollably as pain exploded through his body.

'Stop' he screamed on the inside, 'please! I beg you. Stop. You'll kill me. Please, stop'

But of course, the boys didn't listen to him, they didn't even hear him.

Soon, the voice in his head became weak too as Hayden's senses began to dull.

He didn't even feel the blows stop as the boys rushed out of the restroom, nor hear a shout of alarm as a familiar face came into view.

"Shit" Connor cursed softly, his hands shaking as he dragged Hayden into a sitting position against the wall.

There weren't any visible bruises on his face, the fuckers had avoided any visible injuries.

But when Connor pulled up the shirt Hayden wore, he could see the entire skin covered in patches of red.

Bile welled up in Connor's throat but he forced it down, a strange sensation in his heart.

His gaze was softer when he looked at Hayden.

"Hang in there dude". Connor said softly, pleadingly.

" Hayden, listen to me. Just focus on my voice, kay?".

Hayden stared into space, tears leaking out of his eyes. Somewhere in him, he could hear Connor, but he sounded distant like he wasn't in there with him.

"Hayden, you're Ok. It's just a panic attack, you hear me? You're Ok" Connor said, trying to calm his nerves down.

Connor had seen his mother deal with panic attack patients a few times, he had a pretty solid idea of what he needed to do.

Step one, make the person realise that they weren't going through a heart attack, help them realise that the fear of impending doom they felt was all in their mind.

Step two, help them focus on a particular sensation around them, so they would hold onto that one thing instead of letting their mind wander.

Connor searched around for something he could use but didn't.

"Hayden, I'm going to place my fingers in your palm okay? Just focus on squeezing them. Forget everything in your mind right now, just focus on that one thing"

Connor slid his fingers into Hayden's palm, waiting.

A while passed without Hayden responding, leaving Connor's fingers limp against his palm. But soon enough, his fingers began to twitch, slowly wrapping around Connor's fingers the way a baby would.

Connor heaved a sigh of relief.

Step three: Concentrate on deep breathing

"Now Hayden, concentrate on your breathing, I'll count to four. In that time, you'll take deep breaths, when I say hold, you'll hold for a second and then I'll count to four again. You can do this, Keating!"

Connor went through the exercise with him, smiling slightly when Hayden's legs began to twitch.

"Now close your eyes, just focus on that exercise. I'll get some medicine".

Hayden heard the door close shut, focusing on breathing deeply.

With Connor gone, he focused on keeping his fingers in a tight ball, slowly regaining his motor functions.

By the time he'd regained his body functions, Connor was already in, waiting with a bottle of water and some pills.

******

" Thanks again, Connor" Hayden said.

Connor had helped him off the ground, standing by the zinc as Hayden washed his face and hair.

"It's no problem, you sure you don't need to go to the nurse's office?"

Hayden smiled at the concern in Connor's voice, turning to grin at him lopsidedly.

"Who are you and what have you done with Connor?" His statement earned him an eye roll from the boy.

"I still hate you, don't forget that"

There was silence for a while as Hayden washed up and Connor stood still.

"You can go Connor, you don't need to worry about me. Moreover, I have somewhere to be right now" Hayden faced Connor once he was done.

The glare Connor threw his way sent a chill down his spine, but he managed to hide it.

"I'm not worried about you, nerd" Connor said, annoyed. Hayden could see the obvious worry in his expression but decided it would be wiser to let the matter go.

"Okay, you hate me. I get it" He raised his hands in surrender, starting to walk out of the bathroom.

"Where are you going looking like that?" Connor asked.

Hayden didn't stop, giving him an answer as he walked out of the door.

"I told you I had somewhere to be".

As he walked through the hallways, Hayden could feel the pain intensify, struggling not to limp as he walked.

His eyes stung with tears, but he just managed to hold them back, clenching his fists into a tight ball until he could feel his fingernails dig into his palms.

He continued to walk, one torso-destroying step after the other.

When the familiar wooden door was before him, Hayden paused for a while.

It was hard for him to breathe, but he forced a painful inhale after inhale, trying to school his expression so the pain he felt inside wouldn't mirror onto his external features.

As he stepped through the dimly lit space, Hayden's eyes traveled to a particular spot.

And he couldn't breathe.

This time, not because of the pain in his body, but the elation in his soul.

At the end of the library, at their spot, Hayden could see Raven.

Her eyes flickered around the library, lingering at the doorway he'd just moved from, and Hayden couldn't help but hope, hope, hope that she was seeking him.

He couldn't help but hope that she was feeling the same longing he'd felt in the past few days, unable to focus as her eyes constantly sought him.

Hayden had thought he'd be upset, maybe even annoyed when he'd finally see her, that he'd find it hard to talk to her because she'd left for days without a word of notice.

But he didn't expect the relief, the joy, the excitement that he felt.

His legs moved, an almost magnetic force pulling him, until he was in Raven's line of sight.

And when her gaze finally caught his, her lips parting for the briefest second before that smile appeared, stealing the breath from Hayden's lungs, he knew that the thing he felt in his chest, that destructive emotion that managed to tear him apart in one moment and piece him back the next moment, wasn't going to disappear in a very long while.

And though his day had been rough, and the past few ones had been gloomy, Hayden couldn't remember how unhappy he'd felt all that time when the only thing that his heart, mind and soul felt was this tingling.

This aching need, this.......thing.

"Hi" He said, forcing out the syllable through the weight in his throat.

It was the only thing he could manage to say, a condensed version of his real, unfiltered, ludicrous thoughts.

'I've missed you Raven, so much so that the pain of not seeing you doesn't cripple my heart alone, but every part of me.

You make me weak, Raven. You make me laugh just by thinking of you. You have no idea how afraid I was, how consumed with dread I was, .....how many times I fought the tears when I thought you'd finally realised how worthless my existence was next to you.

You have no idea how much I wanted to see you again. How bland everything seemed, how lethargic I felt, how much my heart screamed each day I would come to this library and not see you, how painful it was for me to sit on this seat, waiting.

Waiting for you to show up, the pain of giving up, realising that you'd probably just noticed how repulsive the holes in my shirts were, how you'd probably noticed that I had the shabbiest shoes in the entire school, that I wasn't built like the guys that fought for your attention, that I would never be like them.

But lord, Raven, I missed you despite it all. Despite the doubts and the anger, the fear and the pain, I missed you Raven Stone.

*******

23/04/2021