Chapter 14

“If you ask me, May did it.” I snarled to myself. “That’s what I think.”

“And do you always have this hunch, or do you go back and forth?” Salvador asked me.

I grunted annoyedly. “Yeah, okay, but I think May did it the most.”

“The most?” Salvador asked me. “That creates a bit of a victim-blaming atmosphere, don’t you think?”

“How do you figure?” I asked him.

“If May is innocent, she came up to you telling you about a personal violation, that she was sexually assaulted. And you immediately cast doubt on her. It’s not very fair to her.”

“No shit it’s not fair to her, but don’t you remember what she did to me at that party?!” I waved my arms around as I asked him. “She was May enough and Phil enough for both of us that day. I think I have a valid enough reason not to trust her.”

“Yes, I remember that.” Salvador commented, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. “You really need to stop telling me things that can get me fired.” He added humorously.

“So what’s this week’s life lesson then?” I asked. “Do I read people wrong? Am I not patient enough? Or do I just ‘not get it’ and need to rethink how I approach my own life?”

“You seem tightly wound today.” Salvador remarked, putting his glasses back on. “Is it because of the party’s fallout?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I feel frustrated.”

“Why?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Salvador didn’t blink. He just stared at me expectantly. “What?” I finally asked, a little weirded out.

“I’ve never forced you to say anything.” Salvador began to explain.

“Except the fight thing.” I interrupted. He lowered an eyebrow for a microsecond, indicating to me that I wasn’t supposed to bring it up.

“I’ve never forced you to say anything.” he calmly repeated. “It’s your choice as to whether you want to tell me or walk out. Either way is fine by me. This is for your benefit.”

“Quit being such a ... teacher.” I jokingly complained. He didn’t laugh, giving me the silence I dreaded.

“Nicole and I aren’t having sex anymore.”

“Oh.” Salvador simply responded with a moderate amount of happy interest in his voice. “Good.”

“Good?” I asked him.

“You’re being led down a path I wouldn’t recommend for you. Especially if you already feel the need to have these meetings.” Salvador explained. “You’ve broken down twice during these. It’s going to get to the point where I ignore your requests and sign you up for a professional counsellor if I don’t start seeing improvement.”

I chuckled sadly. “The best thing to ever happen to me is coming to an end. I’m not crying. Is that improvement?”

A flare of slight anger flashed over Salvador’s face. It wasn’t active anger, more like clear disappointment. “Getting to have sex with Nicole was the best thing to happen to you?” he asked, his voice a mix of exasperation and disappointment.

“No, of course not!” I immediately backtracked. “But it was a pretty important thing. It meant a lot to me. I’m trusting my feelings. Didn’t you tell me that?”

Salvador waved his hands in front of me, trying to collect his thoughts. “Just a second.” he told me forcefully. “Getting to have sex with Nicole was the best thing to happen to you? Getting to have sex with her? Not getting to meet her? Not the endless hours you’ve spent together? Not her helping you get over your insecurities, helping you up after your fights, caring about you?”

I nervously looked to the floor. “Okay, maybe I worded that wrong.” I awkwardly admitted.

Salvador nodded with a serious expression. “Maybe you did. I sure hope you didn’t say that because you actually believe it.”

“Of course I don’t!” I defended myself, rebutted by silence. “What, you think I just see her as, like, a convenience or a walking sex object?

“Don’t take it personally but it wouldn’t surprise me.” Salvador told me with a tired sigh. “I’ve been a teacher for a good few years now. I’m not stupid. I know teenagers have sex.” He paused. “Every teacher does. The trouble is, we need to address that with our students without grossing them out, crossing any boundaries, or making them uncomfortable. I’m sure you understand.”

I nodded.

“In your case, I can just tell you though - casual sex is not your friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, STDs and all that.” I replied for him.

He raised an eyebrow. “No, that wasn’t what I was going to say at all.” he told me. “Let me tell you first before you think for me. If you could know what I was about to say before I said it, this whole thing would be a waste of time.” I, chastised, hung my head as he cleared his throat and continued. “Casual sex is a bad thing. It devalues emotional connection. It warps your mind. It makes you emotionally hardened. Over time, you might completely separate sex and love, or find it more difficult to love. You may experience emotional extremes, like depression. You may lose your motivation.”

Still hanging my head, I scoffed.

“Go ahead and laugh but I’ve seen it happen time and time again.” he pointed out.

“Nicole sleeps around and she’s still very motivated.” I retaliated.

He laughed. “Nicole is also a Gifted Program student.” he argued.

“Oh, booga booga. So what if she was a little smarter?” I argued back, jealousy providing some fuel for a slight hint of anger in my tone.

“This isn’t just ‘a little smarter.’” he informed me. “Dr. Young’s Gifted Program isn’t just for slightly smarter kids. He hand-picks his students. All of them could show to up to your exams having read over nothing but the course outlines and outperform you.”

“So Nicole is super smart.” I concluded.

Salvador nodded. “She’s super smart and knows it. That drives her forward. She also likes the attention she gets from it.”

“Well, she is the youngest child in her family.” I remarked, mostly to myself.

Salvador’s eyebrows shot up in slight surprise. “Very good.” he murmured to me as he pointed at me, then continued. “None of the teachers here could tell you how she does it, but Nicole manages to stay motivated despite knowing more than a lot of her teachers.”

“Wouldn’t that make her a little egotistical?” I asked him.

He chuckled. “Have you met her?” he asked me. “Well, naturally, we don’t tell her that she’s smarter than us, at least academically speaking. Like I said, teachers are the authority. She also does a good job of understanding when to not be ... bold.”

“She’s the boldest girl on the fucking planet.” I mumbled.

“Easy on the swearing.” Salvador ordered, then looked at me for a bit. “She means a lot to you.”

I nodded. “I feel guilty as shi- sorry, guilty as sin for saying the sex is what meant something to me.”

“Do you feel an emotional connection?” he asked me.

I nodded again. “I think so. I’m pretty sure. We held hands once. She never does that.” My tone came across as slightly flustered.

“Remember how I told you that casual sex makes you feel less?” he asked. I nodded. “Then I’ll ask you again. Do you feel an emotional connection?” It must have taken guts for the drama teacher to ask the freshman about his sex life. “I ... think so.” I answered slowly. “What, are you gonna condone my sex life as long as it has some kind of connection?”

“Well, I don’t need to. It’s over.” Salvador pointed out. “Plus, it’s a good opportunity to see whether your friendship can even still work if you don’t have sex. I still believe that casual sex could warp you, Adam. Neither you nor I want that to happen to you.”

“We didn’t have sex when she was with Phil.” I pointed out.

“You were still having sex with Megan.” he rebutted. “Most students, to my knowledge, don’t have sex until long after you did. Not to mention, Nicole is bold, as you alluded. And she can be a little...” he paused, thinking to himself. “ ... destructive.”

“Destructive?!” I asked incredulously.

“I remember word-for-word your original encounter with her. Did you really think that was normal in high school?” he asked me.

I thought to myself for a minute. “I guess not.” I concluded.

“It was a completely untraditional introduction to sex. You’ve managed to find three rare outliers of sexual encounters. And it’s very possible in the case of Megan that you caused one.” he explained. “One thing I hope you take from this is that you’re a special case. This isn’t how sex works in the real world.” “But we are in the real world.” I argued. “Yeah, you can say this isn’t how sex stuff works, but that’s how it’s always worked for me. Maybe it will always work this way. What if I marry Nicole or Megan or something?”

Salvador’s eyes danced in humorous delight. “Not May?” he asked as if we were sharing a joke.

“I...” I started. I didn’t know what to think of her. She was in a limbo state of a bitch and a weird pseudo-friend in my mind at this point. I sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think you’d still have a crush on her if you hadn’t had sex at this point?” he asked calmly.

“Well, probably, but...” I started without thinking, then paused in my tracks. My mouth froze as I looked over at Salvador. He was half-smiling expectantly. This whole conversation was leading up to that. Sex redefined how I saw her. Everything started to click. Sex redefined how May saw me too. How Nicole saw me. How I saw Nicole. How Megan saw me, how Megan saw Carter. I was shocked less and less every day by Carter’s actions. This whole thing, which started out as a wholly emotional crush on May, led to sex that delegitimized my feelings for her.

“Am I a bad person?” I asked Salvador in a small voice.

“No.” he answered simply. “I’m just glad you have enough self-awareness to realize what you just said.”

“Yeah, I get it. I had sex with her and the feelings were cheapened.” I looked at him to find that expectant expression, then scoffed. “Because I didn’t feel an emotional connection.”

“Good.” Salvador replied, obviously referring to my understanding and not what I did.

“But wait a sec.” I quickly followed up. “I only had a physical crush on Nicole but now I have a full crush on her. Hell, I’m sure of it. There’s an emotional connection. What does that mean?”

Salvador shrugged. “I don’t know.” he said as if it were an important point. “Perhaps it’s something significant. Maybe you two connect. Just understand that the sex didn’t cause it.”

“Well we wouldn’t have talked more than once if it weren’t for the sex.” I pointed out.

“Adam, you yourself told me she has sex with everyone.” he retorted. “Does she have a strong connection with everyone?”

“Point taken.” I admitted. “So how do I go forward from here?”

“How?” he asked. “You’re going to keep on living no matter what happens. I can’t tell you how to live.”

“I suppose but I come here for your damn advice, not for the rhetorical stuff.” I pointed out. “It doesn’t help me when you say you don’t know.”

“You’re entitled to think that.” Salvador replied. “But you don’t have my brain. You’re an individual, growing up and becoming an adult. You need to learn to make decisions, and you need to know from experience which ones are the right ones.”

“Like going to theatre school in Paris?” I asked dryly.

He chuckled, then thought to himself for a bit. “If you want advice, here’s something for you. I want you to challenge yourself. Don’t have any sex unless you feel genuine love. Go slow. Be conscious of who you’re sharing your sex with. As a teacher I need to ask you to stop having sex altogether but as a person I know you won’t, so this is the next best thing. Only have sex if you feel love. Share sex, don’t take it. Be honest with me every time it happens, and your life will turn out better, more drama-free and you’ll learn to value people better.”

“How are you single?” I joked.

With only a slight smile, he shrugged. “These meetings aren’t about my personal life, Adam.”

“Right.” My smile faded as I stood up. Hell of a note to end it on. “Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome.” he replied as he pulled out some papers from his desk, ready to go back to work.

“Oh, wait.” I snapped my fingers as I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “Quick question. Nicole’s super smart, right?”

“Yes.” Salvador agreed, half in confusion as to where this was going.

“Is she like super fast too?” I asked. His look of confusion got bigger. “Like, can she do normal tasks like reading books and cleaning rooms and dressing faster than normal people?”

His look of confusion didn’t decay. “Being smart doesn’t help with how fast you clean rooms.” he concluded as if it were obvious. “I mean maybe you’ve memorized where everything goes but your actual speed wouldn’t increase. It definitely wouldn’t impact how quickly you dress. And reading books too quickly, no matter how smart you are, just makes one retain less of the book. The smartest people read the slowest. Why?”

“Nicole is just fast at that.” I worded that one awkwardly.

“I see.” Salvador replied, somewhere between confused and uninterested.

“I realize it’s a weird question out of the blue. I just wanted to know if you could shed any light.”

Salvador was already looking down at some assignment he was marking. “I understand.” he simply replied.

Well, I wasn’t going to get any more out of him at this point. “See you later!” I tossed over my back as I left. In his signature fashion, Salvador didn’t respond.

“Alright, is there anything else we have to cover today?” Phil’s lifeless voice, an unusual change from past months but a fitting change from a few weeks ago, asked the room. No one responded, coating the room in a tense silence. “Great, then that’s the meeting.” Lazily, Phil extended his arm outwards and made a shooing motion. “Get outta here.”

People began to fill out of the room, one by one. I was collecting my things, eyeing Phil as I saw Jeff, his VP, walk up to him and clap a hand on his back.

“You doing alright?” he asked him, trying to play off his concern as coolly as possible.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Phil mumbled back. “Just outta energy.”

“Bro, you can’t be out of energy forever.” Jeff protested. “It’s starting to interfere with your job.”

Phil shrugged. “Then you take over.” he suggested.

“Buddy.” Jeff told him in a disappointed tone. “You can’t just shut down like this. I get May was a real bitch to ya, but come on.”

Phil waved a hand dismissively in his face. “It’s all in the past, man. Forget it.”

“No, really.” Jeff continued, making me give a concerned look Nicole’s way. “I think that decision was too rough on ya. If May was lying, they shoulda made an example out of that bitch. Expel her. Maybe threaten her with her own criminal record or some shit. Slander or something.”

“Ex-cuse me?” A short squat blonde-haired girl I still didn’t know the name of piped up, standing up. “We don’t even have any evidence she was guilty. How are you so sure Phil didn’t do it?”

“Got something to say, Tina?” Jeff challenged her. “You think your own fucking president would do that?” He hopped over a desk so he could face her without any obstructions in the way.

While this was happening, Phil raked his fingers over his face. “Jesus fuckin...” he trailed off. The duo had devolved into a shouting match as he hopped off the table and started to walk out of the room.

“You can’t leave the room before the rest of the council members.” Nicole reminded him, still seated, not looking him in the eye.

Phil groaned quietly. “I’m not leaving, I’m just going for a talk with...” His eyes scanned the room. “ ... Adam.”

“Huh?” I snapped to attention.

“I need to talk to you, dude.” he replied.

“What about?”

“Council stuff. Now hurry up.” he motioned to me with little patience. Wordlessly, I followed him out the door. He waited at the doorframe for me, then shut the door afterwards, following up with a large sigh as he began walking.

We walked for about ten seconds without a word, then he sighed again. “This is exactly what I was talking about man. Exactly what I was fucking talking about.” He stopped and turned to face me. “Fuckin’ reputation. To them, it doesn’t even matter if I did it. You plant the seed, you reap the fuckin’ harvest.”

I didn’t say anything. I felt like I wasn’t there to talk. After a few more seconds, we silently decided to keep walking.

“The fuck am I talking about? I didn’t plant the seed at all.” he complained, really just to himself at this point. “You know, sometimes I get called a dick for being mean, or authoritative, or whatever. But the truth is you gotta be like that. The moment I let my guard down someone fucked me up and suddenly, boom.” He motioned outwards with his hands. “Look what happened. Look what fucking happened.”

“At least you didn’t get expelled.” I quietly pointed out.

“Might as well have been.” he sadly chuckled. “This isn’t even the half of it. You see the meeting and you think, ‘Oh, that’s Phil’s life now.’ It’s fucking not. This is a taste. You go through classes assuming I go through them the same way, but now teachers talk more slowly when they talk to me, people don’t want to sit next to me, and shit, some of these cats don’t even think I did it. They just don’t want their own reputations to suffer by sitting next to the ‘rapist.’ They don’t want to be me.” He gave another sad chuckle. “I don’t want to be me either.”

I didn’t respond as he cleared his throat, trying to cover up any quivering his voice was doing. “Y’know, I wouldn’t even be fuckin’ surprised if no one actually believes I did it. But they all are so fuckin’ worried about losing their own reputations. If life were a shitty little high school movie I wouldn’t be worried because some freshman bitty with a crush on me would make a petition or a hashtag or whatever. ‘I believe in Phil Love.’ It’s not gonna fuckin’ end that way, man. It’s just not. I haven’t even gotten like half of my college applications back yet. They’re just gonna be fuckin’ ‘denied’ at this point.” He was, at this point, struggling to hold back tears, even though he was succeeding.

“Well, hopefully people will forget.” I offered in a small voice. “Give them time, and they’ll stop treating you this way.”

“Time? How much time do you think I have?” he blurted out. “It’s spring, dude. People aren’t going to forget. Even if I had years it doesn’t fucking matter. When people see this face, they’ll think of it. I’ll still be around, so people are always going to be reminded, my face, of ... of what I didn’t do. The whole thing is fucked up. If this whole thing was just kept quiet and handled by the police, everything would have been fine. I fucking hate the students here.”

He angrily punched a wall weakly at just stood there for a while, drinking in the silence of the hallway. He broke it with his sigh.

“I’m sorry got the council worked up about your blowjob thing with Megan.” he finally said. “It wasn’t cool of me.”

“It’s fine.” I said meekly, partially out of intimidation from being around a sadder Phil. “Besides, if you didn’t, I’m sure someone else would have.”

He looked away from the wall to face me, right in the eyes. Eventually he broke out into a sad smile and gave a low chuckle, the kind of chuckle you give when you can’t be bothered to care about the world anymore.

“Ain’t that the truth.” he replied in a gravelly voice. Slowly, he started to walk back towards the council room. “Come on.” he ordered.

We walked back in silence to a council room filled only with Jeff and Nicole, the latter of whom sitting with arms akimbo on a desk. “Where were you two?” she asked.

“In the hallway.” Phil answered in a tired voice.

“ ... Doing what?” Nicole pressured, making the ‘go on’ gesture with her hands.

Phil looked at her, clearly irritated. “Just talking.” he answered annoyedly. “C’mon, everyone. Get the fuck out of here.”

Jeff sighed loudly as he packed up his stuff and made his exit. Nicole soon followed, a look of curiosity on her face and a camera around her neck. “Bye, Phil.” she said with no emotion as she left, grabbing me by the shirt and tugging me along.

“So what the fuck crawled up Phil’s ass, laid eggs and died?” she asked me.

“Don’t look at me.” I replied.

“Right. You only talked to him.” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I’m not stupid, squirt.”

“He’s just upset with the whole party thing.” I admitted in a small voice.

Nicole kept walking, determined not to let anything from her inner reaction show. “Mmm.” she lazily replied.

“You okay?” I asked.

She stopped walking to face me with half-closed eyes and one lowered eyebrow. “Not everything I do is melodramatic you big dumbo.” she told me.

“At least you admit some of it is.” I grinned.

“Nope, never. I’m perfect.” she replied nonchalantly, resuming her walking.

“Anyone at school can tell that.” I replied sincerely.

“Yeah, and anyone at school could tell you what my vagina looks like. What’s your point?” she fired back.

“Anyone except me.” I complained.

“Oh, come on.” she half-laughed. “Pitying your way to getting sex again won’t work. Get Megan to help you out or something.”

“It wasn’t the fact that it was sex, it was because it was with you.” I protested.

“I don’t buy that for an instant.” she retorted, opening the school doors to the outside. “I know I’m good at it, but sex is sex, even if some is crappier.” She paused for a second then saw the look I was giving her out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t look at me like that. If you’re getting an emotional attachment to me, that’s all the more reason it’s good that we’re not doing it. We’re still hanging out, aren’t we?”

“Why is an emotional attachment even bad?” I protested. “I can accept if it doesn’t go both ways, but it’s like I have to feel bad for my own feelings. I don’t feel like it’s fair.”

Nicole gave the horizon ahead her patented ‘losing my patience’ smile and turned to me. “I’m gonna say this gently because I’m in a good mood, squirt.” she told me, taking my hands in hers and turning her body to face me, just two teenagers in the parking lot.

“When you say you have an emotional attraction to me, or an emotional connection to me, I don’t like it. I’m not comfortable with it because I feel obligated to do something about it. Even if you don’t want me to, I’ll still have that obligation. And that will just make me push you away. It’s really clear you’ve never lost your best friend before. I know it’s a cliché to say this, but grief sucks. After I lost Mitch, I didn’t want a friend ever again. I didn’t like emotional connection. It would only remind me of him, how much I want him back, and how he isn’t ever coming back.

“I’m not comfortable being open, and I’ve had to do it a shit ton this year. Hell, I’ve even accepted it. But emotional shit is too much. No offence, squirt, but sometimes you’re too much.” She paused a little to let that sink in. “I’m not mad at all, but I’m not ready to ... let my guard down again like that. It’s not about you. I’m not ready to be that vulnerable. What if you’re stupid and get into an accident or something? I wouldn’t be able to take it.”

She was smiling at me - oddly calm for someone who was basically admitting she was broken (and kind of implied she didn’t want us to be friends). “Okay?” she asked expectantly.

“I think it’s stupid.” I grumbled. “So what, you’re going to live the rest of your life without friends?”

“No, stupid.” she replied, a little annoyed at this point. “But ... give me time. I can’t expect you to understand what I’m going through, but that’s okay.”

“I could if you explained it!” I argued.

“I just did.” she huffed. “Who’s your best friend in the whole world?”

“You.” I replied without hesitation.

“Really?!” she laughed. “Wow. that’s sad. Okay, so if you lost me, how would you feel?”

“I’d feel-”

“Nope.” She shook her head.

“What?!”

“You didn’t even think about it.” she answered simply. “It’s so much different than what you think it’s like. You can’t give me a good answer just like that.”

Frankly, I didn’t agree with her, but I was willing to let her have her way, because God knows she wasn’t going to have it any other way. “Okay, I’ve got it.” I meekly conceded.

She gave me a big smile in thanks. “I appreciate it, squirt.” she told me softly, moving her head forward and kissing my forehead gently. “And I don’t want it to sound like I don’t like being friends with you.” she added as we started to walk again. “It’s just like ... it’s hard for me to want to be friends, just in principle.”

“It’s hard for me to make friends.” I grumbled under my breath as we approached her car.

“Don’t give me that. You’ve got a lot of friends. You’re just too much of a dumbo to see how well off you are.” she rolled her eyes as she unlocked the car, then stepped inside. As I followed suit, she cleared her throat, then cleared her throat again.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” she answered as if it were dumb for me to even ask.

“Well, sheesh, I dunno.” I replied dryly. “Didn’t realize looking out for your well-being was so taboo.”

“It’s not taboo, but I already have the best girl in the force doing that job.” She looked in my direction as she started the car and winked at me. “Besides, I don’t get sick.”

“I don’t feel like that’s a thing.” I responded. “Everybody gets sick.”

“I’m not everybody.” she simply replied, smiling at me. “So what’re your plans for the night?”

“Nonexistent.” I shrugged.

She grinned. “Wrong-o. We’re hanging the fuck out.”

“More Castle Crashers?” I asked.

“If you want.”

I was going to make some petty remark about how the lack of sex would make it less fun, but then I thought of Salvador. I so desperately wanted to prove him wrong, but all I kept doing was proving him right. I shook my head. ‘I can do this, ‘ I thought to myself.

“Sounds like a good time.” I smiled at her as we drove.

“Don’t you normally have lunch with Carson? Isn’t he going to be upset?” May asked as we sat down in her familiar hallway.

“Carson doesn’t give a shit about anything.” I answered with a laugh as I opened my lunch pack. “Wouldn’t you know that more than anyone?”

I looked to May with a smile expecting her to give some sort of dry response, but instead I just saw her looking down at her lunch.”Um...” I fumbled, “sorry.”

“It’s okay.” she said quietly. “I just ... I really don’t want to be thinking about boys right now, you know?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, me too.” We exchanged smiles as if we were sharing an inside joke and dived into our lunches.

“Y’know...” she began slowly after a minute of silence, her mouth full. “It’s kind of hard not to talk about it.”

“Is that because of recent events?” I asked, chewing. “Maybe it’s because of how recent they are, too...”

She shrugged. “Is it weird being in the council with Phil?”

I paused. “Well, Phil also says his story is true, keep in mind...” I began slowly.

She caught on. “You don’t know who to believe?” she asked me hesitantly.

“More like I believe both of you.” I answered her. “I’m not ready to say either of you are wrong, so I’m just believing both of you for now.”

“That’s just a nicer way of saying you don’t believe either of us.” she looked everywhere but in my eyes as she told me. “If you believed him you wouldn’t be talking to me. You’d treat me like shit. And vice versa.”

I wanted to disagree, but I couldn’t. “It’s hard.” I replied. “As soon as I choose one person to believe, I’m making a statement that I don’t believe the other person, and I’m not ready to cut either of you out of my life.”

She put her hand on mine and smiled. “I understand.”

“I feel like you knew that I haven’t chosen a side yet even when you accepted my invite to lunch.” I kept going. “I hoped you’d understand. I mean this in the best way possible but this isn’t my problem. I don’t want to be dragged into it when my opinion isn’t even important in the first place.”

“Don’t you feel like you’re going to burst though?” she inquired. “Like, I always need to tell people how I think about stuff. Do you have a diary?”

I was hesitant about telling her, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured it would benefit her. She knew Salvador. Maybe she didn’t like him, but if I knew one thing about that guy, it was that you didn’t need to like him to appreciate him. “Better. I talk to Mr. Salvador.” I practically whispered.

She gave me an incredulous look. “You what?”

“He gave me this offer after he saw my anxiety was affecting the class.”

“You have anxiety?”

I stared straight ahead for a moment. Never, until that point did I ever actually acknowledge it, let alone use the word anxiety. Did I have anxiety? Even after all of my growth I was still really stupidly nervous. Did I actually have a disorder?