It wasn’t that BryLeigh disliked math, it just made her nervous as hell. She couldn’t do anything right in that class. And it was her second class. She couldn’t exactly avoid it, or else her teacher would mark her absent and then the school would send a message to her mom telling her that her daughter was absent and then her mom would get worried and angry at the same time, and there’d be a lot of shouting when she got home and she just couldn’t deal with that right now.

“Stop it,” BryLeigh hissed at Anxiety. Her monster had climbed up onto her shoulder, swinging his clock in front of her face. His ears perked up, and he scampered back down into her sweatshirt pocket.

“Stop what?” a voice said next to her.

BryLeigh blanched. “Um, nothing. Just talking to myself.”

Dayton looked at her. “Uh, then why did you say, ‘stop it’?” He was her only friend in math class, and it was kind of obvious that he had a massive crush on her. Which made her even more anxious.

I probably shouldn’t answer, BryLeigh thought, biting at her finger nails. I’ll probably just say something stupid and he’ll look at me really weird, and then he’ll tell his friends and then they’ll think I’m weird, and then they’ll tell their friends, and pretty soon the whole school will think I’m weird and no one will want to be my friend anymore.

“Okay, I get it!” BryLeigh growled at Anxiety, who had clambered back onto her shoulder. “Now leave me alone, please!”

“What are you talking about?” Dayton asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Ah, it’s n-none of your business. Leave me alone.” She watched anxiously for Dayton’s reply, hoping she didn’t hurt his feelings. He was her only friend, and he didn’t treat her like a freak.

“Well, who pooped in your cheerios this morning?” Dayton teased, folding his arms and putting on his best pouty face.

“I don’t eat cheerios,” BryLeigh said crossly. She just wanted him to leave her alone. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. Especially when Anxiety was a lot more talkative than usual.

“Well, sorry,” he said, dragging the word out. “I’ll leave Mr. Salty alone.” He walked over to his desk, sitting down with a hefty sigh.

BryLeigh ignored him. He could be so annoying. But I probably shouldn’t think about him like that. He  is  my only friend. What if he’s starting to hate me? What if I say something wrong and it actually hurts his feelings? What if he won’t talk to me anymore?

“Shut it!” she growled at Anxiety. She looked down at her desk. Anxiety was staring back at her, twitching his fluffy ears. His tail wrapped around her hand and hauled himself up her arm and onto her head.

BryLeigh frowned and grabbed Anxiety from the top of her head. “Can you please just leave me alone for one minute?”

Anxiety squeaked and wriggled out of her grasp, hopping down onto her desk. At that exact moment, the person sitting in front of her turned around and put her hands on BryLeigh’s desk.

“Hey, did we have any homework yesterday?” she asked. Unseen below the girl’s hands, was Anxiety, clutching his pocket watch. The girl’s hands phased through Anxiety, as if he weren’t really there at all.

BryLeigh had seen this happen a couple times. Her mom had touched Anxiety, and she didn’t even seem to notice. She had come to the conclusion that no one could actually see Anxiety... except her. And she still didn’t know why.

“Hey, did you hear me?” the girl asked, cutting through her thoughts. “Did we have homework yesterday?”

BryLeigh forced her gaze away from Anxiety. “Um, I don’t think so. Ask someone else who might know for sure.” She was never good at telling people to go away.

Stop making excuses, BryLeigh thought to herself angrily. I can tell Dayton to go away, but no one else? Man, why am I so weird? When you tell people to go away, they think you hate them and that they’re weird and they’re disgusting.

“Can you leave me alone, please?” BryLeigh hissed at Anxiety. “What can I do to get rid of you? And how come I’m the only one who can see you?”

Anxiety only stared at her with his empty sockets, twitching his ears back and forth. BryLeigh frowned thoughtfully.

Come on, she chided herself. If Anxiety could actually talk, wouldn’t he have said something by now?

Anxiety squeaked as if in answer to her thoughts. She glanced at him, narrowing her eyes. Anxiety never made a direct response to her thoughts, he only generated the anxious ones. What was going on?

Anxiety held his pocket watch out in front of him and tapped the cracked glass with one claw. BryLeigh glanced at the clock, and sighed inwardly. Class was about to start.

But Anxiety seemed to shake his head, and scratched at the clock frantically. She raised one eyebrow. Anxiety sometimes gestured to his pocket watch when BryLeigh was running late, or if she had missed something important.

But Anxiety seemed to stimulate an emotion to BryLeigh that screamed, You are late! Hurry up or you’ll be in trouble! You’ve forgotten the most important day of your life!

BryLeigh’s head pounded with the strong emotion. She glared at Anxiety, frowning at him. “Are you doing that?” she whispered, looking around to see if any of her classmates were watching her. “Stop it! That hurts! That’s really annoying!”

If BryLeigh was expecting an apology, she was sorely disappointed. Her head settled, then the feeling increased ten fold and shattered her skull. Anxiety stared her down, holding up his clock and tapping it.

He squeaked, urgency filling Anxiety’s empty eye sockets, and his tail flickered with importance. Running out of time!

The overwhelming feeling felt like it was splitting her head in half. “Stop it, please! You’re hurting me!”

The emotion stopped immediately, and Anxiety placed his paw on her hand. Was it concern that BryLeigh saw in his expression? Late. The word flashed in front of her eyes in bright red. Follow me.

“What are you doing?” she hissed at Anxiety. Were those words from Anxiety? He had never done this before. He never acted like this. This was so strange!

Before BryLeigh could think anything else, Anxiety sprang up from her desk and stood in front of the doorway to the classroom.

What the hell? People came in and out of the classroom, passing though Anxiety like he was a ghost.

He glanced back at her, then ran from the classroom.

Almost immediately, all the anxious and worried feelings left her. She felt confident and happy, talkative and chipper. BryLeigh looked around the classroom, and her eyes settled on the clock. There were three minutes until the bell rung.

Screw it. Math’s not important anyway.

She got up from her desk, glancing around if anybody was watching. Dayton caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

But she ignored him, and ran out of the classroom. She saw a brief flash of Anxiety weaving in between other students legs, pausing occasionally and glancing back to see if BryLeigh was following.

What the hell is going on?