I. Coagulated clumps of paint cling to the rough wood of the searingly bright white door—some parts opaque and bumpy, some parts translucent and barely covered. In my mind’s eye, I imagine the door’s painter, an almost adult boy, tanned skin still pockmarked with youth, moving his brush deftly along the panels: right, left, middle; right, left, middle. My head jerks up, as my mom painstakingly pleats my hair into two very tight braids; she asks me for the fifth time in Mandarin what I’m going to say to my new third grade teacher. “Good morning!” I say in English, cringing at the way my clumsy Chinese tongue stumbles over the syllables. With every tug on my scalp, I think about my classmates' mouths, chapped and angry as they spit words that I don't fully understand: goody two shoes, ch*nk, dog-eater. I stare down at my shiny, slightly scuffed purple mary janes, and carefully count each faint white ripple on the pale green bathroom tile. One ripple...I trace the round tip of my shoe along a sinuous wave. Two ripples...I smell the sweet and fatty char siu meat; it makes me feel sick. Three ripples... I think about the baleful stares my classmates will give me, their deep-set blue eyes boring into me. A familiar sensation starts to rise within me once again; my ribcage vibrates with each punch of my heart, and my stomach wrings into knots as acidic bile lurches forth to singe my throat. Dark, sticky blood courses through my pulsating veins; blood cells march away from my heart in staccato eighth notes.

 Look at yourself, your plain black hair, your sallow yellow skin, your small ugly eyes. Who would want to be friends with you? Do you hear the way you talk? I bet you won’t have any friends at this school either. 

One ...I tap my foot once, drowning out the voice, Two...I tap my foot twice, syncing it to the beat of my heart, Three ...I tap my foot three times, desperately hoping that school will be canceled, that I won’t have to face the sea of foreign, laughing faces again. Tap...Tap...Tap... I can’t help myself. My mom looks down at my foot and sighs.
 
II. Mom is thirty minutes late. She is never thirty minutes late. Where could she be? If I call her, will that distract her from driving? What if she’s gotten into a car accident? Oh God... what if she’s gotten into a car accident? I gasp beneath a familiar blanket of nausea; gagging, I stumble into the bathroom and heave over the toilet, but only air comes out. As I look into my reflection on the surface of the water—puffy, shiny red eyes; swollen, bulbous nose; and drool-covered chin—I am struck by the stupidity of my worries; why am I worrying? What am I crying about? Why am I worrying about something I simply imagined? I know that I’m spiraling again, that I’ll only end up curled up suffocating on my tears, but still, I can’t empty myself of tantalizing, agonizing hypotheticals. Desperately, I stretch out onto my bed, prop up my elbows, open up YouTube, and turn up the volume to hear the mundane trials and tribulations of influencers’ lives. The voice won’t let me go; it’s hungry for more. So, I immerse myself in my Instagram explore page, drinking in the bright, carefully curated pictures, like a wilting flower desperate for rain. The thought of mom sprawled out onto the pavement, bleeding out red carnations on her stiffly starched shirt still itches at the back of my brain; I scratch and scratch, but the small swollen thought just grows and grows, pushing against my gray matter like an aneurysm. 

You can’t stop me. No matter how many bright pictures of half-melted ice cream cones and pretty pastel bikes you scroll through, you won't be able to forget me. No matter how much you try to numb your mind, you won't be able to shake me off. 

III. The bug bite looks like two conjoined cherries: while the left side is shriveled and dark, with loosely attached wrinkled skin, the right side appears plump and red, and the skin is taut and shiny. I brush my fingers over the hot, inflamed skin, pressing down on the bite to feel its hardness, and pinching it to see if I get a tingling or stinging sensation. After thoroughly prodding the area, I realize there are four red dots: two are large and easy to see, and the other two are smaller and much less visible; both sets of dots look like they were inflicted by fangs. My hand automatically reaches for my phone, and, while I tell myself to stop and not go onto WebMD again, my fingers don’t listen; with a few keystrokes, I’m reading about tick bites, mosquito bites, bedbug bites, and (aha!) spider bites. I scan through the page quickly, scrolling down to the warning on poisonous spider bites. WebMD tells me that symptoms include intense pain at the bite, stiffness or joint pain and etc. Yeah, the bite does hurt. Is it extreme pain, though? It definitely feels stiff, and maybe I am feeling pain in my knee as well. As I run through the list of symptoms, I can feel its voice scratching at the back of my mind again.  It’s fine, I reassure myself, you’re just being paranoid again. 

You want to go tell your mother, don’t you? Go tell your mother. Make her think you’re crazier than she already believes you are. Waste more of her money on useless doctor’s appointments; but still, you don’t want to die do you? 

IV. "Did you see the new episode last night?" I catch snippets of lively conversation as I walk around the dimly lit room, head bent down over my phone, and fingers desperately poking at the dirty screen, hoping to grab onto something, anything familiar. People move loudly around me, hundreds of feet stomping to the beat of youth, exuding endless, vibrating life. What if they see me, standing here all alone? Pretending to look unfazed and disinterested, I reposition my features into a visage of apathy, and I 
stare blankly at the mint green wall that peeks between the bobbing heads of two girls. I notice the heavy step of sneakers on my toes, shoulders jabbing into me, and hair lashing my face; all as I lift my head above the throng in search of a friendly face.
Just like middle school isn’t it? You don’t have friends. Your “friends” don’t care about you. No one cares about you. Why would you come to this party? Look over there. People are laughing at you. Everyone else has someone to talk to. 

A dark shadow swallows the heads around me, and its faded edge comes closer and closer. I breathe in five seconds and out eight; One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. Just take things one breath at a time.