On these personal pages, I wanna talk about what the story is and give more details about the plot (obviously without spoiling it).
With the desire to be perceived as a normal person, Cassie enters College expecting life to be different than what she's used to from highschool, but reality hits her and things are no different. Is something wrong with her? Does she have to change to be... normal?
Navigate this complicated thing we call identity together with Cassie and see how life unfolds for the struggling teen.
From Chapter 6
For Cassie, the minutes after that conversation went by as slowly as they could. She could almost count the seconds from when class started, ended, when they were given their assignment, how long it took to leave class and when she arrived back at her dorm.
She fell on her bed and relished in the fact that she didn’t have a roommate to be bothered by. Cassie pulled herself up to her bed and reached for her laptop where she figured to distract herself. If she didn’t think about the presentation part, she could relax for a bit.
So she got to work and referred to their grade sheet as to what they had to have in their project and started to make the outline. While she intently focused on this, it was almost as if she had never heard the fact that she had to present their assignment. This worked as a distraction and an hour passed by in no time.
When she was satisfied with the skeleton of their project, she composed an email and sent it to Kohaku. She then called him.
He answered, “hey.”
“Hey… I just sent you an outline of the project.”
“Already? We just left class.”
“And I’ve already done some work. Look, I don’t like to slack on things unless I know I can finish it in like an hour. That’s why I’m a little glad I’m working with you since I won’t be doing all the work for once.”
“I kind of feel the same." She could almost hear his smile. "But, there’s no need to work on it so soon. It’s not due until two weeks from now.”
“Yeah, why did she give us two weeks on this? This feels like a weekend project, but we’re given so much time on it and that makes it worse.”
“How?”
“Because I have to think about this project for two weeks when it could just be a few days.”
“Look, you never know what people might be dealing with so this time is good for most people.”
“Yeah, but it just kind of annoys me, you know?” Her voice deflated.
“Trust me, I can imagine… but, I’ll check it out when I-” Kohaku stopped talking.
Cassie checked to see if she hung up by accident, but when she saw the time still ticking.
“You still there?”
“Y-yeah, I am.” He paused again. “I just wanted to ask if maybe we could just meet up to work on it.”
“Dude, I already changed.” She sighed softly. “But I guess I could-”
“No! I… I could just go to your dorm.”
Her eyebrow rose. “You’d be cool with that? I mean no one was really around during Halloween, but now people might get the wrong idea.”
“Honestly, it’s better than my room. My roommate brings his girlfriend over all the time, it’s just a little distracting, but I could use a change in scenery.”
Cassie thought for a second when he said that. She grew a little curious after hearing him say the word ‘girlfriend’. Even with their month-long friendship, she barely knew anything about him and his personal life. Maybe that was normal, but she felt insensitive for not even being concerned about his life when he was helping her so much with hers.
“I don’t mind, at least,” she said.
“I’ll be over in a little bit then.” He sounded excited.
“Alright, see you.”
They each hung up and even Cassie felt a bit excited now. She rested against the wall that hugged her bed and stared off.
“So… this is what hanging out feels like?” She smiled a bit and picked up her game controller to pass the time.
Finally, this is a story I wrote recently so I can stop talking about high school. This was a story I decided to make because I kept seeing anxiety being used in shows and movies and it was always portrayed really strangely. Like, we all know the typical "person passes out or has a panic attack" in movies, but that isn't normal anxiety. To portray it as so kind of makes it seem like anyone who has anxiety can't even experience things that give them anxiety, but most of us can. It's a matter of how much of it can someone take. Oh, yes you read that correctly, I actually have anxiety and it is a very heavy part in almost all my stories. Cassie almost always has anxiety about social situations, new experiences, and her general life. Or GAD, much like I believe I have (disclaimer: I've never been diagnosed but I seriously cannot even present a slide show to a class without feeling like my chest is going to explode).
In this case, I wanted to write a story in which a character realistically has anxiety and realistically solves it. To me, this story was much sweeter than what is normally showcased in shows where the resolution is High School Musical.
Also, I wanted to write this to show people a proper ways to handle those with anxiety and one major rule in this story is to NEVER say "why are you so worried about it?" Seriously, a little PSA, if you know someone who has anxiety, please don't say this to them. They are very aware their fears are mostly irrational and there's no actual reason why they’re stressed.
There's no real lore in this story. It's just a little sideshow attraction more than anything that I wanted to write because well... I like to write.
The characters in this story are Cassie and Kohaku. It's a sweet romance between them to show how someone can handle someone else with anxiety and how someone with anxiety overcomes those feelings.
I actually made a cover for this, but I originally made this cover. Ultimately I didn't like how it looked aka I hate my lack of drawing skill and changed it to what I have now.
