Page 7 - jesse book

alone and worked her ass off in a nice house, with a dog, in Mid City. My mother was reluctant to ask Jo in fear of being burdensome, but she eventually caved. Jo said she would be more than happy to have me as long as I watched said dog and the house while she was on a trip at the last two weeks of February. Per my mother’s persistence, however, Jo eventually set a monthly rent. A rent that, mind you, was cheaper than when I was living with 7 girls. My mother and I signed the metaphorical papers with a week to spare before the job started.
Everything was falling into place- I had a place to live, somewhat of a job, and I had managed to squeeze in a last goodbye to some friends still left in my hometown for summer. Yet, anxiety had still bored into my head. “What if I don’t get a job at the end of 6 months?”, “What if Jo doesn’t like me?”, “What if LA sucks?” ran through my mind in full sprints. The last notion particularly stuck with me as I had already decided I didn’t like LA.. In the brief experience I had commuting two hours to it every week for the first semester of my senior year, I found no joy in the traffic, the distance, or people walking in the middle of busy streets at 8 pm for no reason. Although, I bit my tongue in fear of disappointing my mother and waited despite how much patience has never been my strong suit.
I jolted out of bed Friday morning, three days before I was supposed
to leave, like Scrooge hearing Marley’s chains. Sweat was oozing from my neck, and my breath was so strained, one would think my throat closed up. I slammed my head back down on the pillow and stared at the ceiling...what had just happened?
It always started with pins and needles on my extremities, nail to femur, wrist to scapula; a pricking sensation would poke me continuously before the internal heat wave. No matter how hot it was, my body needed to be hotter than regular, it pleaded to be shrouded in 3 fleece blankets, and a comforter for good measure. The slightest of drafts felt like premeditated frostbite. From there my body would start to shake. Not convulse or seize, but a slight chatter of my teeth would turn into small jolts which turned into all over full body tremors.
Years prior, I had asked my doctor “Should I be worried that I shake when I’m anxious?” and he concluded “Well, it’s something your body does only when you’re anxious so...” and raised his arms up like some