Take a deep breath and relax

Around the first grade I found a marble on the ground, however it wasn’t just any normal marble. The marble looked like a miniature snow globe, it looked full of a thick liquid and tiny white snowflakes, with that in mind it was only about the size of a penny. That was my first time I had touched my lucky charm.

    It had been about 11 years since I first found my “charm” and I had taken it to every test I had ever taken. I was a senior now and had taken well over a 100 tests in my school career and was now heading into my final finals week and I had planned to take it with me to those ones too.

    During tests I would take my “charm” with me, even though teachers always told us to only bring a pencil for finals I had always found a way to sneak it in. I would hide the charm anywhere I could, it felt essential for me to pass all the tests I had taken up to this point. I hid it in my pockets, my socks, tucked it in my shirt, and pretty much anything you could think of. 

    This would be my final testing season of high school and I had planned on taking my “charm” with me, however when I opened the black desk that I’d usually kept it in, it was filled with a thick liquid. The liquid looked to be about the texture of honey, however it smelled icy and burned my nostrils with every breath, almost like smelling a sharpie. 

    When I had opened the desk and saw that my lucky charm had all but melted, I felt my heart begin to beat in an irregular rhythm, and a sense of panic I had never felt before was burning me up from the inside. 

    “Fuck what am I gonna do I start my finals tomorrow,” I unknowingly said aloud in an overly panicked voice, and my mom happened to be walking outside my door and had heard me.

    “Honey are you ok?” My mom seemed more worried than I had seen her in a while. 

    “Yeah I’m fine i’m fine, just a little worried about finals Is all” I don’t know if mom had heard it in my voice or could tell that i was lying but she answered in a way that I’d never heard her speak before.

    “You know i’m always here to talk if you need anything or if something happens, and I know that you want to be valedictorian, but it’s ok however it works out just know that I'm proud of you.” My mom spoke in such a calm and soothing voice that I forgot I had been in a panic, Maybe the thought of valedictorian had taken a heavy toll on me as I sighed a big sigh of relief, and thanked my mom for being so caring.

    I looked out my window and realized it was already pitch black outside. We lived in a quiet neighborhood with very few working lamp posts so my window would usually look like a wall of black paint when it would get dark out. I looked at my phone and realized that it was already 11pm.

    “Hmph guess I spent more time freaking out than I thought, but now it’s time to get some sleep.” I wanted to wake up early tomorrow to get to my class around 7:30 and relax before the final started at 7:35.

~

    I woke up the next morning, not by my alarm clock surprisingly but by a bright ray of light.

    “What the hell, usually the sun doesn’t come up till around 7.” Then it hit me, I turned on my phone and it all but confirmed it. The time read 7:12 and I nearly had a heart attack.

    “Shit I’m gonna be late!” I screeched, sprinting out of bed to get ready only to trip over the corner of my bed and eating shit on the hardwood floor. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to my wardrobe, grabbed the first thing I saw and headed to the bathroom and turned the shower on. I scrambled to get my clothes off whilst simultaneously putting toothpaste on my tooth brush and jumping into the still cold shower water.

    “Ahhh!” I shrieked in a high pitched voice not quite ready for the freezing cold water and almost slipped as a result, but I had no time to waste, I would have to leave by 7:20 just to make it to school by 7:35, there wasn’t time to think I just had to do. 

    I smothered my hair in shampoo and slathered soap around my body with both hands while trying to brush my teeth with whichever hand was least busy at the time. My body was moving faster than it ever had before, at least that's what it felt like. During this frenzy I dropped the soap on the ground and then proceeded to slip on the soap which slammed my back on the edge of the bathtub.

    “Ughhh” I groaned in pain trying to quickly pull myself back into the shower to get the rest of the soap and shampoo off of me.

    I finished my shower with no further incidents but was walking with a slight hunch in my back not being able to straighten it out. I checked my phone for the time and it was 7:19.

    I just had to rush downstairs, grab my keys and maybe a snack and then I was good to leave, what was the worst that could happen, I thought to myself. I ran downstairs and my legs anticipated one extra step that didn’t come and my body proceeded to fold over itself.

    I crashed to the ground and a loud *thud* echoed throughout the house. 

    “Damn I guess that lucky charm really was all the luck I had.” I muttered pulling myself off the ground. 

    Throughout my life I had always thought of my lucky charm as nothing but an object, however it seemed more like a magnet was always pulling me toward it, it became a necessity when I was doing anything. I couldn’t not take it with me when I was going somewhere new or had something important to do, it brought a sense of peace to my mind whenever I had it like it would be a certainty that everything would work so long as I had it with me…

    I pulled myself off the ground and felt a sharp pain in my knee, upon closer inspection I had seen that I had bruised it quite badly, but still I had no time to worry about that now. I was limping my way over to grab my keys from the counter when I took a look in the mirror.

    “Holy shit you look like a mess,” I chuckled to myself.  My hair was a sticking out in multiple places, my face was red, my lip was bleeding, and my shirt was covered in wrinkles. 

    *Sigh* I let out a deep sigh, took a deep breath through my nose and exhaled slowly feeling the air leave my lungs, and all the tension in my body released. I grabbed a tissue for my lip, grabbed my keys and headed off to school feeling much calmer than I had in the past 10 minutes. 

I arrived at school and barreled my way into the first parking spot I saw. I took one last look at my phone and it read, 7:37.

    “Heh, well shit, I guess you can’t win them all, teach is gonna be pissed.” I sighed and gave myself a smile in the rear view mirror. 

    I ran up the stairs leading up to my school and was careful not to trip on any steps, opened the front door, and ran through the halls looking for my first classroom. I blew the door open, pushing it a bit too hard causing it to hit the wall. Apparently I startled everyone because they all looked up from their finals and stared at me.

    I took a deep breath to keep myself from freaking out, it felt like everyone was glaring at me like I had punched their friend. I was screaming inside but pulled myself together, still feeling their eyes on me, I walked up to the front desk and grabbed my final, sat down, and began my first final. 

*1 month later*

    “And now we will hear a word from this year's valedictorian,” the principal's voice echoed through the auditorium.

    They called my name and I stood up in front of the 1000 students that were graduating along with me this year. I reached for my pocket, but quickly stopped myself, and instead took a deep breath.

    *Inhale*

    *Exhale*

    “I guess that whole luck thing is bullshit after all,” I chuckled to myself.