Not having to listen to her disappointment was at least one less thing for him to be stressed about, and really, that’s what his life had come down to. How many moments he could gather in a week, a month, where he didn’t actively feel like he was being swallowed alive.
Rabbit!
That voice from his forgotten memories echoed in his mind like a ghostly mantra, and he struggled to repress it.
When they’d first started, the doctor had told him the brain sometimes forgot things in order to protect the person. Whatever Rabbit had forgotten about the horrendous night that had sparked all of this, he didn’t want it coming back.
He didn’t want to remember.
Rabbit!
His free hand struggled to unzip his black bag which he’d placed on the table in the private dressing room he’d been given before the show. As a senior, it was one of the perks afforded him, a silver lining to add to the abysmally minuscule list. Last year he’d had to sneak off to the bathroom and hideout in the stall to have these attacks. Now at least he could do so in the comfort of his own space without fear of being walked in on.
After what felt like a million years, he finally managed to get the zipper to open, hand diving into the bag to feel around for the half-eaten snap bar he’d placed in there before leaving home. As soon as he got it, he tore the foil wrapper and shoved a piece of mint and chocolate candy into his mouth.
The second the flavors hit his tongue, some of the ringing in his ears abated, and the longer he chewed, the better it got.
He hated this.
He hated how it made him hate performing.
He hated himself for allowing things to get this bad.
When he’d been younger, getting on stage had meant everything to him. Every waking moment had been spent trying to achieve what, at the time, had felt unachievable. He’d idolized his mother and wanted more than anything to be just like her. His very first time playing in front of an audience had been thrilling. Invigorating. Rabbit had walked away from that experience feeling alive.
It hadn’t been like that for him in a long time.
Planting his palms on the table, he steadied himself, his breathing starting to even out as he calmed. Were the attacks getting worse? This wasn’t even a big show, just a small recital put on by the music department. He’d been asked last minute if he would fill the final slot because they’d needed something impressive due to possible investors in the crowd or some such nonsense. Rabbit had tried to turn it down, citing his busy practice schedule, but then his professor had told him Bin Zimir was going to be in attendance.
Trying to explain that things hadn’t gone well to his mother after the botched date had been…horrible was too light a word. She’d screamed at him for well over ten minutes and gone on and on about how this could possibly be a career-ending move. He’d almost blurted that he’d be happy with that, only catching himself at the last minute.
The call had ended with her ordering him to figure out a way to make things right with Arlet, and Rabbit had bitten his tongue and kept to himself that the two hadn’t even made it far enough into their date to get to the exchanging of numbers portion.
He’d found her account easily enough on Inspire, the popular social media app that practically everyone in the galaxy used, but she’d set her account to private and had yet to accept his message request. If she blocked him he wouldn’t blame her.
Baikal Void might be popular and heir to a massive conglomerate, but he was also Brumal, and even though everyone on campus and in town whispered about how hot he was, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t scatter the second he glared their way. Like how he’d done the other night to Arlet.
Rabbit still didn’t understand what any of that was about, but he figured Void had been waiting on his Imperial friend to arrive and had decided to have some fun with him while he was at it. All that talk about overhearing his conversation about the date with Sila was probably just added in to make him uncomfortable—and it’d worked. He’d been on edge ever since that stupid encounter even though the likelihood of the two of them running into one another again was slim.
They’d gone three years on the same campus, using the same cafeteria even though there were five, without ever having once bumped into one another before. It must have been a fluke that day, a very unfortunate example of the wrong place at the wrong time. Now that he’d messed with him a little, Baikal would no doubt forget all about Rabbit and they could go back to orbiting in their own universes.
And his, whether he liked it or not, involved the beiska.
He glanced at his instrument set carefully on its glass stand in the corner. The crystal hourglass shape winked in the harsh overhanging florescent orb lights that bobbed around the ceiling of the small rectangular room. There was a leather sofa, his makeup table, a single chair, and then another long table that took up the length of an entire wall on the opposite side. Whenever he returned from the stage that table would be filled with gifts and flowers and words of congratulations.
The buzz Rabbit used to get from such things had also dwindled, with one exception.
He turned and leaned back against the edge of his makeup table, staring at the empty space across from him, trying to picture the large bouquet that would await him once he returned. There’d yet to be a single performance in the past year that didn’t end exactly that way, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on when that particular flower delivery had started to mean more to him than any of the rest.
Flowers that were even now dried and decorating his entire practice room back home. His pathetic attempt to brighten that place where the worst of his mother’s punishments had happened.
And so long as he did this, got his shit together, and went out on that stage again tonight, he’d be able to add to that collection.
It was sad, but that’s what he needed. Something, anything, to cling to, to make this whole ordeal more bearable. To make it feel worth it again.
A knock came on the closed door and he realized with a start that his mind had wandered to his secret admirer, and in doing so, he hadn’t noticed his panic attack was dwindling. When a voice on the other side informed him he was due outside in three minutes, Rabbit straightened from the table and reached for his instrument.
He’d dressed in all white as per usual, the flowy material of his long-sleeved shirt drifting around him as he exited the room and made his way down the wide black hallway toward the stage area. Workers and other students bowed their heads to him in greeting as he passed, but he paid them little to no attention, too focused on talking himself down from any lingering negative emotions that may try to creep their way forward now that he was growing ever nearer to the stage.
