Under the Surface (On Hold)

1: Anxiety

Epinephrine is a powerful neurotransmitter. It increases heart rate, dilates airways and contracts blood vessels. It is produced in exciting and high stress situations.

Epinephrine is more commonly known as adrenaline.

***

She stood there, her eyes nervously flicking about the room. Her palms were laced in a thick layer of water, coming off in waves of perspiration. As she roughly pushed a thicket of brown hair behind her ear, she let out a puff of hot hair.

"Bryanna, go ahead," called the teacher from the back of the room.

Her head jerked up and she gave a solid nod. With a stutter she began giving her class presentation. Normally, an event like this would produce adrenaline - the increased heart rate, the contracting blood vessels, the sweat, the stuttering, the nerves - these would mark the appearance of adrenaline.

"Are you nervous, hun?" asked the teacher, preparing herself to get up from her perch and grab the room's telephone.

"No, no, of course not..." mumbled Bryanna.

"Clearly you are." The teacher quickly called the nurse down to the classroom. All the students knew what this event meant. Bryanna stood distraught, trying her best to avoid showing emotion.

Two women came and collected Bryanna. Once she reached their office they began rounds of ongoing questions. They quickly fired them off at her, coming at her from both sides, creating a greater sense of panic.

"Tell us about it," one said, "being nervous. Is your heart racing?" An air of urgency was breathed in by all in the room. They took a stethoscope to her chest.

"I was not nervous. I would have been fine to present the project." She tried to put a mask on her face in order to hide the emotions.

"These tests are showing that you have something we need to do to you."

She stared blankly at the wall in a look of lost hope. All the feeling in her head drained the full way down to her feet. Her emotions dropped and the world of her own seemed to collapse again.

***

As the light fizzled into her view, Bryanna cringed. Her world was coming back to her in blurry little spots as she opened her eyes.

Before she had reached the full potential of her eyesight, a person flicked between her holes of vision. A thick hat, a cozy pink sweater - the visual workings of her mother. She was at home.

"Bryanna," she claimed, using that typical did-you-really-do-that-again motherly tone. "Do we really have to talk about this again?"

Bryanna brought speed to her sides as she jolted up, slowly regaining her vision from that sleepy stupor she was in. A typical mom-don't-give-me-another-lecture look came over her face. She laid back down in simmered frustration. "I'm sick of it," she mumbled.

"Hun," started her mother again, "you can't let your emotions show... we've got to beat them down."

"Why!" Her temper, as usual, was hot and rampant.

"Temper kills, Bryanna. So does curiosity. You've got that pretty bad too. What's that phrase about the cat?" She continued to speak as she bustled about the room.

"I'm sick of acting boring. Being boring. I want to be excited. I want to live." She looked down sadly. "I want to live again," she repeated. "I want to be nervous. I want to feel again." Although she seemed heated, her heart beat stayed level. It was all apparent.

"If you keep your life secret then they'll never do anything to you."

"If I keep my life a secret, they'll find out eventually. They keep track of it. Keeping my feelings a secret will only make it happen less frequently." She paused. "You know that."

"Of course, of course," she mumbled as she shuffled into the next room, toting a laundry basket in a single hand.

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Bryanna, still cloaked in the darkness of her room as she curled back up on the mattress, that sleepy stupor returning.