Hi! This is my first upload here, and also one of my first semi long term multi-chapter fics (I mostly write one-shot drabbles). I hope it intrigues some of you? c:
Glossophobia
The fear of public speaking or speaking in general
"Holy shit. Ugh."
May awoke with a start at the blaring sound of her alarm clock. Slowly sitting up and blinking the sleep out of her eyes, the teenage girl shut off the digital alarm clock by reflex. Five more hours, please. She blearily thought. It was a mistake to have been up pretty late talking to Brendan over the phone. Man, could he hold an interesting conversation. She forced herself out of bed, taking a quick shower and managing to get herself dressed.
A half hour later, she was walking into her high school building, feeling like the physical equivalent of death, a travel mug of coffee clutched tightly in her hand as if it were life support. In a way, it was. May trudged to her locker, sliding her binders out of her backpack and shoving what she didn't need black inside. Glancing to the side, she noticed Brendan approaching her. He notably looked like death as well. Good, she thought, not particularly wanting to be the only one feeling so shitty today.
"Hey, May," Brendan puffed once he got within earshot, binders already in tow. "I'm starting to regret letting you talk to me all night." With that, he yawned, giving her a good humored glower.
"You know, I kinda remember you doing a decent amount of talking last night too." And with that, she clicked her locker closed, starting off down the hallway in the direction of her first class. She and Brendan had the same homeroom, so they typically went there together. Before they got too far, though, she heard a male voice call her name. May flinched slightly as a response. With the amount of sleep she got, the teenager didn't exactly feel up to doing anything aside from just trudging through classes today.
And yet, she turned to face whoever had called after her, and was pleasantly met with the face of Maxie, even if he was wearing one of those stupid sweaters he usually donned. They'd never been close but he shared a few classes with her and despite his ridiculous obsession with science, Maxie was actually a pretty cool guy. If just a little bit stuck up. More like with a little bit of a stick in the butt, May observed with secret amusement.
"Oh, mornin'," She tried not to yawn. She failed, and shared a vague look of irritance with Brendan, who had come to stand next to her. The red haired boy took note of both of their appearances immediately, and pushed his glasses a bit higher up on the bridge of his nose.
"You two look…" He began awkwardly, arching one eyebrow.
"-Like shit?" May finished, taking a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, we kinda spent the whole night talking about literally nothing." She gave her friend a nod, narrowing her eyes good naturedly. He pretended to scowl.
"At least I had stuff to say, you were the one talking about that literal nothingness!" Brendan said with a look of feigned hurt now. "I cannot believe you would stab me in the back. And in front of this innocent young man here!" Moving quickly, he grasped Maxie's shoulders, much to the dislike of the taller boy.
"Us guys need to stick together in these trying times, otherwise evil people like her," Maxie glowered at him, silent as Brendan pointed a finger at May. "Are gonna take advantage of our innocence!"
"I sincerely doubt that." Maxie promptly shoved accusing boy off. Amusement bubbled inside May, and she sidestepped the two, attempting not to laugh at Brendan's look of pretend astonishment. The 'astonished' boy himself quickly gathered himself and followed after her, leaving the slightly frazzled red head to stare after the pair as if he wanted to say something.
Oh well, if he had anything important to tell me, he would've told me. But she didn't really care. Classes were going to start in a minute and she really didn't want to be late, May was tired enough as it is. Once they'd reached their first class, they plopped down tiredly in their designated seats, both too exhausted to really socialize today.
The day went by smoothly enough, but she was just so tired. When lunch finally came around, May practically dropped her tray onto the table as she slid in next to Brendan, stifling yet another yawn. Neither were very talkative today, and when their friend Wally sat down at their table, he frowned a bit. Even though Wally was a few grades below them, a freshman, they still talked to him. May had to admit, he was pretty cute. Sometimes she felt responsible for how well he did in school.
"Did you guys seriously stay up late again?" The freshman asked in a small voice, sounding incredulous. "I really thought you learned your lesson last time!"
"Me too," Brendan mumbled, all previous enthusiasm from the hallways earlier vanished. "I gotta admit, May," He glanced at the brunette he was referring to, who raised her head tiredly. "We really fucked up. But at least I got you caught up on the latest tech, right?" Brendan perked up slightly. She had to admit, Poketech was pretty cool these days.
"Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited to get my PokeNav, if I don't feel like stabbing this into my throat by the end of the day," She held up a fork gingerly. "I'll probably go get one later this afternoon."
"I'll register you as soon as you get it, okay?" Brendan chirped around a mouthful of food, which to May, didn't look appetizing at all. She normally brought her own lunch, but she was too tired today to bother. Wally just looked generally concerned.
"Okay. Sure." Personally, the girl felt like smashing her face into a wall. They continued their reign of silence, until she could have sworn she saw Maxie staring at her from a few tables away. She signed it off as her tiredness before she glanced sideways and saw him staring again. Almost immediately he looked away, and resumed whatever he was talking about to the person sitting in front of him. On a normal day, she would have gotten up and attempted to talk to the nerd king himself, but today was just not her day.
This went on and on until lunch was dismissed, and the trio had to break apart at this time of day. Of course she didn't have any classes with Wally, he was a freshman, but she and Brendan only had first block together. May had the last class of the day with Maxie, and she would have to remind herself to ask why the fuck he was staring at her like a magikarp today. Arceus, I really don't want to deal with this crap today. The senior groaned inwardly as she made her way into her third block classroom, and found herself having a difficult time paying attention.
All she could think about was sleep. Sleep was literally all that mattered and maybe getting her awkward classmate to not stare at her during lunch. Yeah, that was a good plan. Then when she got home, she'd do her homework, get that PokeNav, and go to sleep. Nothing was going to stop her from achieving that ultimate goal.
In the end, she did forget about asking Maxie why he was acting up. He was acting pretty normal in class, and May was just so fucking tired. Finally, when class was over, she got to go home. The school wasn't very far from her house, so she usually just walked there. Exceedingly tired, she dragged herself up the stairs after a brief greeting with her mother. May's dad was a gym leader, and sometimes didn't always come home.
"Hey, Felisha." May greeted her shinx, who her dad had brought back for her from his trip to Sinnoh. The electric type pokemon blinked in response, and did not rise up from her place on the bed. She walked over and gently rubbed behind Felisha's ears, who purred quietly, sliding her backpack off her shoulders.
She tossed her backpack next to her desk, dropping into the seat with a heavy sigh. For a moment she just sat there, her head in her hands. She had a whole packet to do for science and like, a million trigonometry problems to do from her textbook. With a heavy sigh, May opened her backpack and yanked out her books.
It wasn't long before she fell asleep at her desk, she'd only managed to break a small dent in her math homework. It was Friday, but she really preferred to get all her school work done before the weekend. That way she'd have more time to sleep. May managed to get about two hours of sleep before she felt herself being nudged awake by her mother, who had her cellphone in one hand. If she wasn't so tired she would have protested, but the girl was still half asleep.
"May- Wake up! Your cellphone has been going off for the past 10 minutes, it was driving me insane," Her mother set the phone down on the desk in front of May impatiently, who was still blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "It's some boy, I have him on hold."
"Okay okay, thanks." May mumbled, picking up the phone. Her mother walked out of the room, and she resumed the call as soon as she heard the click of her door shutting. "Hello?" She found herself stifling a yawn. She was doing a lot of yawning today.
"It's me." Maxie's voice resounded from her phone speaker, it always had that sort of intensity that caught her attention. "I wanted to call about the partner project? Possibly we could work together on that…" He didn't sound unsure. This wasn't abnormal between the two, they'd occasionally done projects together before.
"Project…? Uh, yeah. Sure!" She jolted up, having forgotten there even was a partner project in the first place. It didn't surprise her with how many they seemed to get. Quickly, the brunette began digging through her science binders until she found the assignment papers where she'd shoved them. "Do you want to like uh, meet up somewhere? Or we could just use email back and forth about it, I dunno." May adjusted the phone between her ear and shoulder as she paged through the rubric packet, having to stop a groan from escaping her throat when there was evidently a physical part of the project they'd have to build.
There was a pause.
"While it would be a bit easier to do it that way, I'd rather we communicate in person." She could have sworn she heard typing. "My parents will be… Out of town on an important boating trip for a while. And if we're going to be building this, I'd rather I have your input and assistance, you can come over to my house?" He finally began to sound painfully awkward, and May couldn't help but grin. Maxie never had a knack for physically building things. While he was good at writing theories and essays, he always managed to glue something to himself, to the wrong part of the project, or both.
"It's not due in like, two weeks, but I guess finishing it early would be pretty nice." May knew this was something he'd agree to, both she and Maxie had a bit of a thing for getting done ahead of time. "I'm free on Sunday, just email me your address, okay?"
"And…" More typing. "Done. When do you think you can get here?"
"I dunno, maybe around three? That should give us enough time to finish the harder stuff before it gets late and shit." She switched on her computer, a bit curious to find out where Maxie lived. They usually did projects at May's house.
"Uh, that sounds good," Maxie cleared his throat. "I'll see you then?"
"Yeah! See you then." She ended the call, setting her phone down on the desk and leaning back in her chair. In truth, Maxie was cute, but she'd never considered dating him or anything, he was just a really good assignment partner and even a pretty good friend when he wasn't being stuffy. She cast Felisha a frazzled look, and the shinx blinked back at her in befuddlement. May was going to go to Maxie's house. On Sunday. Oh Arceus, this might be interesting.
I'd really appreciate if any readers could review and leave constructive criticism or thoughts! Thanks! ;w;
