21: The Antidote to Righteousness (JP)

.oO(I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this…)
"Mr. De La Rocha?"
Mr. Riley's voice snaps me out of my hamster-wheel brain and I look over to his desk to see him giving me a pleading look. He is telling me, ‘Just say something kid, you're making an ass of yourself’. Because right now I'm standing up at
the front of the class, silent, my sweaty palms making the ink smudge on the papers in my hands.
Oral presentations are not a strength of mine. I'm nervous already. I don't like public speaking of any kind - but everyone is giving their presentations today so everyone is nervous. And now have Mr. Riley feeling nervous for me, which is a whole weird different thing than just feeling someone else's emotions. Feeling when someone else is anxious is one thing, but when they feel that way on my behalf, it's like get stuck in this weird feedback loop where I'm nervous and then I'm nervous that I'm nervous and then I get self-conscious about being nervous and that
makes me more nervous and ... well.
.oO(I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this- I)
"Shakespeare's Macbeth is a grim contemplation of fate versus free will.”
I'm reading on autopilot and my voice is shaky. It makes me feel so small and stupid. My hands are trembling and my mouth is so dry and hope the sound that's coming out is coherent because I'm pretty sure I'm blacking out any moment from from the stress.
My body feels like it's filled with bees. Bees that are moving through the molasses in my veins and using the sludge to build a hive in my stomach. At any moment, I'm going to move my mouth to form the word ‘Banquo’ and a whole swarm is going to come pouring out instead, attacking the class and earning me an F.
At least then I wouldn't have to finish this goddamn presentation.
"-so, yeah, um, on the fate side, we have the actions of the… the Three Witches..."
.oO(Oh god, I hate this), Noah thinks. Poor Caleb looks so uncomfortable he can hear the nerves in his voice. He is exceptionally good at sports, even though he is the jock archetype he wasn’t the kind of guy to swagger through the school like a hotshot. Which he could easily be. But he is confident, he’s a reasonably good student - or at least he used to be - a nice guy with a good rep. Seeing him like this so anxious and unsure of himself is like seeing a bird with all its feathers plucked. To Noah there was just something so wrong about it. No one in their right mind liked giving presentations but he seemed freaked beyond reason. Caleb kept clenching and unclenching his hands, crumpling his already wrinkled notes, which he was barely looking at. He didn’t understand why the guy was so unnerved, everyone knew that oral presentations don’t count as much toward your grade as the essay assignments. But his eyes were darting around the room like he’s expecting someone to leap out from somewhere and attack him at any moment.
“And Lady Macbeth… we can see that, uh, we can see…”
His eyes go wider and he looked desperately at his paper.
Noah thought Caleb had lost his place, it was like watching a car crash in slo-mo.