He was sitting in his car, staring at pedestrians as they walked by and lived their lives. He envied how easily they shared their lives with each other, how they could communicate without the constant fear of being wrong or different.

He took a moment to look the recently filled prescription for amphetamines in his lap. The amphetamines helped him focus on the puzzles he had once loved, but the puzzles became uninteresting. The drugs that once focused his energy and helped him to ignore his fears about people and the world would now only make his anxiety worse.

He opened the bottle and shook it until several blue capsules filled his palm. He stared at them for a minute before he brought them to his open mouth and swallowed them. It had become to much for him to handle, the loneliness, the pain. He seemed incapable of connecting with another person in any meaningful way and simple interactions, such as talking to the cashier when purchasing groceries, seemed to sap all his energy.

A few hours later he took a seat in the back of the classroom, somewhere he thought no one would notice him, somewhere he thought he was safe from an endless barrage of meaningless conversation. Inevitably though, they would notice him and to use his name even though he had not introduced himself. On the rare occasion that he spoke, he could feel them watching him, judging his every action and every word, and knew that he had failed somehow. Nothing he said or did would ever be right; he would forever feel the disappointment of those around him weigh down on him like a sack of bricks.

He could feel his heart racing faster than it ever had before, and in that moment he knew he would never be lonely again.