Fritz peered through the window of his homeroom door before entering; surveying the mass of twenty or so students as they talked, joked, and in general made as much noise as possible before their teacher returned and class started for the day. The chaos caused Fritz to inhale deeply and exhale a rather loud sigh before he even thought about opening the door. 

	He wanted to go in, he had been looking forward to getting back into a routine for over a week, but as he stood here now, something held him back.  There was always a chance that when he entered that everyone would notice him, that even though he spent most of his life in the shadows of his peers that somehow, after all that had transpired, he would become the center of attention. Rumors and gossip spread like wildfire among teenagers and so it was a completely reasonable thought that maybe everyone knew what had happened at Fritz’s home; that all the students in the room would swarm him in a variety of different ways. The very thought made a crawling sensation run down his back.

	Logically though, Fritz knew that people didn’t even notice him enough to gossip about him; that no one cared about him enough to question his at home situation or his sudden absence. Fritz knew that no one would even notice him if he entered the room at the very second, that he could slip onto the nearest wall and slowly make his way towards his desk in the second to last row without any trouble and sit in relative silence until his teacher arrived. He also knew that if he waited for the teacher to come into the classroom, the likelihood of people noticing and questioning him would increase significantly. Logically, Fritz knew all of this. But anxiety didn’t follow the rules of logic, even if Fritz did.

	So minutes went by with Fritz continuing to look through the window and into the busy classroom; resigning himself to the fact that he would be stuck in there for a while longer as he practiced his breathing techniques.