The Perfect Date II - The Morning After
Before you read -
In this chapter I have decided to give the main character a name, i originally wasn't going to do this as leaving the character nameless would make it easier for the reader to connect with them more and pretend they're the main character, but i have thought the story out fully and thought that doing this would cause too many issues with my style of story telling. Enjoy
The Perfect Date II – The Morning After
I woke up the next morning in the best mood I have been for a long time, all of the memories from the date with Joy were still fresh in my mind. I laid there just thinking about how cute she was, how every time she smiled her eyes beamed with excitement, I had never felt this way about anyone before. In my mind I kept on replaying the moment where she giggled and when she laughed at me, and when she played with the balloon. I found it funny how in that moment where she was messing around with the balloon, I had never been more terrified, but now that I think about it again it was actually quite cute. I loved that childish side of her, the way she was hugging it and throwing it in the air, it made her smile so much. If only balloons weren’t terrifying maybe i could enjoy them too, but with my lifelong fear of them popping I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I just hoped that the next time we met there wouldn’t be any balloons, so I wasn’t always on the edge of my seat.
I decide to stand up and walk towards the balloon that I hid in my cupboard, I opened the doors and took a step back out of fright as soon as I saw it, I had no idea how it lasted all night without popping as it was the tightest balloon that I have ever seen. I went to grab the door handle to close the cupboard and hide this tight ball of stress and anxiety from my terrified eyes, but something stopped me, a voice in my head was trying it’s best to encourage me to pick it up, but why would I do that? I mean this balloon made Joy happy yesterday, maybe if I can get used to playing with balloons then I can make her happy by playing with balloons too and not have a nervous breakdown every time she blows one up. I feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins begging me to pick it up, it shouts in my ears to play with it and forces my hand to grab it. I have never felt this way before, a mixture of fright and panic but also determination. If I can overcome my fear of balloons then maybe Joy will fall madly in love with me, maybe she’ll want to be my girlfriend and want to be with me forever. With my eyes fill with dedication, I feel a wave of courage as I go to grab the balloon.
I grabbed it by the knot and took it from the small dark cupboard, as soon as I pulled it out I shut my eyes tightly out of fear that it’ll randomly burst, I put one finger in my ear and stretched the balloon out as far away from me as possible. My body froze with fear. And then…the most unexpected thing ever happened…nothing. Literally nothing happened. There was no bang, no ear shattering explosion, nothing. So I tried my best to calm myself down, I took some slow, deep breaths and I began to relax. After a few minutes I regained my confidence and I looked directly at the balloon, as soon as I did, I was breathless. I watched the morning sun shine straight into its latex skin lightly up the balloon and making this already see-through balloon glow like a red lantern. I couldn’t stop watching the sun’s rays shining through the tight red balloon, it was actually beautiful. I just couldn’t stop looking at it, how could I be scared of such a beautiful thing, it looked like heavens gates were literally shining behind it, it was truly breath taking. I stood there for ages just staring into this red beauty when suddenly my phone started to ring loudly.
The sudden loud noise of my phone ringing scared the hell of out, it made me jump so much that I jumped back and landed on the floor. As I did, I accidentally let go of the balloon and threw it up into the air. I watch in terror as it started to float directly to the corner of my bed side table, I got myself up off of the floor and try my best to stop it. Terrified, I try to jump in its way to try and stop it from landing on the corner, I lunge towards my bed side table quickly like a lion pouncing on its prey. I watch as the balloon was inches away from it, I try to run quicker and quicker. Not thinking about how fast I’m actually going until…CRASH!!! I crash headfirst straight into the bedside table giving me a serious headache, the balloon lands on top of me mockingly while bouncing off of my head and rolls safely on the floor next to me. I sigh a huge sigh of relief that the balloon didn’t meet its demise. I grab my phone and answer it while rubbing my head in pain.
“Hello” I said as i answered the phone.
“Hey Franklin, it’s Tommy, I hope I didn’t wake you” replied Tommy, my best friend in the whole world “I was wondering if you were free, I want to hear more about your date yesterday”.
“Yeah, sure thing, I’ll tell you everything” I said, with the biggest smile on my face “I’ll be round soon I just need to get dressed”.
“Sure thing mate, I’ll see you soon” he said while ending the call. I placed the phone on my bed whilst looking over to the balloon again and placed my hand on top it.
“Really?” I questioned myself “Why on earth did I think such weird things about a balloon?”, I just shrugged it off and started to get dressed.
Just for some context, originally I met Tommy in high school, but back then I didn’t really like him that much as he was a pretty big bully. He would always pick on people and make fun of them, and when he started to pick on people he never knew when to stop, he would bully them day after day, just trying to make them look small so that he looked big. When I was around him, I was terrified that he would find out about my fear of balloons popping as I knew he would bring balloons in every day and pop them around me, that’s the kind of person he was. I was so relieved when high school had finished as it meant that I would never see him again, but to my horror I found out that he got into the same college as me, I was so nervous about going to class, I tried avoiding him as much as possible. Then one day we had a project to do in pairs, which were randomly chosen, and of course I was paired up with Tommy. After working on the project together for 6 weeks and getting a well earned A together for our hard work, we started to hang out more out of college and slowly I began to trust him. And to this day we’re still best friends. At first I was worried about being his friend but during our time talking and getting to know each other I found out that he was just misunderstood. He explained why he picked on people, and I actually understood and sympathised with him. He’s a pretty understanding guy. Our personalities are the complete opposite though, he a very outgoing, loud, sporty person while I’m very quiet and timid. I’ve honestly always been jealous of him, he’s so much stronger than me due to him working out in a local gym, which explains his really strong arms. He has short brown hair, brown eyes and is always wearing top brands and super expensive clothes, I really do wish I was more like him.
Fast forward back to present day, I got dressed as fast as I could, shoved a piece of toast in my mouth and set off. It was only a 10-minute walk, I arrived at his house and knocked on his door and waited until he opened it. He ran to the door and invited me inside, we both ran upstairs to his room and sat on his bed talking, while I told him everything about the date yesterday. I showed him pictures of her and told him everything that she told me about herself, explaining that she’s the quiet type just like me, and that she went to the same high school as us. I told him about the meal and the walk home and that I was so close to kissing her and I knew she wanted to kiss me too could see it in her eyes, but she just wanted to play hard to get. While telling him all of this I couldn’t help but smile the entire time, until I told him the next part.
“Everything went amazing apart for the balloons” I explained to him “they were everywhere, and she untied one and started to blow one up even bigger and, if I hadn’t of said anything, she would have blown it up until it exploded”.
“Wow really?” he questioned “when I told you about the restaurant, I had no idea you were afraid of balloons, I only suggested it as Megan always wants to eat there all of the time, I’m so sorry you must have been terrified”.
“Oh I was, and so was pretty much everyone else in the restaurant, but that didn’t stop her in fact she was smiling the entire time she was blowing it up, like she was enjoying it. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy a balloon like that before, for some reason they seem to make her really excited and happy”.
“That’s so strange” Tommy commented “but my girlfriend, Megan is exactly the same. She loves balloons too, she asks me to blow them up all of the time for her, sometimes while watching tv and sometimes when we’re in bed, it’s pretty weird but I just go with it as it seems to make her happy. The only difference is that she absolutely hates is when they pop it scares the hell out of her, I have no idea why she likes balloons so much but doesn’t like the bang, it’s the best part”.
“I mean the bang is terrifying” I laughed “but I guess this whole balloon thing might just be a girl thing. It’s strange, I had no idea that girls enjoyed playing with balloons, I wish I could play along and not be so nervous around balloons all of the time, just so I can make her smile with them”. Tommy laughed at my request and walked over to his best side table, pulling out a packet of multi-coloured balloons. I didn’t know what to say, as soon as my eyes laid contact on that bag of balloons I started to get seriously anxiety, I started getting a little sweaty. What is he going to do now?
Tommy just laughed at how nervous I was I told me to relax as nothing bad will happen, he opens the packet and hands me a blue balloon. I hold it in my hands nervously, it feels pretty different from all of the balloons that I have blown up in the past, for some reason these ones feel a little bigger and a lot thicker than any balloons that I have bought from the supermarket.
“I always keep these balloons next to the bed while Megan is over” he explains “She gave these to me one day and asked me to blow them up claiming that these ones are her favourites, I think you can already tell they’re a little bigger than normal balloons, I think she said they are 14 inches”. I hold the balloon in my hand as a wave of nerves flood my body.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Tommy asked, “blow it up, get it as big as you’re comfortable with”. So, I put my lips to the balloon’s mouthpiece and I start to blow, I blew into it gently at first as I didn’t want it exploding in my face straight away but it didn’t inflate. I blew into the balloon harder, but it refused to expand. I kept on blowing until the face turned completely red, that’s when Tommy stopped me.
“Franklin please stop you’re going to make yourself pass out” he yelled, so I stopped blowing. “These balloons aren’t your normal everyday supermarket balloon they’re a lot thicker, you have to really put some force into your breath to stand any chance of inflating them”. So, I took his advice and placed my mouth to the balloon one more time, this time I was determined to blow this up as big as I possibly could.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and blew as hard as I could, my breath flew inside the balloon with force making it expand. As soon as I felt the balloon expand a huge wave of motivation hit me, filling my whole body with adrenaline and forcing me to blow into it again and again. I kept on going blowing with all my might, I put in more and more breaths which filled the balloons body up completely, making the balloon tight and clearly fully inflated. But this wasn’t enough, my whole body craved more, it was such a strange feeling, but I knew that I couldn’t stop, not with this much adrenaline in my veins. I put my hands on the balloon feeling how tight it had become, I pressed my fingers gently into its body and the results shocked me so much, it was tighter than I thought but still had some space left. Without thinking and still with my eyes tightly shut I blew harder into the balloon, it was becoming harder and harder to breath into it now, the pressure was building which only fuelled my excitement and made me blow it up even bigger. As I blew into the balloon, I could feel the neck stretch out slightly, so I instinctively grabbed the mouthpiece and tugged on it, as I did the neck shot out like a cannon completely filling in with air and releasing pressure from the body. I gently squeezed the body to see just how much pressure that released into the neck, I placed my fingers on top of this tight balloon and gently pressed my fingers into it, feeling the pressure. I smiled to myself as I felt the balloon had become a little squishier. another huge wave of adrenaline hit me, I couldn’t resist I had to blow more into it, without thinking I was blowing into it more and more, faster and faster. I could feel the balloon resisting but I didn’t give up I just kept on blowing.
It was getting really hard to blow into the balloon now, but it didn’t stop me, if anything it made me want to blow it up even more, I couldn’t stop now, I can’t let this balloon win. With the balloon neck now pressing tightly against my lips, I blew as hard as I could, but it was getting really hard to blow. I didn’t know why I have been scared of this my entire life as this was a great feeling, I have never felt so much energy before, it felt incredible. I placed both of my hands against the balloon to test how tight it had become, I pressed my fingers into it’s body and to my pure amazement the balloon was completely full, I struggled to even press my finger down it was that tight, it was as hard as steel. I rubbed my hands on the balloons tight skin, as I did the balloon squeaked loudly filling my whole body with pleasure. I kept on feeling the soft, smooth latex skin and every time the balloon squeaked it sent wave after wave or adrenaline flooding my entire body. I couldn’t stop now, I put my lips back against the mouthpiece ready to blow one more breath into it. That’s when I made the absolute worst mistake of my entire life as I decided to open my eyes.
As soon as I laid my eyes on the balloon, that’s the exact moment where I lost all confidence, all of the adrenaline which was flooding my body was now circling the drain. I pinched the neck with my fingers and looked at this blue ball of nightmare fuel. It was far bigger than I had ever thought was possible, the neck was stretched out so much that I could feel it pressing against his fingers, the body had lost it’s red colour and was now completely transparent. I could feel the balloon struggling and I could sense that it was going to explode at any second. I almost passed out in fear just looking at it. My whole body starting trembling as sweat leaked all over my body, it looked like I had just come out of the shower. I held the balloon as far away as my body as possible and started to struggle to breathe, what do I do? Do I let it go and let it explode as it hits something while flying around the room, or do I keep holding onto it which will make it explode right next to me? I couldn’t think, my head was clouded with so much fear, my head started to spiral into panic attack mode. That’s when I felt something grab my hand, I look up as I watch Tommy grab the balloon out of my trembling hand, he then lets some of the air out before it has a chance to burst. I cant help but smile at this act of kindness as I burst into tears.
“I thought you were going to pop it” he says, “honestly, you were one or two breaths off making it explode, I thought you were scared of balloons popping”.
“I am scared, I’m terrified” I respond, trying to explain myself “i…I don’t know what came over me, as I was blowing up that balloon, I didn’t feel scared, all I wanted to do was to keep blowing, I can’t describe it, it’s like I didn’t acknowledge just how tight the balloon was”. Tommy just laughed at me and admitted that even he was a little excited getting ready for the huge bang, he had loved popping balloons ever since he was little.
After a while I had calmed myself down, thanks to a lot of deep breaths. Tommy made sure that I was completely calm until he moved on to the next stage of his help. He took the balloon that I had blown up, which was half of the size as he let a lot of air out of it, and he tied it off, then turned to me and said,
“That last activity ended in an unexpected way” he laughed “but this next step will be more challenging, Megan and I have spent a long time talking about her fear and she told me that the one thing she hates most is people handling balloon, like squeezing them and blowing them up”. As soon as he said that I knew exactly what was coming, my stomach was doing backflips. He smiled gently at me and then started to squeeze the balloon, as soon as his fingers made contact and dug into the balloons skin, I covered my ears and turned away. He sighed and put the balloon down.
“Come on Frank, you’re not going to overcome your fear if you’re just going to hide from it” he said to encourage me “what happened to wanting to overcome this for Joy? What happened to making her happy? I won’t pop it alright? But I don’t want you hiding from your fears anymore”. He smiled at me gently and I smiled back, he’s right though, I need to do this, I need to make Joy happy. I nodded at him and told him I was ready to retry.
He picked up the balloon again and placed his hands around it, I felt my heart rate increase a little but I still remained calm. I watched as he gently massaged the balloon with his fingers, grinding his fingertips across the balloons skin causing it to squeak loudly which made me feel pretty uncomfortable, but I wasn’t giving up. Noticing that I was coping well, Tommy began squeezing the balloon harder, I could see his fingers digging into the body as I looked inside the balloon, I watched him squeeze it harder while his fingers dug deep into the balloon further and further. I tried my best to stay calm but it was difficult, he just smiled at me as he grabbed the balloon roughly and started to scrape his fingers across the balloon, which caused it to squeak even louder. While he roughly squeezed it he kept laughing to himself, like he was enjoying it, this made me feel even more uncomfortable so I asked him to stop but he didn’t, he just kept on squeezing the balloon more and more, forcing the neck of the balloon to stretch out. The harder he squeezed the balloon the further the neck would stretch, this was getting way too much for me so I yelled at him to stop, but he didn’t listen, he just squeezed it harder and harder. I couldn’t do anything except sit back and watch his fingers almost meet in the middle of the balloon, the neck was bulging out like crazy but it didn’t stop him in fact I think it only encouraged him. I plugged my fingers in my ears seconds before the balloon gave way with the loudest bang I have ever heard in my life. I jumped so much while shrieking out in terror, I couldn’t stop myself from shaking as tears flooded from my eyes. Tommy saw me crying, which made him snap out of it.
He ran over to me and gave me a huge hug while apologising continually, I could hear the genuine guilt in his voice as he didn’t mean to lose control like that, I shakingly smiled at him and forgave him instantly, knowing that it wasn’t his fault as i ensured him that I wasn’t mad at him. I knew the reason why he teased people and made them feel small was because of what happened is his childhood, he hates talking about it. He spent the next half an hour trying to calm me down but watching my best friend use my fear against me like was way too much for me.
“I’m so sorry” he apologised “I know what happened when I was younger has scarred me for life but it’s no excuse for me to scare you like that and make you feel small, I thought I had grown out of that. I hated myself in high school because that’s all I did. Admittedly, watching you squirm when I squeezed the balloon gave me flash backs to when we were in high school. There was this one girl, I can’t remember her name, but she had a huge fear of balloons and I brought balloons into school every day to scare her, I don’t know why I did it. I popped balloons in her face for 6 months straight, every single day. I wish I could remember her name so I could apologise to her, I hate this part of myself I really do”. I gave him another really long hug and assured him that no matter what I would always be by his side. But we agreed that because of his mentality he shouldn’t help me with my fear anymore. Together we came up with a plan for me to overcome my fear of balloons without him squeezing balloons, but I needed some balloons, and not just any balloons but really good quality balloons that wouldn’t pop when i blew them up. After a few minutes of searching on my phone I found a balloon shop a few miles north, it was called ‘Latex Castle’. I decided to say goodbye to Tommy as I walked towards the bus stop, excited about taking a stand to my fear, I have never been to an actual balloon shop before, I wonder how I’ll cope.
In this chapter I have decided to give the main character a name, i originally wasn't going to do this as leaving the character nameless would make it easier for the reader to connect with them more and pretend they're the main character, but i have thought the story out fully and thought that doing this would cause too many issues with my style of story telling. Enjoy
The Perfect Date II – The Morning After
I woke up the next morning in the best mood I have been for a long time, all of the memories from the date with Joy were still fresh in my mind. I laid there just thinking about how cute she was, how every time she smiled her eyes beamed with excitement, I had never felt this way about anyone before. In my mind I kept on replaying the moment where she giggled and when she laughed at me, and when she played with the balloon. I found it funny how in that moment where she was messing around with the balloon, I had never been more terrified, but now that I think about it again it was actually quite cute. I loved that childish side of her, the way she was hugging it and throwing it in the air, it made her smile so much. If only balloons weren’t terrifying maybe i could enjoy them too, but with my lifelong fear of them popping I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I just hoped that the next time we met there wouldn’t be any balloons, so I wasn’t always on the edge of my seat.
I decide to stand up and walk towards the balloon that I hid in my cupboard, I opened the doors and took a step back out of fright as soon as I saw it, I had no idea how it lasted all night without popping as it was the tightest balloon that I have ever seen. I went to grab the door handle to close the cupboard and hide this tight ball of stress and anxiety from my terrified eyes, but something stopped me, a voice in my head was trying it’s best to encourage me to pick it up, but why would I do that? I mean this balloon made Joy happy yesterday, maybe if I can get used to playing with balloons then I can make her happy by playing with balloons too and not have a nervous breakdown every time she blows one up. I feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins begging me to pick it up, it shouts in my ears to play with it and forces my hand to grab it. I have never felt this way before, a mixture of fright and panic but also determination. If I can overcome my fear of balloons then maybe Joy will fall madly in love with me, maybe she’ll want to be my girlfriend and want to be with me forever. With my eyes fill with dedication, I feel a wave of courage as I go to grab the balloon.
I grabbed it by the knot and took it from the small dark cupboard, as soon as I pulled it out I shut my eyes tightly out of fear that it’ll randomly burst, I put one finger in my ear and stretched the balloon out as far away from me as possible. My body froze with fear. And then…the most unexpected thing ever happened…nothing. Literally nothing happened. There was no bang, no ear shattering explosion, nothing. So I tried my best to calm myself down, I took some slow, deep breaths and I began to relax. After a few minutes I regained my confidence and I looked directly at the balloon, as soon as I did, I was breathless. I watched the morning sun shine straight into its latex skin lightly up the balloon and making this already see-through balloon glow like a red lantern. I couldn’t stop watching the sun’s rays shining through the tight red balloon, it was actually beautiful. I just couldn’t stop looking at it, how could I be scared of such a beautiful thing, it looked like heavens gates were literally shining behind it, it was truly breath taking. I stood there for ages just staring into this red beauty when suddenly my phone started to ring loudly.
The sudden loud noise of my phone ringing scared the hell of out, it made me jump so much that I jumped back and landed on the floor. As I did, I accidentally let go of the balloon and threw it up into the air. I watch in terror as it started to float directly to the corner of my bed side table, I got myself up off of the floor and try my best to stop it. Terrified, I try to jump in its way to try and stop it from landing on the corner, I lunge towards my bed side table quickly like a lion pouncing on its prey. I watch as the balloon was inches away from it, I try to run quicker and quicker. Not thinking about how fast I’m actually going until…CRASH!!! I crash headfirst straight into the bedside table giving me a serious headache, the balloon lands on top of me mockingly while bouncing off of my head and rolls safely on the floor next to me. I sigh a huge sigh of relief that the balloon didn’t meet its demise. I grab my phone and answer it while rubbing my head in pain.
“Hello” I said as i answered the phone.
“Hey Franklin, it’s Tommy, I hope I didn’t wake you” replied Tommy, my best friend in the whole world “I was wondering if you were free, I want to hear more about your date yesterday”.
“Yeah, sure thing, I’ll tell you everything” I said, with the biggest smile on my face “I’ll be round soon I just need to get dressed”.
“Sure thing mate, I’ll see you soon” he said while ending the call. I placed the phone on my bed whilst looking over to the balloon again and placed my hand on top it.
“Really?” I questioned myself “Why on earth did I think such weird things about a balloon?”, I just shrugged it off and started to get dressed.
Just for some context, originally I met Tommy in high school, but back then I didn’t really like him that much as he was a pretty big bully. He would always pick on people and make fun of them, and when he started to pick on people he never knew when to stop, he would bully them day after day, just trying to make them look small so that he looked big. When I was around him, I was terrified that he would find out about my fear of balloons popping as I knew he would bring balloons in every day and pop them around me, that’s the kind of person he was. I was so relieved when high school had finished as it meant that I would never see him again, but to my horror I found out that he got into the same college as me, I was so nervous about going to class, I tried avoiding him as much as possible. Then one day we had a project to do in pairs, which were randomly chosen, and of course I was paired up with Tommy. After working on the project together for 6 weeks and getting a well earned A together for our hard work, we started to hang out more out of college and slowly I began to trust him. And to this day we’re still best friends. At first I was worried about being his friend but during our time talking and getting to know each other I found out that he was just misunderstood. He explained why he picked on people, and I actually understood and sympathised with him. He’s a pretty understanding guy. Our personalities are the complete opposite though, he a very outgoing, loud, sporty person while I’m very quiet and timid. I’ve honestly always been jealous of him, he’s so much stronger than me due to him working out in a local gym, which explains his really strong arms. He has short brown hair, brown eyes and is always wearing top brands and super expensive clothes, I really do wish I was more like him.
Fast forward back to present day, I got dressed as fast as I could, shoved a piece of toast in my mouth and set off. It was only a 10-minute walk, I arrived at his house and knocked on his door and waited until he opened it. He ran to the door and invited me inside, we both ran upstairs to his room and sat on his bed talking, while I told him everything about the date yesterday. I showed him pictures of her and told him everything that she told me about herself, explaining that she’s the quiet type just like me, and that she went to the same high school as us. I told him about the meal and the walk home and that I was so close to kissing her and I knew she wanted to kiss me too could see it in her eyes, but she just wanted to play hard to get. While telling him all of this I couldn’t help but smile the entire time, until I told him the next part.
“Everything went amazing apart for the balloons” I explained to him “they were everywhere, and she untied one and started to blow one up even bigger and, if I hadn’t of said anything, she would have blown it up until it exploded”.
“Wow really?” he questioned “when I told you about the restaurant, I had no idea you were afraid of balloons, I only suggested it as Megan always wants to eat there all of the time, I’m so sorry you must have been terrified”.
“Oh I was, and so was pretty much everyone else in the restaurant, but that didn’t stop her in fact she was smiling the entire time she was blowing it up, like she was enjoying it. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy a balloon like that before, for some reason they seem to make her really excited and happy”.
“That’s so strange” Tommy commented “but my girlfriend, Megan is exactly the same. She loves balloons too, she asks me to blow them up all of the time for her, sometimes while watching tv and sometimes when we’re in bed, it’s pretty weird but I just go with it as it seems to make her happy. The only difference is that she absolutely hates is when they pop it scares the hell out of her, I have no idea why she likes balloons so much but doesn’t like the bang, it’s the best part”.
“I mean the bang is terrifying” I laughed “but I guess this whole balloon thing might just be a girl thing. It’s strange, I had no idea that girls enjoyed playing with balloons, I wish I could play along and not be so nervous around balloons all of the time, just so I can make her smile with them”. Tommy laughed at my request and walked over to his best side table, pulling out a packet of multi-coloured balloons. I didn’t know what to say, as soon as my eyes laid contact on that bag of balloons I started to get seriously anxiety, I started getting a little sweaty. What is he going to do now?
Tommy just laughed at how nervous I was I told me to relax as nothing bad will happen, he opens the packet and hands me a blue balloon. I hold it in my hands nervously, it feels pretty different from all of the balloons that I have blown up in the past, for some reason these ones feel a little bigger and a lot thicker than any balloons that I have bought from the supermarket.
“I always keep these balloons next to the bed while Megan is over” he explains “She gave these to me one day and asked me to blow them up claiming that these ones are her favourites, I think you can already tell they’re a little bigger than normal balloons, I think she said they are 14 inches”. I hold the balloon in my hand as a wave of nerves flood my body.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Tommy asked, “blow it up, get it as big as you’re comfortable with”. So, I put my lips to the balloon’s mouthpiece and I start to blow, I blew into it gently at first as I didn’t want it exploding in my face straight away but it didn’t inflate. I blew into the balloon harder, but it refused to expand. I kept on blowing until the face turned completely red, that’s when Tommy stopped me.
“Franklin please stop you’re going to make yourself pass out” he yelled, so I stopped blowing. “These balloons aren’t your normal everyday supermarket balloon they’re a lot thicker, you have to really put some force into your breath to stand any chance of inflating them”. So, I took his advice and placed my mouth to the balloon one more time, this time I was determined to blow this up as big as I possibly could.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and blew as hard as I could, my breath flew inside the balloon with force making it expand. As soon as I felt the balloon expand a huge wave of motivation hit me, filling my whole body with adrenaline and forcing me to blow into it again and again. I kept on going blowing with all my might, I put in more and more breaths which filled the balloons body up completely, making the balloon tight and clearly fully inflated. But this wasn’t enough, my whole body craved more, it was such a strange feeling, but I knew that I couldn’t stop, not with this much adrenaline in my veins. I put my hands on the balloon feeling how tight it had become, I pressed my fingers gently into its body and the results shocked me so much, it was tighter than I thought but still had some space left. Without thinking and still with my eyes tightly shut I blew harder into the balloon, it was becoming harder and harder to breath into it now, the pressure was building which only fuelled my excitement and made me blow it up even bigger. As I blew into the balloon, I could feel the neck stretch out slightly, so I instinctively grabbed the mouthpiece and tugged on it, as I did the neck shot out like a cannon completely filling in with air and releasing pressure from the body. I gently squeezed the body to see just how much pressure that released into the neck, I placed my fingers on top of this tight balloon and gently pressed my fingers into it, feeling the pressure. I smiled to myself as I felt the balloon had become a little squishier. another huge wave of adrenaline hit me, I couldn’t resist I had to blow more into it, without thinking I was blowing into it more and more, faster and faster. I could feel the balloon resisting but I didn’t give up I just kept on blowing.
It was getting really hard to blow into the balloon now, but it didn’t stop me, if anything it made me want to blow it up even more, I couldn’t stop now, I can’t let this balloon win. With the balloon neck now pressing tightly against my lips, I blew as hard as I could, but it was getting really hard to blow. I didn’t know why I have been scared of this my entire life as this was a great feeling, I have never felt so much energy before, it felt incredible. I placed both of my hands against the balloon to test how tight it had become, I pressed my fingers into it’s body and to my pure amazement the balloon was completely full, I struggled to even press my finger down it was that tight, it was as hard as steel. I rubbed my hands on the balloons tight skin, as I did the balloon squeaked loudly filling my whole body with pleasure. I kept on feeling the soft, smooth latex skin and every time the balloon squeaked it sent wave after wave or adrenaline flooding my entire body. I couldn’t stop now, I put my lips back against the mouthpiece ready to blow one more breath into it. That’s when I made the absolute worst mistake of my entire life as I decided to open my eyes.
As soon as I laid my eyes on the balloon, that’s the exact moment where I lost all confidence, all of the adrenaline which was flooding my body was now circling the drain. I pinched the neck with my fingers and looked at this blue ball of nightmare fuel. It was far bigger than I had ever thought was possible, the neck was stretched out so much that I could feel it pressing against his fingers, the body had lost it’s red colour and was now completely transparent. I could feel the balloon struggling and I could sense that it was going to explode at any second. I almost passed out in fear just looking at it. My whole body starting trembling as sweat leaked all over my body, it looked like I had just come out of the shower. I held the balloon as far away as my body as possible and started to struggle to breathe, what do I do? Do I let it go and let it explode as it hits something while flying around the room, or do I keep holding onto it which will make it explode right next to me? I couldn’t think, my head was clouded with so much fear, my head started to spiral into panic attack mode. That’s when I felt something grab my hand, I look up as I watch Tommy grab the balloon out of my trembling hand, he then lets some of the air out before it has a chance to burst. I cant help but smile at this act of kindness as I burst into tears.
“I thought you were going to pop it” he says, “honestly, you were one or two breaths off making it explode, I thought you were scared of balloons popping”.
“I am scared, I’m terrified” I respond, trying to explain myself “i…I don’t know what came over me, as I was blowing up that balloon, I didn’t feel scared, all I wanted to do was to keep blowing, I can’t describe it, it’s like I didn’t acknowledge just how tight the balloon was”. Tommy just laughed at me and admitted that even he was a little excited getting ready for the huge bang, he had loved popping balloons ever since he was little.
After a while I had calmed myself down, thanks to a lot of deep breaths. Tommy made sure that I was completely calm until he moved on to the next stage of his help. He took the balloon that I had blown up, which was half of the size as he let a lot of air out of it, and he tied it off, then turned to me and said,
“That last activity ended in an unexpected way” he laughed “but this next step will be more challenging, Megan and I have spent a long time talking about her fear and she told me that the one thing she hates most is people handling balloon, like squeezing them and blowing them up”. As soon as he said that I knew exactly what was coming, my stomach was doing backflips. He smiled gently at me and then started to squeeze the balloon, as soon as his fingers made contact and dug into the balloons skin, I covered my ears and turned away. He sighed and put the balloon down.
“Come on Frank, you’re not going to overcome your fear if you’re just going to hide from it” he said to encourage me “what happened to wanting to overcome this for Joy? What happened to making her happy? I won’t pop it alright? But I don’t want you hiding from your fears anymore”. He smiled at me gently and I smiled back, he’s right though, I need to do this, I need to make Joy happy. I nodded at him and told him I was ready to retry.
He picked up the balloon again and placed his hands around it, I felt my heart rate increase a little but I still remained calm. I watched as he gently massaged the balloon with his fingers, grinding his fingertips across the balloons skin causing it to squeak loudly which made me feel pretty uncomfortable, but I wasn’t giving up. Noticing that I was coping well, Tommy began squeezing the balloon harder, I could see his fingers digging into the body as I looked inside the balloon, I watched him squeeze it harder while his fingers dug deep into the balloon further and further. I tried my best to stay calm but it was difficult, he just smiled at me as he grabbed the balloon roughly and started to scrape his fingers across the balloon, which caused it to squeak even louder. While he roughly squeezed it he kept laughing to himself, like he was enjoying it, this made me feel even more uncomfortable so I asked him to stop but he didn’t, he just kept on squeezing the balloon more and more, forcing the neck of the balloon to stretch out. The harder he squeezed the balloon the further the neck would stretch, this was getting way too much for me so I yelled at him to stop, but he didn’t listen, he just squeezed it harder and harder. I couldn’t do anything except sit back and watch his fingers almost meet in the middle of the balloon, the neck was bulging out like crazy but it didn’t stop him in fact I think it only encouraged him. I plugged my fingers in my ears seconds before the balloon gave way with the loudest bang I have ever heard in my life. I jumped so much while shrieking out in terror, I couldn’t stop myself from shaking as tears flooded from my eyes. Tommy saw me crying, which made him snap out of it.
He ran over to me and gave me a huge hug while apologising continually, I could hear the genuine guilt in his voice as he didn’t mean to lose control like that, I shakingly smiled at him and forgave him instantly, knowing that it wasn’t his fault as i ensured him that I wasn’t mad at him. I knew the reason why he teased people and made them feel small was because of what happened is his childhood, he hates talking about it. He spent the next half an hour trying to calm me down but watching my best friend use my fear against me like was way too much for me.
“I’m so sorry” he apologised “I know what happened when I was younger has scarred me for life but it’s no excuse for me to scare you like that and make you feel small, I thought I had grown out of that. I hated myself in high school because that’s all I did. Admittedly, watching you squirm when I squeezed the balloon gave me flash backs to when we were in high school. There was this one girl, I can’t remember her name, but she had a huge fear of balloons and I brought balloons into school every day to scare her, I don’t know why I did it. I popped balloons in her face for 6 months straight, every single day. I wish I could remember her name so I could apologise to her, I hate this part of myself I really do”. I gave him another really long hug and assured him that no matter what I would always be by his side. But we agreed that because of his mentality he shouldn’t help me with my fear anymore. Together we came up with a plan for me to overcome my fear of balloons without him squeezing balloons, but I needed some balloons, and not just any balloons but really good quality balloons that wouldn’t pop when i blew them up. After a few minutes of searching on my phone I found a balloon shop a few miles north, it was called ‘Latex Castle’. I decided to say goodbye to Tommy as I walked towards the bus stop, excited about taking a stand to my fear, I have never been to an actual balloon shop before, I wonder how I’ll cope.
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