Chapter Text
Ryland Grace learned the sour candy trick during a mandatory teacher wellness seminar he almost skipped.
It had been his third year teaching middle school science. Back then he still thought panic attacks were something dramatic that happened to other people, Not him.
Then one happened during fifth period with no warning.
One second he was explaining the Doppler effect, then next his heart was trying to escape out of his ribs.
The room tilted on its side. His stomach dropped. Thirty-two students blurred together into noise and motion and fluorescent lights. His hands shook so badly he dropped the dry erase marker the was holding. His body chose flight. It always chooses flight.
He barely made it into the supply closet before he started hyperventilating. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t stop moving them. What was happening to me?
Afterwards, he'd sat in the nurse's office with an ice pack against the back of his neck while the school counselor gently explained that no, he was not dying, and yes, anxiety could absolutely do that to a person, all while the rest of his fifth period students got to finish the period by watching bill nye.
A week later the district hosted a professional development seminar about student mental health.
Grace attended because attendance was mandatory and because the principal had threatened to personally hunt down any teacher who skipped it.
Most of it was painfully dull. Melodramatic retired teachers with slideshows throwing in buzzwords like their life depended on it.
Then one of the speakers started talking about grounding techniques for panic attacks. This caught his attention.
“Strong sensory input can interrupt escalation,” she'd explained. “Cold water, textured objects, intense smells, and especially sour candy. Sour flavors force your brain to focus on immediate sensory information.”
Grace had been slouched in the back row grading homework during the lecture. At the phrase sour candy, he'd looked up.
The therapist held up a bag of sour gummy worms, “Seriously, you'd be amazed how well this works.”
Naturally, Ryland thought it sounded stupid.
Then two weeks later he had his second panic attack during a parent-teacher conference and ended up desperately chewing an entire handful of sour Skittles the school counselor kept in her office.
And annoyingly, the stupid trick worked.
The counselor explained afterward that grounding techniques worked by dragging the brain back into the present moment. The intense sour flavor overloaded everything else for a second. Interrupted the spiral before it could completely consume him.
He started keeping sour candy in his classroom "for students with anxiety," which was technically true.
He also kept emergency stashes in his desk drawers.
And His car.
And His jacket pockets.
And his backpack.
By year five of teaching, carrying sour Skittles had become as automatic as carrying his wallet.
Most people never noticed.
The students definitely noticed.
“Mr. Grace, can I have one?”
“Only if you're actually anxious.”
“…what if I'm anxious about not getting a Skittle?”
“Creative. No.”
Still, he handed them out constantly. Before presentations. During tests. After breakdowns in the hallway. Sometimes kids would quietly hover near his desk, and Grace would wordlessly slide the bag toward them without making a scene of it.