Page 148 of Party Girl: How a Naughty Omega Finds Love
I snatch the paper and shake my head. “A whole page, huh?”
“Please,” he says in a tortured voice. “Just read it.”
I narrow my eyes on him and work my jaw. “I trusted you,” I whisper before studying the first page.
Like he said, the first two pages go over PTSD, CPTSD, and common and differentiating symptoms. I scan through it, noticing a few things that remind me of some of my episodes. Most of these I’ve read about. The books I’d bought to help me understand myself described the same things. The middle of page two goes into Avi’s trauma and how it affects him. I glance at him before turning the page. His eyes are on me, and his lips are pressed into a thin line while he waits for me to finish.
Taking a deep breath, I steel myself for the worst and read the page about me.
* * *
Recently, I met someone with CPTSD. The person I met had been through a lot, years of things I won’t detail in this paper, but enough trauma to have made a lasting impact. When you hear about PTSD, usually the most severe cases are discussed. Or maybe it’s the severe cases that garner the most interest; no one cares about the person who suffers, for the most part, in silence. Unintentionally and almost unknowingly, I had developed a bias in my mind to automatically associate someone with PTSD—in either form—with someone who couldn’t function normally within society.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Normal, of course, is subjective and in itself a social construct, but for the purposes of this paper, normal refers to a competent individual who can live and thrive on their own. Society has the tendency to shame people into silence about their mental health. The powers that be almost don’t want to acknowledge that they themselves have traumatized us in their own ways. Before the shooting, I didn’t even begin to comprehend how complex the disorder was.
As I began to address my PTSD with therapy and self-care practices, some of those biases began to break. I could function, but I was too dangerous to be allowed on the job. My inability to react as needed when guns were drawn put everyone around me in danger. At first, I was mad and that led to more internalized suffering. I spent close to a year withdrawing and shutting out my pack. It took meeting my friend with CPTSD to wake me up. If my friend had gone through worse—for years longer than I had—how could they still smile? How could they still banter and stick up for themselves despite years of being torn down?
It wasn’t until I met my friend that I realized it was okay to laugh again. It’s okay to smile. The friend may never know all the ways they’ve helped me, but I hope one day to give them what they gave me.
A reason to breathe without thinking every intake of air is in vain.
* * *
He didn’t even refer to me as female. He went out of his way to make sure I wasn’t identifiable. I’m officially an asshole.
“Avi,” I say softly, chest tightening with emotion. “It’s not in vain.”
He’s staring at his hands in his lap. “I know that now.”
“I’m so sorry.” I sit on the bed beside him and wrap my arms around him. “I should have trusted you.”
“Don’t apologize. I meant to tell you before but with everything going on, it never felt right.” He looks at me. “I’d never use you for your story.”
I hug him tighter and nod. “Trust is hard.”
He laughs. “I know. One day you’ll know deep down we’d never betray you.”
“I hope so,” I say with a sigh. “Have I mentioned how much I hate my mother?”
“A few times.” He pats my arm, kissing the side of my head and enveloping me in his arms. “You deserved better.”
