Life Interrupted

Chapter 2

                                                   

I have, quite frankly, never wanted my class to end faster than in this moment. However, I'm doing my best not to pay the ogre next to me any mind. My professor was explaining to us an example of a young woman who had suffered a traumatic event throughout her childhood. As he spoke, my mind drifted off, and I began to doodle in my notebook since this talk would not be on the Midterm.

I simply made little circles in the corner of my notebook, just shading them in as I went. Next to me I heard a throat clear. I decided to ignore it.

Before I knew it, I realized that the guy next to me had swiped my notebook. I instantly snapped my head in his direction ready to fight. Who does this jerk think he is, taking my stuff?

When I looked up at him, he had a huge grin on his face. It's like he didn't even care that just earlier he had done something so embarrassing and acted like a complete asshole. I was absolutely ready to jab out his eyes in front of the entire class.

"Woah, woah there princess," the guy smirked. He offered me my notebook, which I ripped out of his hands. "Look, there's a discussion question on the board. Considering we're at the front, we should probably get talking before you hurt yourself."

What a cocky fucking bastard. If it weren't for the fact that we did need to discuss a question for the class, I would have literally stabbed him with my pencil. Unluckily for me, I was also sitting in an aisle seat so there was no one on my right side for me to talk to instead.

"Touch my stuff again, and this morning will be the last time you ever get to use your little woodpecker," I said, putting an emphasis on the word 'little'. "So? Get talking."

"First off. My rocket, is not little. Trust me, you'd know if you would've taken a look early," He wiggled his eyebrows, causing me to roll my eyes. "But, sure. I'll go first. I think that talking about your trauma repeatedly is honestly useless. It's probably better if you just mention what you have going on and focus on doing happier things. Your turn."

I honestly wasn't even surprised that his response was about avoidance. Clearly, he rather have fun than focus on things. I've always hated people that took their lives for granted, not realizing that others would kill for an opportunity to go to college. Regardless, I tried to put my emotions aside so that we could end this discussion. Plus, the professor had already begun to go around the lecture hall to see if we were actually talking.

"Okay. I guess, I disagree with you. Research has shown that breaking down your trauma actually helps you get over suffering, " I responded to him. I figured we would just leave it there, but of course this fool always had something to say.

"Sure, some research shows that. But can you imagine repeatedly going over trauma? Like repeatedly talking about watching someone get killed, sexual assault, or abuse? Like I said, you should talk about it once to break it down. But after that, they should focus on things that would remove their thinking from that or they'll stay stuck." He spoke louder closer to the end. He didn't seem to be acting like he knew it all, though. Towards the end, it's like he seemed kind of passionate about the topic.

Seems like there is something very very very deep inside of that thick skull of his. Since he wasn't talking about other stuff, I decided I would comment back once more.

"It definitely does help, though. Talking about it basically desensitizes you, so you can actually realize that won't happen again. Obviously it won't be easy." I said.

"Yeah, but do they even really know if it won't happen again? I mean realistically. Someone that dealt with stuff every day, it's kind of hard to reassure them that it's over. Realistically, things could happen again." He responded. His brown eyes seemed to go a shade darker. I honestly didn't know how to respond back to him because I had a feeling he was talking about more than just this discussion question.