Trapped (Bullied Book 4) (Bullied Series) Vera Hollins (best large ereader txt) 📖

You’re always hypervigilant because anything or anyone can hurt you. Imagine walking through the unknown where any object, person, sound, smell, word, color—you name it—could be your next trigger. You keep watching out for triggers, but they can be anywhere, even your own thoughts or feelings. And when you encounter a trigger, you’re brought back to your trauma. Repeatedly. Many times a week. Hell, many times a day.

“That’s a flashback, and it’s the worst because it’s like you’re seeing a movie of your trauma playing out in front of your eyes, but it’s also so much more. You’re reliving it. You’re there. You struggle to breathe. Over and over again. You’re stuck in those moments. You feel the same fear, anger, panic, physical pain, sounds, smell…and you can’t prevent it from happening.”

“You’re…you’re saying you actually go through all of that as if it’s happening to you again?”

“Yes.”

“And you feel…you feel physical pain? For real?”

He swallowed hard. A visible rigidness to his shoulders was always present. “It depends on the kind of flashback, but usually yes. I can feel pain.”

I pressed my lips together to stifle a horrified gasp. The claws of his trauma had gotten into him too deep. I never could’ve imagined he was going through all of this—stuck in a loop, always held captive.

“But what about your real surroundings? How about when you’re talking to people? How do you deal with it then?”

He raised his eyes from our connected hands to look at me. “It’s downright confusing because I can be completely unaware of my present surroundings, or the flashback can mix with them, so I can see, feel, and hear everything at the same time.” He ran his hand down his face and sighed heavily. “You’ve been around me having a flashback twice already.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I have?”

“Yes. Once in the janitor’s office when he told us about our detention, and once on the basketball court before we played one on one.”

I inhaled sharply, reminded of those times when he’d spaced out. “So that’s why you looked like you weren’t there.” He nodded. “And the hand rubbing?” I pointed at his hand.

“It’s my grounding technique.”

“What’s that?”

“It helps me focus on the present and pull out of the past more easily. I can’t quite avoid flashbacks, but I’ve learned over time to pull out of them more quickly. I can’t always pull out, but at least I can manage to deal with them on my good days.”

“Good days?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed his forehead, looking extremely tired all of a sudden. I wondered if talking about it caused him more stress. I waited for him to continue.

“There are good days, bad days, and just…days. At times, flashbacks can fuck me up so much that I can barely function for the better part of the day.”

“And there’s no way for you to stop them from happening?”

He smiled ruefully. “No. I can try to avoid triggers, but I can’t control everything. So I just use coping strategies I’ve learned in therapy, but it’s hard because I have to do it over and over again, and it never actually stops. It’s like trying to reach the top of the mountain, but you always slip down, and just when you think you’re closer to the top, you realize you’re nowhere close to it. You’re in the middle, at best.

“There are extra things that drag you down. Panic attacks, mood swings, uncontrollable anger…so much anger. Little things can anger me so easily, and it feels like my chest is going to explode if I don’t get it out somehow. That’s where basketball, fights, and racing come in. They help me deal with stress and anxiety.”

“And you listen to loud psytrance to drown out your thoughts,” I said, referring to what he’d said in his car.

He met my gaze. “Yes.”

“But I don’t understand. How do you do it? How do you go to school and function?”

The lines of sorrow settled deep in his face. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I really don’t know. I just do all I can to push through fear and stress. I just…keep on living.”

Push through fear…

“I know fear the best. Hell, fear destroyed my life! But I never stopped fighting it. Every second of my life, I’m fighting it. You? You just run away from it, but running away doesn’t make bad things disappear.” His words from the gym returned to me with a punctuating echo. “Fight back.”

Now, I could fully understand what was behind those words. I could fully understand why he’d seen me as a pathetic coward. There he was, always fighting through the horrors of his life, and then there was me, running away from them and sweeping them under the rug. It was no wonder he hadn’t respected me.

I hadn’t respected myself. Or him. But now that I knew what was hiding beneath his exterior, I couldn’t see him as the old, ruthless Blake anymore.

I tucked my hair behind my ears. I wanted to know everything, but I didn’t want to pry too much. I was amazed that he trusted me enough to share all of this with me. No matter what paths we were going to take going forward, we were allies in this moment.

I wrestled with my thoughts for a bit, until I decided to ask the burning question: “What are your triggers?”

He closed his eyes, grimacing. “I can’t actually talk about it, because even that’s triggering for me.”

“I see.” I twisted a strand of my hair around my finger and released it. “Well, bananas are falling from the sky, making monkeys high, and children are hanging from the trees, spending time with bees.”

He snapped his eyes open and chuckled. “Are you on something? What was that about?”

“I’m just coming up with whatever I can to keep your mind off triggers.”

His eyes shifted between mine for a few seconds, peering deep into me, before he burst into more chuckles. He shook his head. “I should’ve known you would be like this.” He reached out and cupped