My Hero
by Julie Capulet
Chapter One
~ Violet ~
“Today’s topic is …” My psychology professor starts writing some words on the whiteboard. “ … Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is, as suggested, triggered by a life event that has in some way been traumatic. Today we’ll talk about the causes that can lead to PTSD.”
I’m riveted, as usual. I wish I could say there are days that Professor Jackson’s lectures are boring, when I find myself staring out the window while I daydream about football players, like a normal person would. This isn’t quite the case (okay, sometimes I daydream about football players).
In every other area of my life, I’m an outgoing, fun-loving party girl. But when it comes to the study of psychology, I’m a total nerd. I’ve known I wanted to be a shrink since I was around seven years old, which is probably pretty weird. Who knows they want to be a psychoanalyst when they’re seven years old?
Me, as it turns out.
I have three older brothers. I used to use them as my patients, which they of course hated. But there was no escaping me. I made them lie on the couch while I worked through my list of questions, solving all their problems. To this day, they refuse to sit on a couch in the same room as me. But all three of them are well-adjusted, mostly-happy, highly-paid professionals with degrees and nice girlfriends, so I like to think I had something to do with all that.
Now, I’m a freshman studying—you guessed it—psychology. I’m only about a month in, and I’m already loving it. My plan is to be a licensed psychotherapist by the time I’m twenty-seven. A weird aspiration, possibly, but that’s just me. Along the way, though, I also plan on having a fabulous time. Also me. I’m one of those people that can’t not have a good time. Some people call me “bubbly,” “extroverted,” “a social butterfly,” etc. I like to have fun. I figure that’s not a bad thing, so I just go with it.
Professor Jackson continues. “People with PTSD may experience a variety of symptoms including … ” More writing on the white board. “Violet, would you please read out this list?” Professor Jackson loves my enthusiasm.
So I read out the list.
• 1) Feeling emotionally numb
• 2) Feeling detached from family and friends
• 3) Having difficulty maintaining close relationships
• 4) Lacking interest in activities they once enjoyed
“Thank you, Violet,” says Professor Jackson. “Class, your homework for Monday is to read pages 223 to 405, which cover these and other symptoms.”
I’ve already read the textbook, and I’ve already read widely about PTSD, in detail. It must be a terrible thing to go through and it makes me feel grateful.
I’m lucky.
My life has been outrageously trauma-free so far. (Except for one thing, which I prefer not to dwell on.) My parents are happily married and still live in our family home back in Wilmington. My three brothers are rowdy, fun, awesome people. They’re basically my own personal bodyguards, support network and best friends. When my phone buzzes in my pocket, it’s usually one of them, checking up on me, like they do on practically an hourly basis.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Will it be Liam, Henry or Aiden this time?
Come over to Bo’s after your class and hang out with me.
Not my brothers. It’s a snap from my new roommate, Millie. Things have been a little crazy for her lately because she just so happens to have hooked up with the star freaking quarterback and is now practically living with him.
Once they got started, it became very intense very quickly, which is why it’s been so crazy.
I convinced her to come with me to the first game of the season, on our very first day at school. There we were, innocently watching the game, getting to know each other, minding our own business … and that’s when it happened. The über-hot quarterback glanced up at the Jumbotron, which was, in that moment, zeroed in on Millie. She’s gorgeous but sort of tries to hide it because she’s shy AF. But the cameraperson just stayed on her as a gust of wind blew her hat off, letting loose her hair, which is a really unusual and amazing shade of pale reddish-blond. I don’t know why she keeps it hidden all the time, but she always wears it tucked into her hat. And suddenly there it was in all its golden glory, dramatic and glowing under the spotlights on the big screen. The quarterback froze in place like he was starstruck, for so long that everyone in the stands also turned to look at what he was looking at. And then it became this event because everyone was wondering who this beautiful, mysterious girl was that had brought the quarterback and the entire game to a standstill. By then, the coach was going ballistic and Bo almost got taken off because he was so distracted. But he managed to get it together and they won the game. Which we missed the end of, because Millie was mortified and insisted on leaving. Everyone was staring at her and she hates that kind of attention, so I went back to the dorm with her to make sure she was okay.
But then, within less than an hour, the whole thing went viral. One of Bo’s friends, another football player, had posted something about how Bo was looking for Millie. By then she’d been dubbed “the Jumbotron Angel” and it was all #BoWantsToKnow and so on.
Long story short, with the help of basically the entire campus, Bo’s team ended up tracking her down. It took him a while to find her, but once he did, they went from zero to sixty pretty fast.
They’re perfect for each other, you can just tell. I’m not an expert at matchmaking or anything, but it’s just a fact. You can see it by the way they gaze at each other in this annoyingly (in a good way and basically in the kind of way you wish you were gazing at someone) loved-up kind of way.
Anyway, I haven’t seen a lot of Millie since all that happened. Most likely, she’s in Bo’s to-die-for mansion.
Even though Millie and I haven’t known each other that long, and she never even ended up spending a single night in our dorm room, we really clicked, and I miss her.
