"You just gotta trust me baby."
***
Lourdes Brown has been hurt, badly. Instead of fully healing from her trauma, she turns to drowning her sorrows in work and school. She refuses to let herself get hurt again and has made a vow to not entertain th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Lourdes was terrified.
In the middle of dancing with Rashir, she glanced up and made eye contact with one of her ex's best friend's, Aaron Garcia.
Myles Castillo was a junior at UMD that she dated from the start of her freshman year to the middle of sophomore year. He was incredibly sweet at first and she quickly fell in love with him, but a couple of months into their relationship he turned into a physically and emotionally abusive individual. Anytime he had a minor issue with something that she did, he would degrade her calling her all sorts of whores, sluts, etc. She rarely talked back, but when she did she took a beating and she quickly learned not to defy him. She was able to keep the abuse a secret for some time until Nala came home to him slapping the absolute dog-shit out of her and forced her to call the police. The police did almost nothing and the next morning he beat Lourdes to a pulp, landing her in the emergency room.
Then she was able to file assault charges against him, which he was convicted of and sentenced to 7 years in prison. Last she heard, all of his friends transferred to Georgetown, which was in D.C and she hadn't seen any of them since, so she was confused and freaking out at the fact that she was in the same building as one of them.
Myles was the reason that Lourdes wasn't emotionally stable enough to have a relationship with anyone. She would rather have quick hookups with no strings attached so she didn't have to deal with any sort of feelings.
"Lo, what happened?" She looked up to try and figure out who was talking but everything was fuzzy. "Lo? Lourdes!-" She heard yelling but she couldn't recognize any voices. "She's having a panic attack, Aaliyah get the car." She was confused, was she actually having a panic attack? She hadn't had one since last year, she thought that they had stopped for good. She sat up from her fetal position on the floor and tried to remember things her old therapist would tell her about how to calm down during a panic attack.
"Just breathe and close your eyes, try to focus on your surroundings." She took deep breaths and closed her eyes to count to 10. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10". She was starting to feel better so she opened her eyes and Nala was staring back at her with deep concern.
"Lo? Can you hear me, babe?" Nala reached out to touch her but Lourdes flinched. "It's okay Lo, can you tell me 5 things that you see?" She gulped and nodded.
"Um, you...the grass, the sky, that streetlamp, Gianna, and my rings." She examined her hand and touched her rings to try and bring herself back to reality. She pinched the skin on the back of her hand but stopped when it began to hurt.
"That's good, can you stand up for me?" Nala asked her and she nodded. Gianna and Nala came on either side of her and helped her to a standing position. "Aaliyah's getting the car okay? We're gonna go to Gianna's house because it's closer, is that okay?" She asked and Lourdes nodded again, she didn't feel like speaking.
