Alternate Life ~ A Star Wars Story

8: Trauma

I don't sleep for the rest of the night. There's no way that I can. My nerves are eating me alive, I'm restless. My mind relives the nightmare I received last night. Kylo's words echo through my thoughts.

"You're conflicted."

My emotions need to be released, not shoved deeper inside. It could be the reason why I feel so 'conflicted.' I used to release my emotions by venting to Ben, the only one I knew wouldn't judge me. That's how Kylo knows me so well, he knows me through Ben. He uses it against me.

I move past the blanket door I made and walk to Luke's hut and gently knock.

"Can we start now instead?" I ask.

The door opens and he squints his eyes at me, adjusting to the brightness of the day.

"I guess so. Follow me."

And so I do. I follow him down a path I have not gone yet, to a stone like structure.

"This is another ancient Jedi structure," he informs. "Now I want you to sit in this circle of rocks."

I look on the stone floor and see small pebbles in the formation of a circle. I look at Luke and raise my eyebrows, he rolls his eyes as I step in the circle and sit.

"Now, we have done something like this before. I want you to close your eyes and feel every breath you take."

"Okay," I inhale. I pause and then exhale, breathing in a rhythm.

"Good, now with every breath release the built up tension."

As I continue to breathe, I think about every bit of tension I have been holding in since the nights the academy burned to the ground. I think of Ben walking away from me dying. I think of Leia locking herself away for weeks, depressed that her son turned down a dark path. I think of Luke who abandoning not only me, but his sister. I think of Han and how I didn't step in to prevent his death. I think of every night I couldn't sleep because everything I went through since that night.

"Anne!" Luke shakes me. "What are you doing!?"

I open my eyes and I drop back to the ground. I must have been floating.

"What happened?" I ask puzzled.

Luke points to the stone flooring of the structure, a severe crack runs all the way down the middle.

"I've never seen you like this," he whispers. "You're acting similar to Ben before he turned."

"What?!" I choke as I stand up.

"You need to relax," he puts his hands up in defense. "You need to talk to me, I think that breathing out your tension is not the best idea."

"Well, I guess I'll start at the night where all my trauma began."

"I almost died. Thank god you heard my cries through the crackling flames, but what if you didn't? I would've died knowing that my best friend left me to face death alone. I'm glad you found me because I really didn't want that to burden is soul for the rest of his life, but it just hurts me."

"Which is understandable," he soothes. "Now go on."

"After he turned, Leia shut me out. Actually, she shut everyone out. She sent Han away, she didn't even want to look at me. It took her months to be able to look at me for a couple minutes. It hurt me knowing that every time she looked at me, she saw her son."

My throat begins to feel scratchy, my eyes watering.

"And then you disappeared. Left me alone to deal with it by myself. I was grieving the lost of all those classmates, and I was alone doing it. The only person that shared the traumatic event with me was gone and no where to be found, it hurt."