She took a deep breath and then continued. “As for my brother, he had no business sticking around here last night when he realized I wasn’t home. Just because he has a key, and you live here now, it didn’t give him free rein to badger you; and I am so sorry that happened. I want you to know that I confiscated his key so he can’t get in without knocking anymore.”

“That’s not right. He’s your brother and should have a key for emergencies. Wes is your person.”

“My brother might be my person, but he took advantage of that, and I no longer trust him with it. That’s not on you. I could have been stashing a secret boyfriend here who I didn’t want him to know about. The key was for emergencies, not so he could bypass having manners and knocking, or calling before he came over.” She smiled at me to let me know that her reasons for taking his key ran deeper than just having provoked me into a complete mental breakdown.

“Now, since we’re on the subject,” she insisted, “what exactly did he say to cause the flashback?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you, because everything leading up to the panic is kind of a blur now. We were talking about Tucker and he kept saying things that were totally contradictory to what I had experienced, or even what Tucker had said to me personally. I started spiraling when it felt like they were playing some game. They’re best friends, so they had to know what the other was doing right? It couldn’t have been that far off, and then there was you, and the fact that he was in the apartment, and I thought maybe you were in on it for some reason. I’m sorry for that, by the way.”

“Don’t be sorry for feeling that way, I completely understand, but I want you to know that’s not the case. I’m on your side, even if that means I need to kick my brother in the balls for making you feel that awful.”

“I promise, it wasn’t like he was sitting there calling me names or pulling my hair. It just… I don’t know… I can’t explain why I reacted the way I did.”

“That’s why I think you need to talk to a professional. They’ll be able to help you understand, and maybe even keep the flashbacks from happening, or at least know what triggers them so you can maybe prevent it.”

I nodded my head absently as I thought about the prospect of being able to control the panic attacks. I might not have had a flashback type episode in a long time, but the nightmares and anxiety that I’d suffered from since that night had never gone away. It would be nice to be able to not have to hide myself away from people because I was trying to keep it a secret.

A few things happened when Luna went with me to see the Dean. One, we realized that no one in the upper administration even knew about what happened. The sorority being shut down was blamed on something else entirely. The footballers who were taking up residence in the dorm, had been overlooked by the admin. It was as if the event never took place for them, because they hadn’t been told.