Liberty finds freedom in college:
she isn't bound by the arbitrary rigidity of high school
and the world unfurls, bright and luxurious,
wherein her tunnel vision
widens considerably to show off a
Vast, nuanced world.
Yet somehow, Liberty still
fears and cries and emotes and hurts;
the pain from high school
was supposed to end upon receiving a diploma
yet here Liberty was,
on the cusp of something more:
having left Degrassi at least two springs ago
left her considerably happier,
she was fitting in quite well (thank you very much!)
away from the toxicity of immaturity and cliques.
Still, she was haunted by nightmares of JT,
which were all too vivid and real, leaving her
awake in the middle of the night in a freezing sweat,
gasping at air that couldn't fill her lungs fast enough;
anxiety and hopelessness clutching desperately on her coattails
as she had flashbacks to the memories
tainting that entire day, the one
that should've been swirling
with profuse meaning and importance,
of intimacy and kindness,
of the celebration of another year.
A gaping hole of bleak emotional barriers
existed where trusting others
should've been;
she gains the reputation
of the ice queen at college - - -
aloof and quiet and vaguely sad,
with an indecipherable heaviness about her
that people are fearful to ask about.
when she talks to a college counselor
about the feelings she suppresses,
there's finally a name to how she feels:
comorbid PTSD and depression,
which explains all too much.
Liberty is ready to thaw.
