So much unnecessary guilt

"Okay Helen, you go first. Why aren't you guys talking?" Aria decided to cut Jacob some slack and give him time to think. Helen was surprised upon hearing Aria's question. She had told her all about it just yesterday. But trusting her friend, she decided to go through it all once again.

"To be honest, I have no idea." Helen began. "It all started on the day after Joseph's birthday. I have been told that dawn had broken quite some time before I . . . . you . . . . . when I got back home. That day was as traumatic as can be expected. Jacob was severely beaten up, I was shaken out of my wits, your safety was hanging by a thread, and Joseph, well . . . let's just say he was also going through a lot."

Aria cast a quick look towards Jacob as Helen continued, "So of course I did not think much about it when both of the boys were not very talkative, after Jacob regained consciousness. Even I wasn't in any mood to talk. I had too much on my mind, I was worried about you and blaming myself for how everything had turned out. I guess all of us were doing that though." Aria sighed as Jacob inhaled sharply through his nose. Her friends really needed to stop taking so much unnecessary guilt.

"But it started to feel weird once we got back to the academy." Helen continued, "You were still unconscious, and Joseph." Helen let out a huge breath, wondering what was wrong with her little brother, "Well, Joseph was being Joseph. There really is no better way for me to explain it. He seemed to have retracted into a shell and refused to come out. And that was when . . . " her voice cracked a bit, "When I started having those nightmares."

Jacob looked up with a start towards Helen as Aria's fists clenched at her sides. She bit back a little wince of pain as Helen continued, "I started to have very violent dreams about that night. I had heard what you had gone through that night while you were sending me back home, and that began to occur again and again in my dreams. Every night. Sometimes it was me going through all that, sometimes the person was replaced by Joseph or Jacob, but most of the times, it is you Aria." Aria sympathetically nodded. She knew how long-lasting the effects of a traumatic event could be, she herself still shuddered whenever she thought back to that night, more than eight years ago.

She shook her head and came back to the present as Helen continued, "The nightmares weren't something I could easily talk to about. So I tried reaching out to people I could talk to, the ones who would understand how I felt, the only ones who could. But ." Helen seemed to deflate as she said, "Either they were in no position to listen to me, or listened without hearing anything or . . " She choked back a sob, "told me they could never again talk to me after what had happened."

"Do you have anything to say, Jacob?" Aria asked, putting in a lot of effort to keep her voice even. The two boys she called friends had really been testing her patience the past two days.