Random Encounters: Home

The Aftermath

Gwen hunches over. Staring at the ground. If her brain went over what had happened one more time she was going to puke... again. She begins to sit upright from the bathroom floor. She rests her hands on the seat of the porcelain bowl and places her forehead on it. There's a tapping on the door.

"Gwen, is everything alright?" AJ's concerned voice carries into the room.

Gwen puts on her best fake smile, "Yep, just peachy."

"We need to stream soon, if you're up to it?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute," she calls back, before mumbling to herself, "If I can stand up without the floor moving."

"Okay, I'll be cleaning out Nate's room, we've still got some stuff to remove," AJ calls back, his voice shaking a bit as he does.

Gwen's body begins to shake again as her body purges what's left of the contents of her stomach. She shakes more as tears roll down her cheeks.

"Can't see anything that pertains to him, can't look at pictures of him, can't hear his voice. Can't even hear his name without losing my lunch," she whispers to herself, hanging her head.

She stares at her fingertips, which are bandaged. The images of last week run through her mind. The images of when AJ found her, scratching at the walls. Tearing her fingers apart, etching Nate's name onto their bedroom wall, over and over and over again. How she kept scratching, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she bled. How, even though he pulled her away, she continued the scratching motion. Then he took her to the hospital to get patched up, and he took her to someone to talk. She didn't want to talk, so she spent the whole hour just staring at her bandaged hands. She remembers how she lays awake every night, screams echoing in her head, louder and louder each time, until she can hardly handle it, and she grabs the knife. She feels sick to her stomach as she remembers the smell of new paint on the walls of the bedroom she's forced to sleep in, the new paint covering the remnants of the blood she shed. She remembers how AJ was forced to remove Penelope from their house entirely because Gwen had screamed her lungs out at the cat once and would cower whenever she came near. All of this swirls in her mind as her stomach churns from the memories.

She finally forces herself to stand up and leave the safety of the bathroom. She takes shakey steps through her and AJ's room. She stares at the wall that's half a shade darker than all the others. Her eyes move to the rug that's still slightly stained despite their attempts to clean it. Gwen freezes. Just as she does, AJ walks in.

"Almost forgot my phone," he mumbles to himself, walking to the bedside and grabbing his phone off of the night stand.

He catches Gwen in his peripheral vision and looks up at her slowly, reading her expression.

"Gwen... are you alright?" He asks slowly.

Gwen, who has been holding her breath, lets out a cry and falls to her knees, hanging her head. Her brown hair surrounds her face as she cries.

"This is my fault," she wails.

"No, baby, no it isn't," AJ walks to her side, kneeling next to her.

"I shouldn't have gotten close to the device. Nate is gone because of me."

"Hunny, no. It was never your fault, you were never to blame. You couldn't have known," AJ brushes back her hair.

"It was all in my head," she whispers, falling into him.

He wraps his arms around her, "No baby, it was all in mine."

AJ holds her, petting her hair in a soothing manner, rocking with her back and forth as she slowly calms down. AJ looks up at the ceiling as he does, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks.