Grayson's Body

Aftermath

Chapter 7: Aftermath

Aftermath

[af-ter-math]

noun

1. something that results or follows from an event, especially one of a disastrous or unfortunate nature; consequences

I woke up on Saturday morning with a pounding headache. When I blinked up at the white plastered cracked ceiling I had to think for a few moments where I was exactly. When I figured it out, I grabbed my covers, all pure and white and comfortable, and yanked them off of me. That night I had dreamed, I remembered. It was a nightmare, all shadows and fear soaked, and it left me feeling a tightness in my throat that I couldn't quite explain. I wondered if I had PTSD for a moment. I wondered if surviving a fire and having your friend go bat shit crazy on you could do that to a person. I couldn't remember what it was about, though, but I was pretty sure it had to deal with the fire. The nightmare, I mean. I felt like I was going crazy as I sat up.

My hands were raw, and as I sat on the edge of the bed, I looked down at them. I had scrubbed the floor until my arms ached, until I felt as though my teeth would break by how hard I had clenched my jaw. I had scrubbed until all that red substance had come off the linoleum and I had done the same thing to the wall. I had stuffed the filthy dish rags into a black trash bag and threw it into the trashcan in the back. I had to get up the shattered glass off the floor and when I looked down at my yearbook picture, I thought for a moment about throwing it away. I took it up to my room to search for a new picture frame instead because I knew that throwing it away would just cause Mom to ask where it was, to ask what I had done with it. When I finally got up to my room again it was past midnight. Exhaustion clung to my bones and I felt as I though I would pass out, but I took a shower because I was beyond filthy. I watched as the dried ash swirled down the drain, as the smoky scent of burnt wood dissolved under the spray of the shower head. I was thinking about Grayson when I changed into my pajamas. What the hell had happened? What had happened?

Like a ghost, he had disappeared down the street. I had thought for a moment about running after him as I had watched him standing on the porch. But another part of me, the part that knew that was freaking pointless, didn't do a thing.

He didn't seem right. Shit, that was an understatement. Nothing was right. I kept picturing the way he looked, all messed up and dirty and bloody, like he had been really hurt, and the way he looked at me last night, all deranged, all threatening, all hungry. It was insane.

I let out a shaky breath and I reached for my phone on the side table. It was 8:30, and the sunlight was just drifting through the opened window. I rubbed my eyes slowly and then grabbed my glasses, pushing them onto my face. My curtains were pulled back with the off-white blinds moved all the way to the top. There was my study desk right under it and I braced my hands against it when I got up, looking through the clear glass.

Grayson's bedroom window was right across from mine. His blinds were closed, the curtains draw forward. When we were younger, we would scrawl messages on sheets of paper and push them onto the window's glass so that the other person could see it. We felt like we were getting away with something, especially when Grayson got grounded and I couldn't go over there and play. I really liked it, but Grayson didn't so much after a while. I think it was because he had Dyslexia. I didn't know that at the time because why would he tell me? He didn't like exposing any "weaknesses" he thought he had. But I kind of figured it out when I didn't know what the hell most of the signs he wrote said. I could piece them together, though, after a while.