An itty-bitty bridge chapter...
When Dave came out of his room in the morning, he found Randy sitting on the sofa watching Meg, who was now bunched into a corner on the floor, head resting against the wall, staring blindly ahead at nothing. Nothing they saw, at least.
"Hey, Randy? C'mere for a sec."
"Dave...maybe not now."
"Randy, right now. Now-now. This now." Dave's tone left no room for discussion.
Randy cautiously stood from the sofa, not taking his eyes from Meg's catatonic frame until the last possible second. He met Dave in the second bedroom, irritated at being called away from his position in the main room. "What, Dave? I want to keep an eye on her. Something's wrong. This all started last night; she locked herself in the bathroom and when I got her to open the door she saw her medallion, but when I tried to give it back to her she flipped out and now she's...like that."
"Randy..."
"Dave, knock it off. You have that, 'I'm about to lecture you,' tone, and I'm not in the fucking mood." He stood to go, but Dave grabbed his arm, hard, and yanked backwards.
"No, you need to shelve the attitude and listen, or you're not going to do her any good. Do you understand she almost died? Then she was locked up and drugged up for almost a month? Then, the one thing that kept her going – Joe – erased her with zero warning. Physically, she's trashed. Mentally, she's dealing with what Joe did, the bullshit she intentionally put herself through, and whatever Jackson did to her while she was gone. All of a sudden we just dropped in on her, trying to fix everything, tell her it's all going to be okay – and to some degree, we do have to do that, and we do have to make those decisions, because she can't right now, but she's not going to react at all normally to the things we do. Not like a regular person, not like normal Meg, just...not."
"So, what, she's permanently broken?"
"No, I'm saying she's going to be a long, long way from the person you remember – the person you said you-"
"Shut up, Dave." Randy's tone was low, almost growling. "She doesn't need to hear that."
"No, but she needs to not be confused by it, either. Meg – our Meg – is in there, but she's buried. There's a lot of bullshit to be cleared out before you – we – get to her, and you're going to see glimpses of her, but that doesn't mean she's all the way there. Don't push. Be ready for her to make no sense at all. And don't lay your shit on her, either. Whatever you feel, zip it."
"Dave...what? I don't get this. This is something specific, or this is what you think, or what is this?"
"This is depression. This is anxiety. This is physical pain that she isn't medicating, unless you've seen her taking pills." Randy shook his head. "Exactly. Remember your surgeries? Think about what she's feeling. She's sorting out Jackson. Sorting out Joe. This is, really, PTSD. You know how much Meg hates hospitals, hates losing control. She has no idea what was or wasn't done to her while she was in there, while she was drugged...whatever. She's got to process all that. It's not going to be pretty. She's going to push us away as hard as she can, whether it's on purpose or not. She's going to be intentionally and unintentionally self-destructive."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know. She's going to have to tell you. And she doesn't know how to tell you. But she hasn't come to me at all. She's talked to you, she lets you be physically close to her. That's telling you something. I'm putting her in my apartment because I can, and because I don't use it. I'm asking you to keep an eye on her."
"How the fuck am I supposed to do that from the road, Dave? Magic?"
"No. You have a few more days off. See if she warms up to you. Talk about things that are safe. Get her used to the idea of the apartment so she'll stay there. Later, you have a movie. That's twenty-some days where you're on break and at least in the area of my place if there's an emergency. Seattle isn't Vancouver, but it's a start. See where you are after that."
"Remy – the ambulance guy – he said there were police files, medical files, shit like that..."
"For you, maybe. Not for her. Not now."
"What about therapy?"
"Yeah, you could use some, why?"
Randy rolled his eyes and laughed. "Right. I know. And I won't bother asking Meg."