She jerked slightly as he laid his hand on her shoulder, but else there was scarcely any reaction to the sudden body contact from her side. Taking gulps of air hysterically, she reached for the handkerchief he had offered to her, and dried her eyes and afterwards took her time to blow the running nose. The second she let go of her eyes with the handkerchief however, tears promptly started dropping down her cheeks again. But she didn’t even try to hide or suppress them now. It would have been of little to no use.
Following his piece of advice, she tried to get herself fairly together, as much as the circumstances could allow. She coughed a few times, in order to get rid of the pesky lump in her throat that way, but it stayed no matter. In hopes to rid herself of the memories that had come back and pestered her, she weighed her head to glance at the fire place. She felt it again: she was sick of all this, and badly wished it to finally stop, the self-hatred, self-blame and above all every single memory that reminded her of what had happened to her.
The utter despair she had had some seconds ago suddenly changed into stubborn hatred. At least the blazing flames had some sort of lulling effect on her, and so her heart tardily gave up on the frantic hammering.
With watery eyes she stared in the fire, not deigning to look at Doc. There was some silence before her answer came, during which she repeatedly used the handkerchief to dry her cheeks and eyes. “You don’t understand it, do you?” she gave back with embitterment in her voice. She tried to keep her breathing steady, in which she didn’t truly succeed. Another tear made its way down towards her chin. “Not judgemental, you say? Okay. Listen.” So she turned her frowned head towards him, blinkingly staring right into his eyes. With the index finger she pointed at herself.
“Every single bloody thing I’ve done all those months. Everything, no matter what, it led to exactly what it led. The death of the one thing I thought I was caring about. It’s all my bloody fault!” Anger possessed her, and turned her face into a grimace. Anger about herself, and about him obviously not understanding anything of it. Then however, her voice that had been shouting before cracked at an instant, and moments later she slumped down on the sofa completely, exhaling deeply, apparently bereft of any energy by the sudden blowup of her temper.
