After School

On a Tuesday afternoon, two teenagers returned home like never before. Eddy Gousse, a 16-year-old Sophomore at Waywood High School, and his sister, Alese Gousse, a 14-year-old Freshman attending the same school, returned home distraught after their day at school. The two enter their home and are greeted by their father, whose face shifts from welcoming to deeply concerned and worried. Their father, Clark Gousee, noticed his daughter’s clothes had been badly torn and was wearing her brother’s hoodie to hide the fact. Before being able to ask what was wrong, his daughter leaped into his chest and began bawling on the spot. Clark didn’t know what to say but decided to hold off on any further words and comforted his daughter. Hearing the noise, Kimberly Gousse, the mother of the house, and Travis Gousse, the oldest son of the three, had both run downstairs. Based on the noise she heard, Kimberly ran down the stairs yelling, “WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED?” without seeing anyone yet. Her yells were based on a bad gut feeling from hearing her daughter cry. But once she reached downstairs and assessed the situation. She yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!” She sees her daughter crying in her husband’s arms as her clothes are in tatters. She looks to the doorway and yells, “EDDY WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ALESE?!” Eddy had not entered the doorway yet, he stood right outside the door with an ominous look on his face. His face could barely be seen but his eyebrows were noticeably frowned and his fists were balled up in what one could guess would be rage. Eddy looked deeply enraged by the events that happened to his sister. His mom yells at Eddy again for the details. Eddy gathers his breath and explains that Alese had gotten jumped by a group of girls at school. Eddy was angry so his words became very unfiltered. He described that the group of low-down dirty bitches had used weapons on Alese after school while people were getting on their buses. He had noticed she wasn’t getting on the bus and went to look for her. After 20 minutes of looking everywhere, he noticed a group of girls coming from somewhere and looked to check. He noticed his sister laid out on the ground in tears and bruises. Eddy carried Alese on his back the entire way home. “... If only I could’ve..” Eddy grumbled to himself. Their mother had already started to try and comfort Alese. Noticing that Alese was already being checked on by their parents, Travis rushes to Eddy’s side, puts his arm over his shoulder, guides him inside to the couch, and asks him, “Yo you ok Ed? I know it must be hard on you, but I’m proud of you for taking care of our little sister. You know who did this to her?” Kimberly overhears the conversation, and blurts out, “YEAH, WHICH LITTLE BITCHES UP THERE DID THIS?” Clark tells Kimberly to calm down and urges her to take Alese to the bathroom, get her cleaned up, and put her on some better clothes. “Don’t pressure her to talk right now,” Clark tells his wife. Clark understands how loud and imposing she can be, and that Alese doesn’t deal well with pressure in emotional situations. Clark goes over to his two sons to continue the conversation. “Now who in the fuck were these girls that did this?” says Clark. Eddy replies, “Annie, Nicole, Lea, Jennavecia, and Milyn. I remembered all their faces. They’re a group of Junior girls who I’ve always had a bad feeling about. FUCK” Eddy slaps his hands into his face. He is then comforted by his brother and father and told, “It’s not your fault, don’t be mad at yourself.”

A bit of time passes before Alese and Kimberly come back out of the bathroom. Alese is looking physically better, but what’s going on inside of her head is a completely different story. Kimberly walks her out and sits her down with the family. Before any other actions are taken, everyone would like to hear what she has to say about the situation. Alese clears her throat to speak, and the mental preparation to talk can be seen on her face. She opens her mouth a bit but can't seem to find the beginning of her sentence. Her eyes scatter around as if she’s desperately looking for the words to create her sentence. Her breathing begins to get frantic but is interrupted by Eddy who grabs her hand. Her heavy breaths begin to slow down, as she looks Eddy in the eyes who is demonstrating controlled breathing to her like a doctor would. Eddy asks her if he can explain the story for her, and Alese looks at him with wide eyes and great concern. Eddy silently mouths to her, “Don’t worry….” Followed by a set of words Kimberly couldn’t make out. Whatever he said seemed to have calmed Alese down, and after noticing, their mom stopped her incessant foot-tapping. As she was eager to hear more and ask a lot of questions. Eddy explains everything to their family.

In short, Alese had been tricked to go behind the school’s auditory gym by a random upperclassman and was met by a group of girls who held a grudge against her. The reason behind the grudge was unknown but they ended the beating by warning her to watch who she was talking to. The family concludes that some boy was talking to Alese and the other girls weren’t a fan of what was going on and took their anger out on her. The motivation was simple, but the actions were inexcusable. Kimberly asked Alese if she wanted her to go up there and beat those little whores up. But Alese declined, saying that the problem wouldn’t be fixed by violence. Everyone understood that she was taking the high road, but as a collective, everyone wanted to take the low road and really beat the fuck out of these girls. Aggravation grew on Kimberly’s face but she stomped her foot and yelled, “FINE, so what do you want us to do about this?” Alese pondered in thought, then looked at her older brother Eddy. While looking at him she said, “I don’t know yet, but can I stay home tomorrow?” Clark immediately affirms her and lets her know she can take the rest of the week off if she wants. Travis tries to comfort her but is met by a shocking reaction from Alese. She was also surprised by her reaction and apologized to Travis. “I’m just going to go to bed early,” she says, then storms up the stairs. Everyone downstairs has their face covered in worry. Each one of them is thinking to themselves of a way to fix this problem without resorting to violence. Kimberly announces that they could get in contact with the girl’s parents, but Eddy shuts down that idea because he doesn’t want to have to get the school or the police involved. A look of confusion is now on Clark’s face, “What do you mean we shouldn’t go to the school or the police? The fuck is wrong with you?” Eddy retorts, “You saw how she looked just trying to tell her story to the rest of you. You think she could handle the teachers and police hounding her for questions?” Clark knows very well that Alese isn’t good in those situations and sits down in frustration. No one in the living room can think of a good solution, so in the meantime, Clark decides to get dinner ready and ask Kimberly for her help. Kimberly is usually very assertive and outgoing, but wanting to respect her daughter's decision she had no choice but to calm down. Thus her emotions took over as she sympathized with her daughter’s pain. Clark sensed her emotions, took her by the hand, and escorted her to the kitchen where she could put her focus on something else for a while. Travis then went upstairs, checked by Alese’s door, and listened for anything. But there was nothing but silence in her room, Travis assumed she fell asleep and went into his room. Eddy stayed downstairs on the couch where he was in serious deep thought. The house had fallen quiet as the night approached. 

Two days had passed and it was now Friday. Alese hadn’t come out of her room much since the incident. Only leaving her room to eat, shower, and use the restroom. Everyone in the house has been constantly worried about her. Checking on her several times an hour, but she declined every time. From one of his juniors, Clark had heard that Eddy wasn’t acting like himself at school for the past week. Alese’s behavior would stay the same until Wednesday, almost a week after the incident. Whereas Eddy’s behavior would be the same for the next 2 months. During that time, Alese was constantly guarded by Eddy on their way to and from school. Nothing else happened during those 2 months, and things seemed to go back to normal.

It is now almost three months after the incident. Clark, Kimberly, and Travis are at home. Clark is sitting on the couch watching the news. “Breaking News: 5 Students murdered at Waywood High School! More news coming after the break!” was heard on the television. In shock, Clark leaps up and yells upstairs, “Kim, Travis! Come down here!”. Noticing the tone in her husband's voice, Kimberly runs down the stairs yelling, “WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?!” before even turning the corner to go downstairs. She rushes downstairs, followed by Travis. Not knowing what’s going on and paranoid from the last incident, Kimberly snaps her neck to the door and asks, “Where’s Alese?” She snaps her neck back to her husband and asks, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” She sees that he is on the phone trying to call someone. “Who are you talking to?” asked Travis. In a more panicked voice, Clark tells them that he is trying to get in contact with Alese and Eddy, but neither one of them is picking up the phone. They all then start to try and get in contact with the two. The news comes back on and the report is given again, “Breaking News: 5 Students Murdered at Waywood High School! The suspect is in custody and we are awaiting more news now from Holand who is on the scene.” Unable to sit still, Travis rushes to get his keys and darts towards the door. He yanks the door open and as he crosses the doorway he bumps into someone. Travis bumped into Alese who was just now getting off the bus. “Oh my god, Alese are you ok?” Travis asks her while helping her to her feet. “Ouch, yeah. I’m fine. What’s the rush?” Alese says. Hearing all the commotion, Kimberly and Clark notice Alese and rush to her side. “Are you ok? What’s going on? Did you hear the news? You’re not hurt are you? Why weren’t you picking up our calls? What the fuck is going on?” asks the uncorked Kimberly, who was too nervous to contain herself. Amidst all her questions, she looks behind Alese and notices that the bus has already looped the neighborhood and dropped off all the kids. She looks around behind Alese some more and asks, “Where is Eddy?”

 “Eddy Gousse is the confirmed suspect of the shootings. Eddy is a 16-year-old Sophomore at Waywood High School, who murdered 5 male Junior students in cold blood. The victims are confirmed to be Jalen Nichols, Denny Pascar, Christian Ashland, Dominique Mills, and Zach Hine. The gunfire was heard behind the school’s auditory gym where the 5 students' bodies were found. The school’s security rushed to the scene and found the 16-year-old murderer, sitting on top of one of the student’s corpses. Eddy was non-resistant during his arrest and was taken into custody shortly after the police arrived. Motivations are still unknown and no other children were hurt during the incident. More news coming soon..” was reported on the TV. A shocked silence entered the Gousse household. They were struggling to process the news they just heard on the television. Kimberly falls to her knees, weeping and shouting, “NO! NO! NOT MY BABY!” Alese continues looking at the news and sees the school pictures of the victims and lets out a shocked and loud gasp, “Oh my god, no!” She follows her mother and falls to her knees as well, covering her mouth and weeping. The house phone can be heard ringing, and the speechless Travis hurries to get the phone. There is also a knock at the door. Clark looks out the window before answering the door and notices the police lights. He opens his house door, simultaneously with multiple nosy neighbors who came outside to check what’s going on. “Mr. Gousse correct? I would like to talk to you about your son, Eddy Gousse.” says the officer.