Chapter Twenty-One
If there was one thing that Lee Holmes could say for certain at present time, it was that she was getting relatively tired of waiting for her girlfriend to come home just so that she could pounce on her the second she opened the front door.
This entire experience had turned Lee into nothing more than a puppy dog, sitting in the hallway desperate for the sound of jangling keys.
Only, when she finally heard that noise, it wasn’t excitement that coursed through her, but rather, worry, mixed with anger, mixed with confusion. A cocktail of nerves and anxiety.
As Morgan Finch entered the hallway, Lee opened her mouth to speak, only, Morgan spoke first, closing the front door behind her as she pressed her head against it with a sigh that both unsettled and angered Lee.
“Please,” she said, setting her keys in the bowl on the table beside the door without looking.
“I’ve not had the greatest time at the station.
You’re not in any trouble, so, can’t we just leave it at that?
” she continued, turning around to face Lee as she spoke, her face sad, and defeated.
Tired eyes and a thin line where her mouth should be.
A puppy dog in her own right. “Just for now?”
Lee Holmes stood with her arms pressed closely to her sides, as her mind wandered back to what Sienna had said on the phone about how both Morgan and herself had made relationships seem easy. If this was easy, she dreaded to think what a difficult relationship would be like.
Last night had been euphoric; a fast-acting drug that had allowed Lee to hide amongst the stolen moments of bliss.
Now, as the pair of them stood in the hallway, and her eyes diverted towards Morgan’s hands, and the fingers that had been inside her only hours prior, she saw the ink that blackened each tip, and the drug had officially run its course.
Before she could second guess herself, Lee closed the distance between them, grabbing Morgan as she clenched her fingers around her arm, raising Morgan’s hand as if it were its own showpiece.
“You were literally at the police station, Morgan.
You are a serial killer, and you had your fingerprints taken at the police station.
How can we not discuss that? You think we can just go about our day, braiding each other's hair?”
Sarcasm had been an ugly trait of hers, Lee’s mother had always told her, and yet it fell out of her on occasion like water from a leaking pipe. Even if she wanted to stop it, the words dripped into the conversation before she even had the chance to try.
The sad look Morgan had adopted evaporated and was replaced with something slightly more uneasy.
“You know that’s not what I’m saying,” she said, her voice slightly raised as she freed her hand from Lee’s grasp.
“I just want some peace and fucking quiet. This apartment is my safe space, the only place where I can finally take off the mask, and every day lately I come home and I’m fucking interrogated. ”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lee said, her own voice gaining an octave.
“How am I supposed to do anything normal in my life now? How am I supposed to do anything now besides wait for you to come home? You’re deranged if you think that I’m the one that’s in the wrong here, Morgan.
Your actions concern the both of us, now more than ever! ”
Morgan Finch had already begun removing herself from the situation before Lee had even finished speaking, shifting her way past her girlfriend and into the kitchen.
“And now you’re walking away. That’s healthy communication,” Lee continued, allowing her sarcastic attitude to drip into the conversation once again, throwing up her hands in defeat as she followed Morgan into the kitchen, ready for round two of their fight.
Morgan adopted the perfect look of agitation, gripping onto the edge of one of the kitchen counters, her knuckles whitening under the strain.
“How can you stand there and call me deranged when you fucking thrive on chaos? You loved every moment of last night. You fucking lived for it. You only hate it in moments where the possibility arises that we might be caught out. At least I own up to who I am.” With the hand not currently pressed against the counter, she placed a fist against her chest to accentuate her point.
“Or can you only admit who you secretly are when you want a fuck?”
A pained laughter escaped Lee before she could stifle it, shaking her head in disapproval at Morgan’s words, even though she knew them to be true.
“You only own up to who you are because I caught you out after five years of being in a relationship with you, Morgan.” Lee Holmes huffed as a stone formed in her throat.
She swallowed it down. “I’m not trying to play the victim here.
I know the part I played in all of this, and I have to live with it every day.
Prior to our anniversary I had a routine, I had normality.
God, I miss the normality. Don’t you dare fucking say I live for chaos when you invited it into my home. ”
Even as the words came out of her mouth, the uncertainty of them hit her all at once.
Perhaps she had invited it herself just by wishing that she could spice things up seconds before everything changed.
Perhaps she was selfish, helping Morgan if only so that things could remain the same between them, instantly dispelling the idea of wanting something more the second the knife entered a stranger in their living room.
Perhaps Morgan was right. Lee had craved the power she felt until the second things went sideways.
She had relished the feeling of Morgan on top of her only the night before, harnessing the predatory side of her to procure her own pleasure.
Morgan Finch took a step back from the counter and flattened her hair, exhaling towards the wooden flooring below.
“It’s hard for me to live with myself knowing what you saw, too.
And yet at the same time there’s this weird, crazy, part of me that is somewhat glad that it happened…
?” she questioned, shaking her own head now, as if confused by her own sentiment.
“It’s out there now, in the open. It’s been the elephant in the room with me for years, hell, it’s been the whole fucking herd.
You’re the only person in the world that I wanted to tell.
Now that you know, I feel like I can finally just… breathe.”
Lee Holmes couldn’t help but appreciate the irony in Morgan's words. Since discovering who her girlfriend was, she had found breathing to be harder than ever. “I’m glad that I know. Truly, I am, if only so that I can make my own decision about what to do with that information. I deserve that, at the very least. Except, it’s hardly a normal thing to find out about your spouse.
I would expect you to consult me if you wanted to buy a new couch, for instance.
I’d want the choice of color, and shape, to be a joint decision.
But this isn’t buying a new couch, Morgan, it’s…
” she paused, trying to figure out the right thing to say.
“I want to be informed about matters related to you-know-what, but I don’t think I want to know about the color, or size.
Perhaps just knowing that you’re buying the couch is enough. ”
“You’re right,” Morgan responded, calmly, allowing the atmosphere in the room to die down. “No more surprises.”
“A secret birthday party is a surprise, babe. What you did in our living room could hardly be considered as cut from the same cloth. I’m only asking that you don’t leave me completely in the dark, but that you respect my boundaries at the same time.
My final request is that you will answer any questions I have whenever I desire to ask them.
This needs to be on my terms, Morgan, not yours.
I’m sorry, but those are my deal breakers. ”
Taking a cautious step forward, Morgan extended an arm, placing her hand against Lee’s own. It was then that Lee acknowledged that her own body didn’t tense at all. “Whatever you want, or need, I’m all in. I'll do better, I promise. You know what they say; happy wife, happy life, right?"
Lee wasn’t entirely opposed to the fact that her heart fluttered around the term ‘wife’, and perhaps whilst the timing was inappropriate, the act was seemingly out of her control.
Perhaps their trip to Paris was a fleeting memory, but for the first time in a while, Lee Holmes believed that new recollections would soon be blossoming in its place.
She exhaled, in an act of defeat, or relief, she wasn’t sure, squeezing Morgan's hand in the process. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I'm all in, too. "