Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
There was something to be said about the area of town in which Lee found herself in, house hunting with Sienna and her closest friends.
That something was on the tip of her tongue, and yet she wouldn’t say it aloud, acknowledging that it was perhaps best left unsaid.
That something was that should they spend longer than five minutes on this particular street, they may become either witnesses to a crime, or part of one.
She let out a sigh of relief when they stepped across the threshold of an apartment with graffiti on the walls, grateful to no longer be outside amongst the police sirens and domestic disputes.
The landlord of the apartment in which they were currently visiting wore a long, brown trench coat, and reminded Lee of cheap cigars and old detective movies.
He jiggled the key into the lock a few times before it popped open, and Lee made an internal note to herself that should Sienna need to run away at any time and hide within the safety of her apartment, a scenario not entirely outside the realm of possibility in an area such as this one, she would need at least a thirty second head start to do it.
Lee could only observe, pessimistically, as the landlord pulled a single bed out from one of the living room walls, extending it into the room until it essentially separated both herself and Kat on one side, and Natalie and Sienna on the other.
The landlord smiled and nodded, seemingly pleased with himself, as if the act didn’t always go as he had planned.
Lee wondered at that moment, given how dire things were now, how it looked when things didn’t go as planned.
“You see?” he said, still smiling. “An easy process that you can undertake yourself when you need to retire for the night.”
Because there was little else to do but smile back, albeit for different reasons than the landlord currently had, Lee did exactly that. “It’s…I mean, I see the vision,” she lied. “But it’s a little cramped, don’t you think, Sienna?”
Standing on the other side of the room, which was to say, a few feet away from both herself and Kat given the lack of space that occupied the four walls the landlord had the audacity to call a living room, Sienna attempted her best look of positivity, hiding any sense of being mortified as she nodded ever so slightly, as if worried that she would anger the landlord.
“It’s rather nice,” she said, forcing a smile herself as she folded her arms. “It could do with a little homely touch, that’s all. ”
“Babe, this isn’t a living room, this is a room where people come to die; it’s a dying room,” Natalie scoffed, clearly not adhering to the memo that everyone else in the room was apparently abiding to.
Kat placed a hand over her mouth to the left of Lee, stifling a laugh as the landlord looked at Natalie as if she was a bug to be squashed; an action he was likely used to if this apartment was any indication.
“If you’ve seen enough,” he said, sternly.
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if you vacated the premises so that I can prepare it for the next potential tenants. ”
Edging closer to her, now, Kat leaned forward, whispering into Lee’s ear. “If the next potential tenants are lucky, he might be able to prepare the premises within the next several years or so.”
Whilst it was uncharacteristic of Lee Holmes to laugh so openly at an uncomfortable situation, she found herself practically cackling as they left the apartment, if they could even call it that.
Perhaps her behavior was out of the ordinary today, but she reminded herself that it was also out of the ordinary for her to dispose of a body, and break into the home of a murderer, and yet, she did both of those things, and so, for that reason, she chuckled until they were finally outside, and more importantly, into fresh air that smelt less like mold and cat vomit.
“Okay,” Lee said, calming herself down now. “I’ve come to the rapid conclusion that I no longer want to move apartments.”
Sienna raised an inquisitive eyebrow in her direction. “Oh?” she said. “Whyever not, Lee?”
The group began to break down at that remark, laughing in unison like an acapella group deprived of oxygen.
When they finally composed themselves after a minute or two, Kat placed a hand on Sienna’s arm, supportively.
“You know there is no rush to leave my apartment, right? You can stay as long as you like. No one is kicking you out.”
Lee Holmes knew this translated to something else entirely, namely, that Katherine Myers didn’t necessarily want Sienna to leave. She knew this, and yet she would never say it aloud. She just hoped that Kat would find the words eventually herself.
“I know,” Sienna sighed, leaning into Kat as she placed her in a hug.
“That means a lot to me.” The pair retracted, and as they stared at one another, it almost felt like both Lee, and Natalie, were intruding on something they shouldn’t be a part of.
“I love living with you. I do. But I’ve been dependent on other people for most of my adult life, and now I think it’s time to do something just for me. Does that make sense?”
Whilst Sienna was not necessarily talking to Lee, she wanted to tell her that it made complete sense to her.
After all, she had been dependent on Morgan, so much so in fact that she had done unspeakable things if only to retain that dependency.
Except, these were things she couldn’t say aloud, even if Sienna was speaking to her, and so, as a result, she kept quiet.
Katherine Myers offered a very specific smile to Sienna; a smile she reserved only for her. Lee wondered at that moment if Sienna noticed such things. She silently hoped that she did. “I understand that,” Kat said. “I understand, and I also respect it.”
Lee Holmes appreciated the levels of communication that they could provide one another so effortlessly.
Morgan had provided that to her only days earlier, only, days earlier was unfortunately overdue.
This was something she had kept to herself, acknowledging that this particular day was about Sienna, and Sienna alone.
It was for that very reason that when Lee Holmes said goodbye, instead of telling them that she had booked her very first appointment with a therapist, she told them instead that she had yoga.
Shame didn’t factor into her decision, she would tell the group when she was ready, but this was about herself becoming more independent with the help of a trained professional.
This was about her learning to live with herself even if she decided eventually to live with another.
This was about neutralizing the nightmares to the best of her ability. This was about her.
As she walked along the sidewalk, her hands sitting firmly in the pockets of her pleated pants to protect them from the cold, she stopped at her favorite local supermarket, purchasing a bag of marshmallows and some chocolate to melt over them, deeming herself worthy of a treat after her appointment.
It was only then that it struck her that perhaps she would never be worthy of something she enjoyed ever again.
This wasn’t unusual—she had sat with that feeling all week, and yet it came and went in sputters—flickers of bloody, intrusive thoughts coated in both remorse and doubt.
She supposed that this was one of the very reasons she had decided upon seeing a therapist, only, when she did arrive within the office of Dr Trisha Lang, she acknowledged silently when she sat down that this was going to be harder than she had previously thought.
If some therapists accused their patients of dancing around the issue, she was going to have to pirouette and tango around hers at the same time.
Essentially, she needed to devise a way there and then to gloss over each and every topic that would prove useful to her session, whilst discovering the benefit of the session simultaneously.
Dr Lang took a seat opposite her in a large brown leather chair, sitting with gentle precision, as if the therapy had already begun before either of them had even uttered a word.
Her thinly framed gold painted glasses sat at the tip of her pointed nose, and her blue blazer adopted shoulder pads that looked as if they belonged in the 1970s, and Lee Holmes tried not to think about the fact that she looked exactly like the image that she had in her mind about what a therapist should look like.
Whilst she had an image in mind, she didn’t quite know how a session was supposed to go.
Was there an etiquette to therapy? Did she talk first?
Would Dr Lang? Should she be calling her Trisha?
All of these questions floated into the forefront of Lee’s mind, and she found it ironic, because perhaps this was also why she was here in the first place.
Namely, because she couldn’t settle on one singular tangible thought.
Her mind was like a broken traffic light, and she was never quite sure when to start driving again.
It was then and there that she began to start breathing heavily, cogitating over the existential crisis in her mind, imagining a scenario whereby the vehicle in her mind had crashed into another.
“Lee,” Dr Lang, or perhaps, Trisha, said. “I can understand that an initial session can be quite daunting. In fact, I’ve lived it myself. My first session with my therapist went a little like how this one is going.”
As her breathing continued to rise and fall, rise and fall, she thought about the time in which she had first smoked marijuana with her friend Kirsty when she was fifteen years old.
She remembered how heavy her tongue felt, and how dry her entire mouth had felt, and most importantly, she remembered feeling like she was unable to stop the truths inside her mind that could spill out of her at any given time like word vomit.
After taking one drag too many, Lee had confessed at the time that she was gay, or bisexual, or queer, she wasn’t sure, only, she was sure that she was in love with Kirsty.
That was the last time she had ever seen her friend.
Now, in that very room, as she pondered over memories she wished she could repress, she felt almost…high. The high that came with truths she would rather keep hidden. Her tongue felt heavy, her mouth dry, and the inevitability of her confession sat upon her lips, taunting her.
And yet, her breathing settled, the session continued, and by the end of it, she even found herself smiling.
She smiled because the truths that lay hidden remained in such a way, and she smiled because despite the session being mostly introductory, she felt as if she had taken one step forward as opposed to one step backwards for the first time in weeks.
When she left Dr Lang’s office that evening, she told herself that she deserved something good—even if it was only chocolate covered marshmallows.