Lee could practically hear Sienna smile on the other end of the phone, despite the act making no sound at all. It was funny what you could sense just by knowing enough about someone. “Thank you. That means a lot. I’m sure it’ll be no surprise as to what the call is about.”
The cautiousness settled again, deep within the pit of her stomach as she moved the phone away from her ear, letting out a puff of anxiety, followed by a large gulp. “Oh?” she offered back, simply, as she placed the phone back against her ear, stuckbetween exercising restraint and blurting out an apology about what Morgan had done to Sienna’s boyfriend.
“Dylan and I broke up,” Sienna said, exhaling herself now, albeit, into the phone, unlike Lee. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that this will all blow over in a week and we’ll be back together again. But not this time, Lee. I’m finally calling it quits.”
Lee was unsure as to what the etiquette dictated in situations such as this one. The entirety of their friendship circle knew that Dylan Cleaveland was a piece of shit—worse than a piece of shit, in fact. And yet, was it customary to sigh in relief, and point out such things? Alternatively, was it customary to congratulate her friend on her newly obtained single life? Or rather, was it conventional to apologize, and ask how she was managing?
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, choosing the latter, before her mind could get the better of her. Pushing the cautiousness aside, she exhaled and continued. “Although, I’ll be honest, as your friend, and tell you that I think this is for the best.”
“Always be honest with me, Lee. I need to hear these things so that I don’t just go back to my old ways.”
“You won’t,” Lee said, affirmatively. “I can tell that this is for real this time. I just…know it somehow. I also know that it must seem like the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make. I know how long you were both together. But you’ll look back at this in a few months, or perhaps a year, and acknowledge just how right the decision was.”
“Thank you, Lee,” Sienna said, softly. “I knew you were the right person to speak to. Although, I can’t help but feel a little jealous that you and Morgan just celebrated your five-year anniversary together. You both make it seem so easy.”
It took all of Lee to stifle her laugh, pressing a hand against her mouth for a moment as she regained her composure. “Trust me,” Lee responded, upon removing her hand. “It’s not always awalk in the park. We just…find ways to put aside our differences sometimes.”Our incredibly large differences,Lee thought to herself.
Sienna huffed, making Lee draw the conclusion that she had said the wrong thing. “I get that,” she said, putting Lee’s mind at ease. “Sometimes I just think the differences are too great to see past them,” she continued, as if reading Lee’s own mind with each word she uttered into the phone. “I have to go to work, but…I’ll see you at Kat’s for cheese and wine night? I’m kind of…staying there. Just for now. Until I can find somewhere more permanent.”
Lee Holmes found herself smiling into the phone, now, and she wondered if Sienna, like herself, could sense it too, even if they hadn’t exchanged phone calls prior. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. You staying with Kat, I mean. I’ll see you there. Speak soon. Love you.”
When the line went dead, Lee held the phone in her palm for a moment longer, shaking her head as her smile turned into a full-blown grin. There were many moments in her life that she wished she could take back, but introducing Sienna to Kat and Kat to Sienna was never one of them. Whilst it was no secret to both Lee, and Morgan, that Kat had developed romantic feelings for Sienna, Lee knew wholeheartedly that Katherine Myers would just about do anything for Sienna regardless as to whether those feelings existed or not.
Putting the phone down onto the kitchen counter, Lee sighed dramatically, acknowledging the fact that she herself had just about moved heaven and earth in order to remain with Morgan. The only difference was that Lee had been selfish in her decisions, doing what she had done in order to stay with the woman she loved, whilst Kat was the embodiment of selflessness.
Lee Holmes glanced down towards her cup of tea, now likely cold after forgetting to drink it upon making it. She debated microwaving it, but thought better of it after coming to the conclusion that a microwaved cup of tea never hit the spot quite like a cup of tea freshly brewed from a kettle. She thought back to that night in the apartment, making dinner for Morgan on their five-year anniversary, wanting something more. Perhaps when everything was said and done, thinking back to their night at the park in the fountain, and their adventures breaking into someone’s home, their relationship had finally become a freshly brewed cup.
She shook her head again, laughing quietly to herself at her analogy, as she sipped on the tea, confirming its coldness. It was only then that she deemed Sienna’s call a welcomed distraction from her own emotional turmoil. For the few minutes she had been on the phone, things had seemed normal again.
Only, upon thinking about it further, she acknowledged that the normality would dissipate the moment that Morgan came home. However, after coming to the firm conclusion a week ago that her life would never be normal again, she smiled one final, bittersweet time, at the fact that she was wrong. A phone call from a close friend here and there was enough, at least for now, to provide her with the much-needed quiet that her mind craved whilst she waited for Morgan Finch to return.
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 yourfingerprintstaken at the police station. How can wenotdiscuss 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 nowbesideswait foryou 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 fuckingthriveon chaos? You loved every moment of last night. You fuckinglivedfor 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 whoyousecretly 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.
