“Lee…? Care to share your opinion on the matter?” Kat asked, looking at her as if she had just come out of a five-year coma. Perhaps she had if her relationship with Morgan could be interpreted as such.
Shaking her head, as if she could snap out of her wine-induced thinking in a way that was not unlike a dog shaking out its wet fur, she took a sip of her merlot and attempted to partake in the conversation by throwing a proverbial dart at their potential conversation topics and hoping for the best. “I haven’t seen the show to be able to pass fair judgement on it. It is on my watch list, though.”
When Sienna looked at her with what could only be interpreted as concern, Lee knew she had said the wrong thing. Natalie placed a hand on Lee’s thigh, which was out of character for her entirely, and adopted her own look of concern which made Lee want to scream, run away, or both. “Honey, we’re talking about what we think of Sienna potentially moving to that new estate that was built last year, the one by the water. Do you need some air?”
“The only thing I need,” she said, gulping down the last of her merlot, “is more wine.” Truth be told, perhaps the last thing Lee Holmes needed was more wine, her inhibitions falling away with each sip. Nevertheless, she craved the weightlessness—the idea that tomorrow never had to come and if tomorrow didn’t comeshe only had to live for right now, and right now wasn’t so bad, so long as she didn’t have to feel much of anything.
Kat stood in order to sit on the left-hand side of the couch beside Lee now, and with Natalie on her right shooting her best worried look in Sienna’s direction at the other end of the room, Lee expected nothing less than an impromptu intervention. “You know, I have about three bottles of what you’re drinking right now in the cupboard, and as a friend, you are welcome to all of them. However, as one of myclosestfriends,” she emphasized, placing an arm around her. “I think it might be better if you don’t sample any of them. We can talk about Morgan, if you like, or we could talk about anythingbutMorgan, like that bitch Trudy at work that’s always stealing my almond milk.”
The comment took Lee off guard, enough for her to laugh into her glass before setting it on her lap, her fingers still pressed around the stem. “I told you,” she said, deciding to discard the glass entirely instead, placing it on the table. “I don’t even think it’s Trudy. I think it’s that new guy, Glenn. Your milk only started disappearing when he started working with us.”
“I bet it’s both of them,” Sienna added. “Perhaps they’re both part of some top-secret almond milk stealing organization. For real though, most office dramas lie within who is sleeping with who. If this is what your office drama consists of, your office drama is hot garbage.”
Natalie nodded, seemingly agreeing with Sienna’s comment. “You’re not wrong. If you want real office drama, just spend ten minutes in my building. Shane is sleeping with Kirsty, my manager, but Kirsty is married to Shaun, her assistant.”
“Hold up,” Lee said, emphasizing her words by physically holding up one of her hands. “Kirsty is sleeping with a guy called Shane, and her husband is called Shaun?”
“I suppose it makes things a little easier to explain if she says the wrong name in the bedroom, like, she could just call it a slip of the tongue,” Kat chimed in, a smile tugging at the left side of her mouth as she winked and stuck out her own tongue for emphasis.
“No offense,” Natalie said, putting down her own glass now. “But I don’t want to think about any slipping tongues as far as my manager is concerned.”
As the conversation blossomed, the group switched to water instead of wine, allowing Lee to make an easier decision as to not drinking herself half to death. A smile tugged at her own mouth now, relishing the fact that even though her romantic relationship had fallen to pieces, her friends always had her back, no matter what.
Despite this, and she hated herself for thinking it, for feeling it, but the emptiness inside her where Morgan had once sat was still just as prominent as ever.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Keeping up with current news affairs used to feel oddly comforting, like observing the beauty of a shark underwater behind the safety of a cage. As Lee Holmes cycled through each and every news channel, living in a pattern of her own creation, it felt like the cage that she had become submerged in was breaking apart piece by piece, and the possibility of drowning, or worse, being eaten alive, was so prominent she could feel it, even now as she sat in the living room she had been intermittently avoiding since everything had unfolded.
If ignorance was bliss, then all of her bliss had disappeared. It had been so easy before to watch Morgan walk out of the door, only to return a few hours later. Watching her leave on Tuesday was like watching the closing scene of a sad movie, only for an after-credit scene hinting at the possibility of a sequel to hit her square in the face. There would always be sequels with Morgan Finch if only because of the dark secrets they both wielded together. There was no closing scene, not really.
It was only then that it occurred to her that whilst she had been wallowing in self-pity, Sienna had just recently brokenup with her abusive ex-boyfriend, and was now potentially pursuing something new and exciting with Kat, and she had completely disregarded both events in favor of stewing in her own misfortunes. She couldn’t rectify this with a simple text, but it felt like the right place to start.
Lee H 11:48am: Hey, I know you have every right to not want to talk to me right now, but I just wanted to apologize for how much of an asshole I’ve been. I was so blinded by what was going on in my own life that I didn’t even take a second to think about what was going on in yours. I’ve been a terrible friend to you. If you ever want to talk to someone about Dylan, you know where I am.
She hit send, regretting it almost instantly as she bit at her bottom lip and began typing again as she leaned against the kitchen counter, dissatisfied with her current apology.
Lee H 11:49am: I also hear you’re going property hunting in a couple of days, and I would love nothing more than to go with you and help you find your perfect home. That is, if you’ll still have me. Love you S. x”
Lee was rifling through the fridge when the phone rang a few minutes later, gathering all of the snacks she had available in order to drown her sorrows in sugar and carbohydrates. She placed a cream pie back on the top shelf of the refrigerator and answered as promptly as she could without checking the caller ID. “Hey, Sienna,” Lee said, closing the fridge door behind her. “I’m glad you called.”
“It’s Diana,” the voice on the other side replied, simply, prompting Lee to lean back against the refrigerator if only to prepare herself physically for the potential fallout of the call after her breakup with Morgan. “Were you expecting your friend? I can call back later.”
“No, no,” Lee replied, shaking her head. “I just thought you were someone else, that’s all.”
The line paused for just a moment. “In that case, can we talk?” Diana said, in a voice far more unwavering than Lee was used to. “Perhaps not on a phone call,” she added. “We could meet for lunch? My treat.”
Had the proposition of paying not been presented, Lee might have thought that this would be the phone call that well and truly ended her; the call that told her that the game was finally over, and that she had lost. Those two definitive words at the end filled her with a sense of hope, taking solace in the fact that her ex-girlfriend’s mother wasn’t likely to offer to buy her lunch after discovering that her daughter was a serial killer and her now-ex-girlfriend had aided her in being one. Lee shook her head again, as if Diana could sense it at the other end of the phone. “No, you’re definitely not paying, but I would love to have lunch with you.”
The sigh of relief at the other end of the line filled Lee with anythingbutrelief. What could be so important as to exhale at the confirmation of lunch? The obvious answer was that Morgan had spoken to Diana about the break-up, and yet, that seemed unlikely. Whilst Morgan was her ex now, she still knew enough about her to know that Diana would be the last person on Morgan’s list of confidantes about such a matter, opting to speak to the janitor at their apartment prior to her own mother.
“Excellent,” Diana said, sounding a little more like herself now as opposed to a concoction of nerves, her voice sounding lighter, more high pitched. “How does 1:00pm at Laguana's sound?”
“It sounds perfect,” Lee said, doubting herself as the words fell out of her mouth. Truth be told, it didn’t sound particularly perfect at all, given the situation between herself, and Morgan. Despite this, hearing the fluctuations in Diana’s tone made her say it anyway. “I’ll be there.”
And she would be there, if only to allow herself the slightest grip on reality, if only to see the woman that in turn had made the woman that she loved. If only because Morgan had shown empathy by acknowledging Diana’s loneliness once upon a time, opting to spend time with her when her mother had needed it, and so, she could do the same.
Having not spent time alone with Diana in the past, Lee Holmes wasn’t precisely sure how situations like this were supposed to unfold. She supposed convention wasn’t observed here regardless due to the fact that she and Morgan were no longer together. Despite this, she followed the same etiquette of opening her arms for a hug in greeting, before taking a seat within the booth where she had just been sitting previously.
