Chapter 29

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i didn't edit stab me and leave me to die in the streets

"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways." - Sigmund Freud

Mrs. Holmes had a head full of dusty grey curls. She had a kind, trustworthy face, stuffed cheeks, and a big bosom. Her coin-grey eyes assessed me carefully and she constantly twiddled the silver band around her finger. I assumed she had marriage problems. She asked me how I was feeling currently and I responded with a shrug and now there was a long boat of silence ahead of us.

It was starting to get uncomfortable.

"Be honest." She finally said.

"I'm good."

"I can't help you if you won't help yourself."

"You don't need to help me. We can sit here in silence for the full hour and you'll still get paid. I can keep your secret."

"Do you keep a lot of secrets?"

"Mm."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"That was a grunt."

"OK." She scribbled on a sheet of paper.

I glanced around the room. It was a classroom except there were no desks and only a couple of chairs. The walls were bare and the light above was a dull yellow. Outside, the skies were a darkening depressing-blue. No doubt it was going to rain. Mrs. Holmes sat opposite me. She crossed one leg over the other and smiled. "Would you like to know what I wrote?"

"I'm sure I can live without knowing."

"I wrote 'uses sarcasm as a defence mechanism.'"

"I fucked a man I didn't like yesterday. Is that a defence mechanism? He was older than me. I guess that's 'daddy issues.' I've already fucked his friend. You could say I'm a whore. We're probably going to fuck again except this time we'll like each other a little more and sooner or later we'll get jealous and angry and hateful and it'll all be disguised as passion and our kids will hate us and end up drowned in the pool out in our shitty back-garden. And that'll be our life. Is there a word for that? Thinking ahead. Fabricating an entire future with a man you don't like or maybe like. Stupidity? Or maybe love? Love is an ugly word. But I can't find another to replace it..." I should've said more but her face turned sympathetic and my resentful words turned silent and affronted.

She pitied me. I fucking hated her.

"Is that what you think of yourself?"

"I don't know. You tell me." I said, tired of her prodding and poking questions. Questions I couldn't answer without getting upset and furious over. I wanted to leave already.

"We've barely met."

"Are you backing out? Is that what you do every night when your husband comes home late, stinking of liquor and perfume that isn't yours and yells at you to leave him alone and stop asking questions because he's told you, time and time again, he was with his friends and not with a slut who's barely twenty. Is that it?"

"My partner is a woman. Her name is Gill. She's lovely."

"Lovely is a word you'd use to describe a dull personality. Someone who can't hold a conversation, who sucks in bed and wakes early on weekends to go running." Despite not wanting to spill to her like she was my diary, I sure managed to speak a lot.

She set down the papers on the floor and set her hands on her knees. "You're confused and you're hurt. You lash out and then immediately regret it. You structure your face. Place and set parts of your body in certain places and positions to pretend to be relaxed and unbothered. But there are breaks and then there's this raging fury and hatefulness and then helplessness in your eyes."

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