Chapter Text
She just sat for awhile after finding his empty closet, in her usual spot on his couch. Sat and thought and wondered, and if she cried a little, well, didn’t she have the right, after all that had happened? After what she’d fucking started?
Relief came first, dripping lukewarm from her eyes. He wasn’t dead; she’d read enough crime scene analyses to know that. No signs of struggle, everything gone. Well, “everything”-- just clothes, really, and luggage, and--she almost laughed--hair products. The gel, of course, and the fancy-ass shampoo he would have denied using, had anyone asked. The smell of it lingered in the bathroom where she had not found him. Not dead. Not dead. Thank fucking Jesus, not dead.
Logic didn’t cover it, though; she felt his alive-ness bone-deep. She’d have brushed that kind of bullshit off, had she heard it from anyone else, from a client. Now, though...well. She knew. She knew, and the knowledge soothed her somewhat.
The tears didn’t stop, though; when relief wore off, anger waited to take its place, painfully hot on her cheeks. Bastard. Bastard. He never had explained, had he, and now here she was, here to fucking...what, forgive him anyway? And he wasn’t even here, hadn’t had the decency to--
Shit.
Sadness, next. Gut-punching. Cold. It made her miss the anger; she knew what to do with that, at least. This? She felt weak. Felt stupid. Felt like the little girl they’d all taken her for that first day, mooning after that fucking asshole.
She missed him already, and hated herself for it.
He’d left his phone on the bedside table. Wiped, of course. When she called him, her number appeared on the screen. No name. No picture. She checked his messages, too; nothing. The laptop on his desk was equally useless. Equally fucking blank.
The liquor cabinet, though, was blessedly full. Laurel decided she was done searching for the night.
***
She woke the next morning, still curled on Frank’s couch, whiskey bottle nestled precariously in the crook of her elbow. The sun beat at her eyelids, accusing, and she let it. Took it. Didn’t shield her eyes. Didn’t turn away. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Gone.
It would have been poetic, wouldn’t it, to stay like that? To wallow. To sink into the leather seat and dissolve, to wait for his unlikely return, a damsel in distress. That’s what got her, in the end; what made her sit up and set the bottle aside and move. She’d let him change her, sure--had become Frank’s girl after all--but she was no damsel. She would go home, change her clothes, brush her scuzzy, boozy teeth, and go to work. Class after, too. Hell, she thought, she might even go to the library after that; finals were coming up, and dammit, she intended to pass them.
He’s fine, she thought, propelling herself upward, stumbling toward the liquor cabinet to replace the half-empty bottle. Pressed her free hand to her eyes, tried to rub away the throbbing pain behind them. He doesn’t care; why should you? Fuck it. Fuck it. Let him run.
She ran it through her head like a mantra as she gathered her things, slung her purse over her shoulder, locked the door behind her. She turned the key over and over in her hand, after, and finally stuck it into her pocket before stalking away.
She didn’t look back. She didn’t.