Face Of The Monster

***11***

Phoebe Kim has things to do and she knows it.

She needs to schedule an appointment with her psychiatrist and get a renewed prescription on her antidepressants. There's a copy of a new medical journal on her desk that she'd been promising herself she will read. She should call her mother, too, since she's been ignoring her calls for the past week. When she gets a chance, she has to run to Target and pick up Chloe's antibiotics prescription and get some more of that cream for her face. She has emails to answer and numbers to crunch.

Phoebe Kim has things to do, but she'd rather be here. The car is warm with spring sun, the windows cracked open to let in the breeze. The wind rifles through Phoebe's hair like a gentle hand combing through it. Beside her, Emma's tight braids lay placid and still over her shoulders.

There's nothing wrong with this moment if Phoebe doesn't think about it. If she looks at it from an aerial view, oblivious to the circumstances and the thoughts flying through their heads, then it's perfect. Here's the two of them, alone together in the front of her car, their fingers woven together in Emma's lap. Everything is fine.

Emma has taken her hand and splayed it out over her own like a child examining her mother's roughened knuckles. Phoebe lets her, enjoying the small bit of contact. She shivers as Emma runs a fingernail from the center of her palm to the tip of her finger.

Phoebe wants to ask Emma about them. What are we? she wants to cry. What am I to you? They aren't psychologist and patient anymore, that much is for sure; in fact, maybe that was never their relationship in the first place. They're friends, she supposes, but in moments like this, her body tingling with the intimacy of the other woman's hands, she can't help thinking that they've become something more than that.

She knows where she's taking Emma. There's a lovely park now just a couple miles away from them with jubilantly green grass and a secluded little duckpond hidden beneath a canopy of trees. She figures they'll lay down on the grass beside the pond, listening to the ducks honk to each other and the leaves rustle in the trees above. They'll talk. They'll figure it out.

Emma looks better than she did yesterday. She's wearing her own clothes again and her hair is done. Her face is still blotchy, her eyes still swollen, but less so now. She doesn't look so much like she's on the verge of tears anymore. The slight defiance in her face is fainter now, but it's back. It's a relief for Phoebe. She knows Emma can recover. It's just a matter of time.

It helps, she supposes, that Emma doesn't have much time to waste. With her husband out of commission, she has to get back to providing for her family.

Phoebe pulls over to the side of the road, giving Emma's hand a squeeze before taking hers back and beginning the torturous business of parallel parking. After a minute of maneuvering and cursing, she manages to wedge her car between two others and stops the engine. They get out.

The park isn't crowded. Once they make their way onto the trail, Phoebe reaches over for Emma's hand. She looks around first, as though afraid of meeting someone she knows here, but after a second wraps her fingers around Phoebe's and swings their hands up in front of them. "You have good nails," Emma observes, speaking for the first time since Phoebe picked her up at the salon.

Phoebe gives a short laugh. "Thanks, I guess." her nails are fairly short, unpainted. There's nothing remarkable about them.

"They're nice," Emma insists. "Not too brittle, not too pink."

They walk silently for awhile longer, at first snatching their hands away whenever another person comes down the trail, then growing tired of this and just averting their eyes. The path is dirt, covered over with a ceiling of leaves.