Honey(91)

The next full moon—she told Yrsa—was when he started to get sick. Brittle-boned boy. Because there are energies in this world that, once set in motion, we can’t outrun.



* * *





Home alone, she watches the fireworks. Rockets, Catherine wheels, people cheer. The sky a spiral of sparkles.





II


“I’m pleased to see you again.”

Yrsa looks at the water in her glass. Says, “I didn’t think you’d be here in January.”

Layla smiles, her jumper is pale pink. “It seems it’s good that I am.”

Yrsa drinks the glass of water. Layla waits patiently.

“I lost a friend.”

“I’m sorry to hear this. In what way—”

“They died.”

“I’m so sorry, Yrsa.” Layla’s skirt is also pink.

“They were murdered.”

“Oh.” Layla is not good at hiding her emotions. “Yrsa, this is—”

“Gang violence, it was all over the news. Maybe you saw.”

“Where did this happen?”

“In London.”

“Were they a close friend?”

“He was my first boyfriend.”

“When was this?”

“Back in October. I’ve been…trying to make sense of it.”

“I can imagine.” Layla stops. “We can go into as much, or as little detail about what happened. Don’t feel you need to—”

“He was beaten to death.” Yrsa pauses.

“That’s—”

“In his flat. They still haven’t found who did it.”

Layla lets her continue.

“He wasn’t affiliated with the gang, we don’t think. So it was just a random act of violence.”

Layla is shaking her head.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the person, people who did it. Why they did it. I mean how, why do you think someone would do something like that?”

Layla drops her eyes. “It’s sadly almost an impossible question to answer.”

“But you’re a therapist.”

“Without knowing the perpetrator, it’s very—”

“Do you think that someone’s a monster if they beat someone to death without any proper reason?” Yrsa asks.

Layla is not writing any notes today. “In this line of work, one tries not to pass judgment. To say that someone is entirely one thing. Or entirely one of their actions.”

Yrsa likes this.

“We are always more than a single act,” Layla says.

“That makes sense.” Yrsa nods. “People are very complicated.”

“They are.”

“I’m sure they had lots of, complicated, reasons for beating my friend,” Yrsa says.

“Yes, although this is not to say that someone’s reasoning excuses their behavior. What happened to your friend is truly awful.”

“Right.” Yrsa likes this less. “I’ve been finding it hard.” Her foot lightly tapping. “To not fixate on what happened to him, to Felix. I can’t stop imagining the beating.”

What she won’t tell Layla is that, since the breakup, she hears Felix’s death daily, louder than she’s ever heard a killing before.

“With such a violent event, it’s unfortunately very normal for it to play on our mind. It can be our brains trying to process the shock, trying to find ways to make it make sense. And the news of the violence, of it happening to someone we love, can create a trauma response.”

“Trauma?”

“Yes.” Layla sits forward. “How—”

“Can I get another glass of water?” Yrsa asks.

“Of course.” Layla reaches for the jug before realizing it’s empty. “I’ll just have to fill this up, won’t be a sec.” She takes it and leaves the room.

In the emptiness Yrsa leans across the small table that separates the two of them and turns Layla’s notebook to face her. Layla uses sticky notes to divide her clients and it takes Yrsa a moment to locate herself back in June. She also has doctor’s handwriting—difficult to read—but Yrsa makes out the words “highly intelligent,” “dreams important.” She turns a page, it’s just dates and names, but at the bottom “slight pattern of addiction?” has been circled and— She swivels the notebook back around and sits back.

“Sorry, I don’t know how cold it is,” Layla says, closing the door.

Yrsa holds out her glass. “Thank you.”

Layla sits back down without pouring herself water.

“What do you think of me?” Yrsa asks.

The pink of Layla’s jumper clashes with the pink of her skirt.

“That’s not really a question that—”

“You’ll answer?” She doesn’t know why she bothered with this. “You changed the picture.”

Layla looks behind her. The frame isn’t hanging straight. “I didn’t even notice.”

Yrsa finds it odd that she wouldn’t notice such an obvious change to her environment.

“It’s quite ugly, this one,” Yrsa says. “The Fens was better.”