Lee had received Moonie’s text earlier that day; and he hadn’t answered it yet. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to. What use this would have, anyway? His heart was already broken, as Moonie’s, and there was little he could do about it but to breathe and try to stay sane, as his shrink had told him to do at the very beginning of their appointments together when she realized he had started having anxiety attacks. “I’m ok” he promised Nessa, his landlady, who was too smart to be fooled and knew that something was up “I’m just going to go for a walk... with Nugget, alright?” he offered, and the poodle, that was in the room, clearly had her ears up in attention as her name had been said. It took some more conversation though before Nessa finally allowed him outside; she was an angel, honestly. The only person on Earth that knew all about him that there was to know; his downfall, his rising, his troubled mind, and yet, she still cared for him, which made her the most precious person on Earth. She was the mother he never had. And he thanked her for everything she had been doing frequently. Lee waved a hand to her before getting Nugget tied to a leash and walking outside the house. Even though he had his jacket on, his hair as charming as possible thrown to the side, it was clear as day in his dark eyes how upset he was. And empty. His shrink had warned him about it.. about strong emotions, that when they didn’t trigger his anger or anxiety, they’d space around him, trying to be organized, processed, and he had to do it in a healthy way.... which was fucking hard. But nothing better than a walk with Nugget to do that, right? Or so he thought, as he walked in a park near home and, out of the freaking nowhere, Nugget scaped the leash to jump on a stranger. Lee hurried to grab her “my bad” he apologized without looking at the other’s face, just hurrying to attach the leash again.. properly, this time. He got up, straightening his back, seeing a bar right on the other side of the street and he cocked his head; one of the reasons he brought Nugget was exactly because he couldn’t enter bars with a dog.Â
