The easy and the difficult. She made it all make sense.

Scherherazades' love was a force to be reckoned with. Her stage name was Ebony Havoc. She had a body that lived up to the name,

Hair, Hips, Heart.

Harmony was her middle name, and that too was a well-chosen descriptor of her fate. She could tune herself to make a sound that would make even the most perplexing tinkering sound like an anointed battle cry from heaven.

Morgan felt the sun smile for a glimpse of time, and then it burned. That's the sun's reason for creation after all, to burn and give light where there is none. Not to be owned or possessed by any one entity, but shared in unison between all willing souls with a communicated and demonstrated unanimous agreement on a peaceful and long prosperous end. Scherherazades' question forced Morgan to think about the soul tying and dauntingly metamorphosing phases of life.

Marriage...? 

The sex of those that which united was a non-factor -but more urgently was her stance on the Idea of marriage itself. Wherein she stood at that time, it would have been impossible for two to become one. To think alike in mind and in goal? To love not the body but the soul, and the imminent asteroids, comets, and planets that those two stars burst forth. Such a heavy task for such a mind that has not healed from invaders, and marauders alike.

Back then she defined it as a sex driven suicide pact with mandatory yearly status updates.

She wondered if she had any right to think that way still.

As suddenly as she felt that spark between Scher and herself fade, another seemed to spring to life almost instantaneously. Scherherazade felt her stomach burn with a power she never thought shed survive holding it within.

Morgan felt so cold and alone that day, and that loneliness crept its way into Morgan like a stealthy imp. 

Morgan slowly finds her sense returning. 

Still seated before Owen on the Livingroom floor, but having drifted off into a disconnected space using only her eyes, her memory, and the gray ornate wallpaper just shy of Owens peripheral space. She was lucky to have picked a spot on the wall to dissociate to make it seem as though she was still paying attention to Owen.

She finds her voice, and makes a somber yet bright call to her friend.

"Owen?"

Owen turned back to Morgan as she began to ask,

"Would you be able to help me if I was going through something... but couldn't really talk about it?"

Her thumbs roll around each other in her lap, shoulders tense in a still fear. The gate was opened, the words had already spilled out. She braced for a Stonehenge in the event she need to mask. 

" Of course I would." Owen analyzes Morgan and her posture. 

Her slumped back and inward pointing shoulders alert him that something deeper is troubling her. Her eyes gloss over as she slowly looks at him. She battles in her mind if now is the time to talk about it, but the force field of embarrassment is simply too strong, and the width of its distance between her past and her future, keeps her from uttering a word.

"Morgan... do you want to talk about it? Is something happening to you that I should know about?"

"I just.."
 Its over.  The fire, the jolt that cracks the floor of the ocean to fight titans, has vanished. She reverts to a protective truth. 

"I just... want my education to come first. Remember what happened with Sherri?"

A heavy somber sigh escapes Owen. He can feel his heart ping with strain and a lump forms in his throat. 

"How could I forget? You two really seemed like you were going to take over the world together." He twists around to the coffee table and grabs a celery stick to much on.

"I'm more so surprised that you two are cordial to one another." He takes a bite then continues,

"I couldn't hold myself as peacefully if I found out my husband had a kid while he was with me."

"I like to look at the bigger picture." Morgan had a bittersweet smile on her face. "She had a lot of struggles behind closed doors. I loved her but I'd be less than a friend to tell her to stay where she wasn't happy." 

A half truth, but still a truth. Morgan was furious with Scherherazade, and to keep it concealed for four months only solidified Morgans' beliefs and affirmed what she had already concluded.

"Well, Harvey did say If a relationship really matters," Owen gently carries his palm over to console. Interlocking his fingers with hers.  "You'd put your personal desires to the side to help someone live in truth."

"Exactly," Morgan nodded "and my truth right now, is that I love seeing her happy and healthy. So even though her romantic happiness isn't with me, she has in fact found happiness within herself and within her son. She is healthier, and that's even better."

"Speaking of things being better," 

Owen braces himself to stand up and pulls Morgan up alongside him. 

He smiles as he presses the button on the pad by the hallway. A distinct yet controlled hum begins as the ceiling above the sofa begins to lower. Owen pulls the throw pillows from the sofa beneath the slow moving lift and lobs them onto the now descended platform - An Elevated murphy bed- and sets Morgan's shoes in the space beneath it neatly.

 "I placed some bath salts in the bathroom for you. Take all the time you need, and of course, don't worry about cleaning, we'll take care of it."

Owen hugs Morgan tightly and the two have a shared breath of appreciation, gratitude and care before he retreats to his suite just a few yards down the hall, closing the door carefully behind him.

After rummaging through her duffle bag, Morgan retrieves her toiletries and makes her way to the bathroom. 

Morgan closes the door to the water closet, and passes by the sink and commode on her right, before opening the second door. The Hollow wood swings with ease as the warm wooded and medium yellow lit bathroom transports her to a new space.

Warm and smooth sealed stones decorate the floor, a masterful layout of Amber, Pink Quartz, and lava stones sealed in a rich earthy grout creating a serene balance of Zen and calmness. The light green bamboo wallpaper accents the walls, and the double vanity mirror features a wall with live vegetation and a dazzling waterfall inlay to separate the two gold frame backlit mirrors whilst unifying the space.  

Morgan stands before the filled bathtub and huffs deeply as she steps in. She winced as she slowly lowered herself into the bubbles, citrus wheels, pea flower petals, and Epsom salt enriched water. The surface inching up her body and eventually settling at her bust. The bubbles do its job of concealing her body.

Morgan was always hyper aware of her body, the scars, bruises and cuts from work didn't bother her much, it was all the others and the circumstances surrounding how she got them that inevitably forced her to prefer baths over showers. At least with a bath, she could hide. A shower meant actually having to look at herself, and its hard to shower with the lights off. She found that when it came to loving her body, any new confidence she would find would be rapidly dashed by Rebecca.

Morgan could vividly remember her mother packing those stupid low calorie snack cookies in her lunch when she was just in second grade. The constant body comparisons to her older sister, the merciless and excessive pinching of arm fat and Morgan's cries as The Banshee smiled at her, claiming that she was "releasing lactic acid".

Morgan felt as though she was put in a place of forced servitude, and shame. Any time she spoke out she was silenced, any time she was in need, she was ignored, and god forbid Morgan actually be brave enough to voice her dissatisfaction, she would quickly find herself in a landmine fallout of blame, battering and banishment.

She can feel freedom is on the precipice, and she didn't have to wait for senior year to do it. She could make it, even if it meant struggling on the street. She only returned to Rebecca because of Peter. She loved Peter, she didn't want him to suffer the same fate as her, but Rebecca also loved Peter. He was a miracle child, the blessing no one saw coming, but his arrival didn't stop the older two siblings from leaving. Her brother didn't even wait until he was a legal adult and he away from home, never yearning or caring to look back. last she heard He was Living on a deserted lot in Tucson.

Morgan's older sister quickly made her exit after getting pregnant and married young, moving away to start a family of her own at her earliest convenience. Morgan wished she had that kind of power. The power to just walk away from pain, but she didn't have a foundation to stand on. That is, until cooking became that foundation. Cooking gave Morgan peace. Being able to create something that truly engages all the senses was like magic to her. The sounds of whisks, and sifters, and knives chopping. Sizzling pans, boiling pots, and clicking utensils, the orchestra of food being created, was her solace. Her great escape from hands that harm.

She submerges deeper into the bath steadily and with eager expression. The raspberry exfoliating bath oil was a welcome delight after standing all day on uneven floors, and being drenched in Quat Sanitizer. She inhaled with all her might a breath deep into the soul, and exhaled any and all internal negativities, leaving them to dissipate into the air. 

"You are allowed to be free, you are allowed to feel the pain, and then set it free."

She chanted the mantra with an anxiety ridden shudder, repeating it until she believed it firmly.

Cupping the water in her hands she gently raised them, pouring the water onto her low freely flowing Natural hair. She Pressed air in a steady stream as the water trickled streams down her scalp and trailed her neck. 

She repeated the scooping, pouring motion until she felt satisfied. She then sank further into the porcelain, floral, water colored with hand-illustration bathtub and gripped her shoulders. She began to cry as she couldn't contain herself anymore. She was in a safe space, yet she didn't feel safe in her own hands. The same hands that harnessed love, care and tenderness toward her creations. She couldn't understand why when it came to herself, she only wanted to destroy and get rid of all this. This skin, these bones, this hair, no matter how hard she tries all she feels is disgust toward herself. She hoped for a day that she could be strong like Scheherazade.

Morgan wanted to love herself into freedom too. She pondered on herself, and how she felt about things overall in her life, about how she ran away from home. She wondered, if the great combination lock of life had its tumblers in different positions, perhaps maybe she would live a different life?

But such is true for all those who exist. Everyone's lives would be different of course, she accepts her position in life, though she doesn't intend to stay here. She cant live this life anymore. She had been trying for years to get away and stay away and still had not managed to figure it out. She wasn't blessed with prowess in street smarts, though over the years, she's become a lethal instrument of deals when navigating public transit.

The first time she moved out was after she failed out of college the first time. The banshee made sure to remind her every day about her shortcomings, and how she owed her for every dime she wasted. Morgan rolled her eyes both in memory and in the present at that rippled mirrored revocation. A forced and immovable core memory that somehow seemed to invoke her to repeat the movements as if it happened current.