Thursday, April 8, 2010

Heated

Horrible fucking day.

Lizzie and I got into a fight. I mean, really fought. We've had arguments and stuff before, plenty of times, but this time we were full-out screaming at each other. Thank God there was no one else in the room with us, or I'd never hear the end of it.

I've never been so angry at her. I'm never seen her so angry with me either, but then again, I'm me, and she gets exasperated with me easily sometimes. Still, this time...Jesus Christ. I can't believe that happened...

I came into the office this morning to find it completely empty. I guess everyone was either eating or on call. It was weird not seeing Lizzie there, but when I walked to her desk and saw her computer on, I knew she was around somewhere. Just another day in the office.

Those fucking drawings were all over her desk. I shook my head as I started clearing them off, because I figured, better to give her a fresh start for the day. And then I happened to glance at her computer, which normally I don't care about because she'll usually tell me whatever she finds...

She had websites up...websites on that fucking Slender Man. All sorts of blogs, pictures, sites that were supposedly studies of the guy...she had maybe eight or nine browsers up, all of them on that fucking son of a bitch urban legend...

And I lost it. I just fucking snapped. I grabbed her mouse and just started clicking all of them off. I don't know if she saved anything, I don't care, she's not pulling that bullshit up when I'm here, I'm not putting up with it...

And of course, she comes in the room just as I'm turning this shit off, and she flips her shit, and I flip my shit back. She's pissed at me because I'm going through her stuff behind her back, and partners don't do that, and I'm livid because she's pulling that myth bullshit up, when she already knows full well how I feel on the overused and overtalked about subject. And how I feel is what I've already said before; it's a crock of shit.

She says to me, “Strahm, you can't honestly tell me you don't see the connection. Never mind the camera and the blood, how about the fact that he's drawing the fucking symbol all over the place! The drawings are of him, isn't it obvious? The guy is using the Slender Man story to scare his victims, to get them nervous, and then he gets them, see, he's mimicking-”

But I don't hear it. I full out scream at her that there was no Slender Man, it was a myth, and...well, then I said that she should start actually doing her job instead of goofing off and looking up ghost stories. That maybe if she did her job, we would have found the kids already.

Yeah, I fucked up. I was mad, do you blame me? But that wasn't even the worst thing I said.

Her eyes started getting watery right after I yelled that. Now, Lizzie doesn't cry, at least, not often. Usually she'll cry when her dad calls her (don't ask), but that's it. She's tough, but at the same time, she's also pretty fragile. She's thirty-two, but she doesn't LOOK thirty-two, you know? And sometimes she doesn't act it either. And right then, seeing her tear up, it looked like I had just screamed at a six-year-old.

“Look, Lizzie, I'm sorry. I'm just mad. Come on, let's grab a bite to eat and look over the evidence again. Maybe we can come up with something we missed before.”

Does that sound nice? Yeah, I think so too.

That's what I SHOULD have said.

And...well...here's what I actually said:

“Oh, what, you're gonna cry now? You're gonna cry over your little fairy tale being bullshit? Jesus Christ, grow the fuck up and start acting like a fucking cop. I'm not dealing with this bullshit.”

The end. Of course, I also got pissed enough to throw some shit off my desk, but for all intents and purposes it was over. Lizzie stood there, looking like I had just kicked her puppy, and then she grabbed the pictures that I had just cleared off her desk and stormed out of the room without giving me so much as a second's glance.

I didn't see her for the rest of the day. I didn't exactly go to find her either.

God, I feel like shit...

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I'd call her man.

    If he is making this personal, you never know who he will target next. It could be anyone you're close to, and it doesn't sound like you're close to many...

    Plus, if he IS using this Slenderman shit as an influence or something, he might already have an advantage as Lizsie seems to really be getting into it...

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  3. Oh, good god.

    Okay, so for starters, are you still mad? If you DO phone her or run into her and she DOES bring this stuff up again, are you going to lose it again? Ask yourself that before you try to talk to her, because if the answer is yes, you need to walk it off some more.

    You two _need_ to talk. She obviously knows what your standpoint is on the subject. You have an idea of hers. Even if you two agree to disagree, that's something! When you feel more calm, maybe try approaching it so that one of you talks first and the other isn't allowed to interrupt until they're done?

    It sounds like your department must have more than just you two on the case. If you can convince her to take a break, to do something together tonight (or tomorrow, whatever) that's not work-related, it might help to calm the nerves of you both. Maybe mention that sometimes the brain needs time to process things without adding more to the load. Archimedes' bathtub; Eureka, you know?

    If she wants room or time before talking, let her have it, but if you want to get this fixed, you'll BOTH have to man up and get the hard part done and out of the way. Don't let a good thing go to waste!

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  4. No, I'm...well, calm for the most part. She came to work as usual, didn't say a word to me, so I can't say the same for her. I know how to handle her when she's pissed, this one was just a little more extreme than what we're used to.

    Aside from the officers that do pretty much whatever we ask them to do, and the occasional help we get thrown our way, it's really just the two of us from our end of the department working on the case...well, no, there is one other guy working it, he's been on the force about as long as Lizzie has. I don't know him very well, but he seems like an okay guy. Maybe I can get him to handle things for the day while we take the day to ourselves.

    The carnival's in town, she always likes that...

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  5. Win her an obnoxiously big, stuffed animal, huh?

    Maybe she just needs an apology and to know that you're not dismissing her thought process outright. You guys sound like you work better together than when you're running parallel one another with the blinders on, anyways.

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  6. Wow ... Just wow. That was a bad move, Zeke. You can't just break up with her (not that I think you would) she's not a girlfriend, you work with her.

    She wasn't saying there is a Slender Man, she was saying the perp is mimicking Slender Man.

    You're really going to have to see her side of the story first, and then let her know, somehow, that you now see her side of the story.

    I don't think a big stuffed animal would work, but then again, I don't know Lizzie as well as you do.

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  7. Bad move Zeke!
    It's a good idea to take her to the carnival, but you HAVE to apologize. You have three missing kids and one missing suspect, tempers are running high and everyone just wants to get this thing the fuck over with. You guys are both stressed, so take a day or two off to spend some time together. Watch a movie, do karaoke, ANYTHING that gets you away from work and together.

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  8. Yeah, yeah, I know, bad move. What can I say, stupidity is just something I excel in.

    I've got it worked out though...I'll explain it in the entry that I'll be posting before the day's over.

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