Photographs in the Park (Laurmani)

Chapter 5

Dinah and Ally had spent the rest of the night lying with Normani in her bed. It took her a couple of hours to fall asleep. In the morning, Ally made breakfast for everyone while Dinah and Normani sat silently in front of the living room television watching the news. As soon as Normani finished her plate, she got dressed and headed straight for the front door.

"You're not going to work, are you?" asked Ally.

"No, I just need some fresh air," answered Normani.

Dinah looked on suspiciously as Normani left out. The woman in Normani's laptop came to mind. Dinah knew her ex-girlfriend liked to sit at the park. She used to go with her on a regular basis, and she noticed the park from the photographs of the mystery woman.

Normani stopped by her car and pulled her keys out of her pocket. But, she didn't get inside immediately. She debated with herself on whether or not she should walk or drive. The park was only a mile away, but she usually drove because she needed to be prepared to race off to an incident at any moment. However, this day, she decided she was not going to work. After a couple of minutes of standing on the sidewalk next to her car and Dinah spying on her through the window, she decided to walk.

On her way to the park, she stopped at a convenience store to grab a bag of chips and soda even though she had just eaten breakfast. She kept telling herself that she needed to stop eating junk food and get back to eating healthy, but today was a day to spoil herself. Plus, she didn't take her laptop or camera with her, and she didn't want to sit at the park with nothing.

As Normani walked closer to her favorite bench, she noticed someone sitting at it, which annoyed her. She wanted sit alone, but the other benches were usually covered in bird poop. She thought that maybe if she just sat at the bench and acted awkward, the person would eventually get up and leave. However, when Normani was able to make out the person's face, she knew it wouldn't be that easy. The person at the bench was Lauren.

"How did I know I would see you here?" Lauren greeted as Normani was about to take a seat.

"I do come here a lot and so do you," Normani responded.

"Well, I honestly wasn't expecting to see you at this moment. I just got tired of walking," said Lauren. "Anyway, you look like hell."

"Why, thank you," said Normani sarcastically. "I had the worst nightmare I've ever had in my life."

"Oh, my god! Me too, but I took some sleeping pills to knock me out. There was some dead chick standing in my room. It felt so real," Lauren exclaimed.

Normani began to tremble. "Was she wearing a nightgown, and did blood come out of her mouth?"

"I don't know. I jumped out of my bed, ran to my sister's room, and slept there for the rest of the night after taking some of her medicine. She suffers from insomnia." Lauren answered.

"I couldn't even get out of bed," Normani admitted. "It was like I was paralyzed."

"Sheesh. That's creepy," Lauren commented.

"Yeah. I just hope it's not going to be a recurring dream," Normani stated.

Normani opened her bag of chips and held them out to offer Lauren some, but she refused.

"I have to watch my diet, but thanks," Lauren explained. "It's mostly because I break out when I eat oily foods."

Normani and Lauren sat at the bench for almost an hour talking. Lauren told Normani about why she moved from Florida and that she had a younger sister. Normani told Lauren about how she grew up in Chicago as the only child in the home, but she also had two half-sisters from her father's previous marriage.