Ashes, Ashes

Retail Therapy

- c h a p t e r   f o u r -

Emma didn't remember so many dress shops being on the route to her therapist. But it seemed that every time she turned out, there would be another little boutique filled with dresses she was practically salivating to get her hands on. They were constant reminders of what she couldn't have, but what she certainly felt she needed.

After all, she did need a dress if she was going to a wedding. Despite of Sherlock's behaviour concerning her, John and Mary still chose to invite her to the wedding. She suppose they'd heard she was out of the psych ward by that point, and that's why they knew they could invite her. She'd never felt quite so lucky to get an invitation to anything.

But it soon became clear that the situation wasn't going to be as easy as Emma wanted it to be - not that it ever was. She looked in her closet for something to wear, but found she didn't want to wear any of them to the wedding. It was somewhat of a waste - she'd spent a decent amount of time, money, and effort getting her entire closet together just to look in and find she loathed half of it.

Of course, this gave her the perfect opportunity to get out of the house and look for new dresses. Emma had been thrilled to begin with, but it only took a few shops before she realised something was terribly wrong. Yes, she was finding dresses that could work for her...but they were all too expensive.

There seemed to be a vicious routine attached to it all - find something cute, notice that the perfect size and colour were available, then pick up the price tag and suddenly lose all interest in it. Not a single thing Emma even remotely liked seemed to be far out of her price range.

She weaved through store after store, going through each and every rack as if they were actually a maze she was trying to navigate her way through. After all, Emma always felt horribly lost after going through each of the stores, and she never had anything to show for it.

It honestly felt to her that the world was turning against her, but the way it was showing it at the moment was by making everything she liked out of her budget. For someone like Emma, that was a horrible way for everything to turn out. She absolutely loathed the way it all turned out, the way she couldn't have what she wanted and sincerely felt like she needed.

She'd gotten herself used to a certain level of quality, and now she simply could not afford it.

She'd tried to push this thought out of her mind as soon as it came in, but that ended up failing quite a bit. Emma hated the feeling of not having enough - and she wasn't going to end up getting any more unless her mother were to suddenly fall dead. She didn't want that...or did she? All that she knew was that a good amount of her money went to the therapy sessions that just seemed to make her life harder.

Emma thought she'd purposefully been recommended to a rather expensive therapist just so she wouldn't have enough money left to do what she wanted. Granted, if she still had a job at New Scotland Yard she would still have plenty of money, but she certainly wasn't going back there. She liked having freedom.

The problem with freedom was the way it attached restrictions to everything else Emma wanted to do. Without a job, she was apparently more flexible to be shipped off to her therapist and waste a good amount of time away stiffly sitting in a chair that you never got used to regardless of how much you shifted around.

Pulling out her mobile, she realised that her therapy would be starting fairly soon. With a sigh, she ended up moving towards the side of the street in order to hail a cab. She ran several fingers through her hair as she performed the mundane task, wishing that everything would just move faster. She hadn't even gotten in a car to go to the therapy session and she already felt bored.