RELAPSE - Arthur Fleck | Joker FANFIC/LOVE STORY

Chapter 1: Anonymous

"So, Lenora, tell me a little bit about yourself." 

I rolled my eyes at the middle-aged, African-American woman that sat across from me.  She looked somewhat stern, but she had a gentle voice.   However, her gentle voice didn't change the fact that I was angry about what she just said.  "Don't call me that."

She wrote something in the notepad she had sitting on the desk in front of her.   Not that such a thing was abnormal to me; I dealt with a lot of counselors and their notepads.  "What should I call you then?"

"Anon," I paused, but I knew that she would soon be asking about the name, so I decided to beat her to it, "like, Anonymous.  I'm unknown, unacknowledged.  I am unremarkable."

"Well, that is something we can start with.  Why do you feel like you are anon...," her voice began to fade as she asked the question.   It was a question I have been asked many times and, quite frankly, I was tired of repeating myself. I noticed the ticking of the clock that was on the wall behind the counselor.   I poured all of my attention into the old analog clock, that had so much dust caked on its face that it was hard to read what time it was.   But that was okay, I closed my eyes and just listened to the ticks.  

Tick, tick tick, tick. 

I stopped my breathing just so it wouldn't interrupt the ticking.   I drifted into brief meditative state and I let my thoughts move through me.   I imagined my thoughts as a train: entering one ear, traveling through the tunnel that was my brain and then exiting out of the other ear.  Shitty parents.  Abusive ex-boyfriend.  Drugs. Well, the last thought didn't so much pass through like the others, it lingered.  I pressed my eyes tighter together, as if that would force the thought to leave.  I pressed them so tightly that I began to see colored spots in the darkness.  My head began to ache.

"Lenora... Len-...Anon!" the counselor yelled, pulling my attention back to her.  "You have got to talk to me.   You know that part of your probation is being here every week and participating. Making some kind of progress."

I looked at her for a moment and then slumped over so my elbows were on my knees and my face was buried in my hands.  "I know," I muffled a response, "I-I'm sorry. I'm just not feeling very well."

The counselor leaned back in her chair.   I could sense that her patience was already running thin and the appointment couldn't have started more than 10 minutes ago, "Have you received any treatment yet?"

I shook my head as I looked up at her.  "The treatment center told me that they are waiting on more medication to be delivered - people keep breaking into the place and stealing everything they can. No one has received treatment in a few days. They told me to check in every day. Nothing so far.  They don't understand that making my way there every day, for nothing, is making things harder for me.   I have to see my probation officer, attend counseling, and find a job all while I am fighting these terrible urges.   I don't have money for the subway, so I have to walk everywhere."

"I'm sure they will get it soon and everything will get easier."  She stood up from her seat, walked directly to her right to a tall cabinet that was against the wall.  She unlocked the top drawer and pulled out a small envelope.  She closed and locked the top drawer before she bent down to the very bottom drawer and opened it up to pull out a notepad.  She left the bottom drawer open and returned to her desk.   She set the notepad and the envelope down on her desk and pushed it towards me.  She tapped the notepad with her finger before she removed her hand completely, "This will be your journal. I want you to write in it every day. You can write about anything you want.  You can write about your day, your thoughts, your feelings...anything.  But, it needs to be every day and you need to bring this with you every week.  We are going to talk about the things you write in your journal.   This will help us get somewhere.   In the envelope is a subway pass, but it doesn't have much on it, so only use it for your appointments related to your probation.  Now, we will go ahead and end the appointment here for today, but next week...we are going to stay the whole time...no cutting out early."

A small smile formed on my face.   Well, she kind of ignored all of my other concerns, but the subway pass will help, I thought to myself, trying to be positive.   I got out of my seat, grabbed the notepad and envelope in one hand, and walked out of the room.  After exiting the room, I walked down a poorly lit hallway towards the "lobby" sign.   As I walked into the lobby, the strong scent of mildew hit my nose.  I forgot that I had struggled to breathe earlier when I was waiting in the lobby for my appointment to begin.  Why was everything so shitty here in Gotham?  My walk turned into speed walking as I made my way to the exit.   However, as my hand gripped the door handle and I was about to pull it open, someone grabbed my other arm that held the notepad and envelope.  I jerked my arm away and spun around so that I was facing whoever was grabbing me, "Hey, what do you think you are doing?!"

As I looked at the man that was now in front me, he quickly pulled his body away from me, as if he was expecting me to throw a punch, and slightly raised up a hand in surrender.  My brows knitted together as I looked at him for a moment.  He was somewhere in his mid-to-late thirties. He had brown hair that was brushed back and pulled behind his ears so that the curled ends bunched together behind his neck about an inch or so from his shoulders.  The next feature that really stuck out was what appeared to be a vertical scar between his nose and mouth.

He was nervously moving his eyes from me, to the floor and then back to me as he spoke, "I am s-sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to scare you. I tried to get your attention, but since I don't know your name...," he moved his hand, that was already slightly raised, to his throat and he seemed to try and clear his throat a few times before he could continue his words, "...you dropped this." He brought up his other hand that was holding a small envelope and held it out towards me.   His hand was shaking a little bit as he held it there.

I looked down at my hand that was holding the notepad and saw that the small envelope was not there, "Oh, I see. I am so sorry. I am just really on edge right now," I took the envelope from his hand gently, "thank you. Sorry."  Feeling my cheeks turn warm, I quickly turned and left before the man could say anything else.   As I walked out onto the streets of Gotham, I could hear the faint sound of laughter coming from behind me.  Is that guy laughing at me?  What's so funny?  Even though the questions crossed my mind, I just pushed them away.   It was doubtful that I would see him again anyways.

I made it back to the motel room I was staying at, which was only a few blocks from the counselor's office that I just left from.   My probation officer was able to get me a room there for a few days while I figured out where I was going to live.   I didn't have a lot of friends, at least law-abiding friends, so I thought that this process was going to be difficult.  Thankfully, I just happened to stumble across an old classmate a couple of days ago.  It was amazing that she even recognized me.  Both of us were best of friends in middle school, but drifted apart once we started high school.  She stayed serious about her studies, while I got myself tangled in with a bunch of troublemakers, one of which was my ex-boyfriend: Todd.   He was a typical bad boy and I fell for him, hard.   After I got involved with him, pretty much everything went downhill.   I didn't finish school because I did nothing but eat, sleep and party.   At first, it was just the thrill of drinking a bunch of alcohol and getting drunk.  I felt so free when I was drunk because all of my anxiety went away and I could be me without worrying about what everyone else was thinking. Then, my boyfriend eventually talked me into trying drugs and...

I physically shook my head to dislodge my thoughts.   I rewinded my thoughts back to my friend. We stumbled into each other, caught up a little bit, and somehow that lead to her offering a place for me to stay.  At first I was a little mortified because it had been so many years since I have really spoken to her - we were 14 when we entered high school and now we were both 21...that means we haven't had contact in almost 7 years - and, here she is, helping me out in such a huge way.   I started to turn down her offer because I didn't want her pity; however, she said that she was going through a bit of a tough time as well and would actually love to have some company.   In the end, I accepted her offer, but I promised her that I would pay her back somehow.

I was going to move in tomorrow.  Thinking about it made me smile.   I touched my fingers to my lips, savoring the feeling that was going through me because I actually felt happy.   Something was actually going right.  I decided that this is what I would write about in my journal for today.