It had taken three and a half weeks for Helen Basch to finally open that closet in her smallest, least used guestroom. She wasn't sure why exactly. It could have been the mind-bending weed from her son that had been wreaking havoc on her brain; it could have merely been some sort of boredom mixed with a decent dose of masochism. Whatever it was, she sneered at the plastic bag full of crap, lumped on the floor like a dead, bloated frog, currently occupying her otherwise pristinely organized closet. She yanked it out with more force than was even remotely necessary for the weight of the thing. Cheap moisturizer and a handful of identical scrunchies went flying across the room.

Scrunchies. Ugh, really? The 90s were bad enough the first time around. Now they littered her guestroom menacingly, if hair accessories could be considered a threat at all, that is. They were certainly a threat to her sanity.

Pawing through the remaining loot, she pushed aside those goddawful sleep goggles and more tubes of shitty moisturizer with cartoons of fucking polar bears on them. Snow-Kissed Berry, my ass, she groaned to herself. Then she found it amidst all of Carol's leftover clothes: her purple bra. She'd mistakenly shoved her own clothes into the pile of shit she wanted excised from her home. No one could blame her really, right? She was in a rage that day (that week). But all was well with the world now because, fuck, she really wanted to wear that bra today and here it was. Too bad the whole room now smelled like Carol.

No, she wouldn't sniff the blouse. And certainly not the panties either. She had more class than that, clearly. Sports bra in hand, she looked down at the pile on the bed. The cheating bitch hadn't even had the balls to show up and get her shit. Or, you know, give her notice like an actual professional.

Instead, after the joyous occasion that was The Box premiere filming—she will never forget Merc's screams—, she returned to the office to find it full of whispers and curious side-long glances. It was easy enough to breeze by Carol's office with an inconspicuous glance in to see that it had been cleared out. So very quickly. Well, it's not like she had much worth taking in the first place. Helen's stride never faltered but the slam of her own office door may have given her away. Just a little bit. Doesn't matter anymore. That was three and a half weeks ago.

Three and a half weeks with this bag of shit sitting in her closet. Three and a half weeks of making Beverly Lincoln's life pure misery. Three and a half weeks of watching Merc squirm at the hands of Matt Leblanc. Three and a half weeks of all her revenges going precisely to plan. Three and a half weeks of an empty office and then a new interim and only mildly useless Head of Programming. Three and a half weeks of a neon pink vibrator instead of a desperate, twitchy strawberry blonde between her legs. And thus, three and a half weeks of barely satisfactory orgasms. So, in total, the bad seemed to be cancelling out the good by a mile. And just a whiff of Carol's perfume was enough to be reminded of that.

With a quick spin on her heel, she tossed the bag aside and slammed the bedroom door behind and left the hurricane to be ignored until Elena came to clean it up.

And shit, she'd left the fucking bra in there. Again.

Fuck it. She'd just buy a new one.