Clea could be invested in the state of her nail beds all she wanted, but it wasn’t going to change where she was, here and now. Here, being on this couch, in front of a marriage therapist, with Tristan a scant foot away from her, on the opposite side. The car ride there had been quiet, but heavy, like a storm brewing, an indication of what might occur in this, their first session. As she’d been doing for so long now she couldn’t remember what it was like before she would worry at the smooth gold and bumpy opal of her wedding and engagement ring, and keep all her panic down.
She was terrified, after all.
Terrified, that the therapist would say that she was the reason that she and Tristan’s marriage was failing. Terrified, that her parents had been right all those years ago, despite the cord that still pulled tight and thick between them even when on opposite sides of the house. Even, Clea’d thought, when he was overseas and the days had stretched too long since she’d heard from him, when she buried her face in one of his flannels and cried for the fear of losing him, whether it was physically or emotionally or in all the ways that counted.
So Clea was here. Here, ignoring, as she always did, the handsome cut of her husbands face. The parts of him that she knew as well as her own, the cords in strong wrists and cut of a strong jaw and the way that the words from his mouth either burned her from the inside out or cut at the ties between them.
In front of them, their therapist Olivia cleared her throat, tapping her pen against her notebook. “We’re not going to get anywhere if neither of you will say anything, you know.”
tagging: @tristan-hawkins