After The Storm (Sequel)

Couples Therapy

"But we didn't. I realized that I wanted to work through things." He said.

"It wasn't like you just decided to stay with me out of love, you stayed with me out of guilt because Derek died and you didn't think I could handle a divorce." I huffed.

"That's crazy! I never said that." He shook his head.

"Mr. Avery, let Mrs. Avery finish then you'll have your turn to respond." She interjected. "What makes you feel like Jackson stayed with you out of guilt?"

"Because we were at a point where Jackson had did everything but file the divorce papers, but then my best friend Derek died and I was really struggling and he saw that so we just never talked about the divorce again. He was too busy taking pity on me for us to focus on our problems and we truly never worked through that, we just began acting like it never happened." I said.

"Mr. Avery, what do you have to say in response?"

"Look, after Lily lost Derek of course I was really worried about her. Derek was her best friend and I didn't know if she would make it through that, so of course I wanted to help her through everything, but at some point I also ended up realizing I wanted our marriage to work" He said looking over at me. "Liliana, it's been years since we lost George. We've gone through a lot, we've had our daughter, we've built a good life together despite what we went through. All of that didn't happen because I felt guilty and obligated to stay with you. It happened because I love you."

"I know that you love me Jackson, but I don't think you ever forgave me. Honestly, I think that you act like since you stayed with me after I left, you can do whatever you want and I just have to move past it because you did. I mean, can you honestly tell me that you truly forgave me or did you just bury everything away?" I asked. Everything got silent for a moment as Jackson and I sat there.

"Well Mr. Avery?"

"I don't know okay? I don't know if I ever fully moved past everything." He admitted.

"And there we have it." I mumbled.

"It looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us." Our therapist said.

- -

"Liliana. How long are we going to do this? The petulance, the silence..." Jackson said as he followed me closely throughout the hospital hallway.

"Petulance?" I frowned coming to a stop and looking back at him. "Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

"Really  Lily." He sighed.

"Jackson, you have had a grudge against me for years and not opened your mouth about it once! It took me confronting you about it in therapy for you to finally admit it!"

"Why would you bring it up if you were just going to get angry at my answer?" He frowned.

"Just because I brought it up doesn't mean that your answer didn't hurt." I scoffed. "Look, I have work to do. I don't want to talk about this anymore." I said before walking off.

Though I suspected there was a piece of Jackson that still had some resentment about the way I handled things in the past, it still crushed me to hear it and I wondered if we would move past it.

"Hey," Meredith said as I approached the nurse's station.

"Hey," I sighed grabbing my iPad so I could look over my patient charts.

"How's Kimmie's case going?" She asked me.

"It's going." I sighed leaning against the desk. "I found a doctor in Chicago who's doing a similar kind of ultrasound research. She hasn't published much yet, but I'm hoping she's further along in the process than I am." Kimmie's been in the hospital for a few weeks now receiving chemo and radiation to shrink the tumor, but there still hasn't been much of a change and I was starting to think that time was running out.