"Did you do your homework today?" he asks as he leans back into the studded leather couch. Ouch. It looks painful from where she is, sitting across from him in his office. Somehow she thinks it looks homey despite his attempts to mix a modern contrast of leather and glass.
"My goals. Umm. Yes, I did. But I wasn't really sure what you wanted, what you were really asking for. Do you mean goals, goals or what I want to accomplish?"
He sighs impatiently. Not in a mean way, just in an honest way. "Aren't they the same thing?"
She shrugs her shoulders. There's no way she was getting out of this one. "I guess."
"Okay, so show them to me," he instructs. She pulls out half a piece of yellow paper with scribbles and graphs written in red. He scrunches up his nose as he catches a glimpse of the hieroglyphics that covered the sheet.
She clears her throat. "Okay. Here."
"Be happy."
"Go back to normal."
"Focus on my husband."
She looks at him worriedly. Say something. Anything. He sits and stares at her, allowing a thousand seconds to pass between them in silence. "What's normal to you?" he asks.
"You know, like I was before. When I loved him."
He nods his head in an exaggerated up and down motion. Maybe it's just in her head, but she actually believes he's mocking her. "Ah. Okay. Did you ever love him?" he continues.
"Of course I did! What kind of a question is that? He's a great dad and a good husband." She digs into her purse, sort of instinctively, looking for something that isn't even there. She's fidgety and uncomfortable. When she came to him a few weeks ago to seek help, he told her that he didn't think she needed him. That what she was going through was normal.
Please, it just helps to have someone to talk to about this, she had pleaded.
"Okay. What about the next one. How do you want to focus on your husband?" he asks.
"I want to get the other guy out of my head, out of my life."
Her phone buzzes. She spends some time fidgeting with her fingers, trying to resist pulling up her phone until she could no longer bear it. A large, happy smile crosses her face as she read the message.
"Is that him?"
"Yes."
"Okay, so you were saying. Getting him out of your life. Are you going to delete that message and that contact from your phone now?"
"Oh no! No. I'm not ready yet. Maybe in a few days. Or weeks. But not today." Her glassy eyed look tells him that whatever else he said at this session wasn't going to matter. She's in her own little world. The endless possibility opened up by one simple text message.
"And why not today?" he asks, shutting his notebook, ready to call it a day.
"Because today, he just said that he loves me."
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