Three's Company

13. Therapy

Staring at the same plain white walls repeatedly was enough to make any sane person insane.

Heath Callahan tried to put his mind at ease but it was hard when the four walls were lacking any source of entertainment. There were no generic words of affirmation or corny prints decorating the eggshell colour.

He wondered how the office was supposed to help him talk about his feelings when he felt like a fucking prisoner.

"Mr. Callahan, my sincere apologies for keeping you waiting so long." Short blonde locks and warm honey-brown eyes made contact with him as the tall woman entered through the once closed door. "I do hope you managed to help yourself to the tea and coffee."

He tried to not pull a face, looking over at the hot beverage station behind her desk.

"Oh, thanks but I'm not really a big hot drinks person." The hot drinks person was his wife, he missed out purposely.

She was always cosied up after a long day on the farm, feet tucked into the edges of their couch as a hot steaming chai rested in her hands.

Ex-wife, Heath reminded himself. She wasn't his wife anymore.

"Ah, I feel you on that. My husband can have a scalding tea whatever the weather is whereas I need to be seriously sick to enjoy a warm beverage." She mused, laughing gently.

He offered her a polite head nod, watching as she sat down on her desk and opened up a journal book and a yellow folder that was set out for her.

He had known Mary and her husband since he could remember and he knew what she was telling him could not be more like the couple.

He was sat on the chair across from her, his work attire on and his laptop bag neatly placed next to his feet.

"So..." she started by saying, searching through his notes with her busy eyes. "I see you wanted to talk about something a little more personal today, any reason why?"

Heath swallowed his anxiety back and let out a long sigh. He shrugged, trying to seem as unaffected as he could.

But this was his childhood therapist and the same one who he went to whenever life seemed to get too real.

She knew him better than that.

"I told Mo about the affair and we got a divorce three months ago." He said bluntly, causing the woman's brows to shoot up in surprise.

"Wow," she muttered, shutting the journal and focusing on the man fully. "I wasn't expecting that at all. You finally told her?"

"Yeah."

"And about the divorce, she took it well I presume?"

"Better than I thought she would." He replied lowly, ashamed of his own truth.

"Okay. How did that make you feel?" Before she could start psychoanalysing him, he shook his head and brought his hand up to his face to rub his jaw.

"I'm not here to talk about the marriage or her or the affair. I'm here because I've been feeling like I need to talk about something stupid, and I don't know how the fuck I can say it without sounding like a fucking loser."

"Heath," she stopped warily. "You can talk to me about anything in this room, no one is going to judge you. Especially not me."

A quick flash of annoyance lit his face, and then he shook his head in resignation and met her eyes. "I've been feeling sort of...off lately."

"Oh? Off how?"

Then it started to get real and he suddenly felt stupid for even coming into this part of town.