These last few weeks were difficult, to say the least. There was no way of getting around it—Mads and I had to stumble our way right through all our issues, and try to find the other side.
I still wasn't sure whether we'd actually made it to the other end just yet, but when she looked at me the way she was looking at me now, I knew that the journey so far, with all it's bumps and potholes and sharp turns, was fully worth it.
"Did you see that?" she asked, watching Lila in her high chair at our table in a cafe not too far from our apartment. Mads was grinning from ear to ear. "She just winked!"
"I missed it," I said, leaning closer to see Lila's little face, smeared now with pureed carrots. When her eyes, so like her mother's, met mine, she smiled.
And my heart melted.
"I know that was completely a fluke, but it was super cute," Mads said, lifting her phone to take a picture of Lila anyway.
It was a beautiful spring day, bright and clear, the heat of summer creeping into the air and all the flowers in full bloom. We'd spent the morning out and about, just walking around in the fresh air, each of us taking turns pushing Lila in her pram. We'd been spotted by fans a few times, but thankfully no paparazzi today.
Yet, anyway. We were just finishing up lunch, so there was still plenty of time, I supposed.
But I didn't want to dwell on that. Not when things were feeling so good between us. Or at least, better than they'd been feeling. We hadn't been in New York for a month yet, but I was already seeing and feeling a difference in the way Mads and I were with each other.
And it was a difference that made things almost feel like they used to, when we were younger and dating. But it was a difference that also made things feel better than they used to—impossibly better than when we were younger and dating.
I could only chalk it up to the therapy. She went a couple times a week, and I'd been going with her once a week so far, and already, the work we were doing had proved invaluable.
Which wasn't to say it hadn't been hard. It still was, in many ways.
That first session—it was like ripping open every wound we thought we'd recovered from. And the process was all the more painful because what we hadn't realized was that we'd trapped infection underneath.
Madelyn's therapist, Wendy, was an older woman with silver hair that bounced in perfect curls around her face. I'd been nervous when I first met her. It was silly, but I wasn't sure what I was walking into—what Mads had said about me. Of course I knew it likely wasn't anything horrible—she hadn't had a chance to see Wendy since finding out about the thing with Vanessa—but I think the guilt over everything made me feel like this woman would see nothing but a liar when she looked at me.
I wasn't at all prepared for the warmth that exuded from Wendy, the kind way she said hello, she was so pleased to meet me, the glow that seemed to light up her full, brown cheeks and spark in her brown eyes, even from behind her glasses. Nor was I prepared for the kindness, the patience she showed each of us as we spoke our turns.
I'd been to a therapist before. When the boys and I went on hiatus after five years of being in One Direction, I'd started seeing a therapist called Oliver, just to try and process everything, and reacclimate myself to my life—the ways it was still the same, and the ways it had vastly changed. He was based in London, but we had phone sessions when I spent time in L.A. or anywhere else. And I'd found it helpful, I suppose, but also not entirely necessary. I'd felt like I was pretty well-adjusted as it was. I'd thought it would be more beneficial than it turned out to be.
I wouldn't say I took any of that into therapy with Mads, but I was definitely more wary of it, considering I'd never before truly had reason to dive into what I considered very private and personal subject matter.
It was one thing to talk about myself. It was another thing entirely to open up about my relationship with Mads and have someone examine it.
Examine us.
But it was necessary. I knew that. Not just because Mads wanted me to go, but because I wanted to make things right. And I never wanted to go through a rough patch like this again if I could help it.
Wendy had put me at ease immediately, only to ask us to dive into all of our problems right afterwards.
Mads, sitting next to me, but what felt like miles away, had started us off.
"Well, you know what's been going on with me, with the postpartum. And Harry just got in a couple nights ago from L.A. with some... hard news." She stopped, swallowing hard. I wanted to touch her—her back or her hand—but I couldn't stand it if she angled herself away from me, if she tore her hand from mine. I kept my hands laced together in my lap.
"I'll let him tell you," she said.
We hadn't spoken much since I'd told her the day before, and I didn't relish the thought of going through it again for Wendy's benefit.
Just saying it all aloud again felt like another form of punishment.
But I did it, and the shame burned hotter than ever along every inch of my skin. I told Wendy everything she needed to know, including the very real fact that nothing more than the kiss had happened, and how it had meant nothing to me.
Wendy listened attentively, jotting things down occasionally, smiling encouragingly every so often, especially when she sensed I was getting choked up. And when I was done, those bright, knowing brown eyes shifted to Mads. "This has made you doubt everything, hasn't it?"
Looking at Madelyn then, her tired eyes, her slumped shoulders, the firm press of her mouth, her arms crossed over her chest in a hug—watching her nod... It was like a bullet straight through the heart.
Wendy nodded, too, her suspicions confirmed.
I hated myself.
"And he was there for a couple weeks on his own, right after it happened. He told me he wanted me to be with my family because of what I was going through," Mads said.
"Which was one hundred percent true. Nothing more happened, I promise you," I insisted, feeling desperate in a way I never had before. "I never wanted that stupid kiss to happen in the first place, so I definitely didn't want more than that."
She stayed silent, her eyes on her lap.
Then and there I resolved to never do anything that would make her doubt me or herself again. I would do everything I could to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.
"I don't know how to make you believe—"
"Harry," Wendy interrupted gently. "Let's slow this down a little bit, okay?"
I felt like I was suffocating in that moment, strapped to my seat, the breath strangled out of me, the room growing smaller and smaller but rather than bringing Madelyn and I closer together, it was only pulling us further apart
"Have you spoken about this beyond Harry telling you what happened?" Wendy asked next, her kind eyes moving slowly between the two of us.
Mads shook her head, answering for both of us. "He only just got here the other day. He told me that night. And yesterday, we... we talked a little bit about it, but we planned to come here, so..."
What she didn't say was that after yesterday morning, we didn't talk unless it was absolutely necessary.
Every second I was so near to her, but unable to feel close to her... I didn't know how much longer I could stand it.
"Right, well..." Wendy adjusted her glasses, her smile serene as she looked between the two of us again. "Let's get to it."
It was particularly brutal. First, Wendy had asked us both more about how we met, how our relationship grew, how that growth ebbed and flowed. Neither of us showed much emotion, though the memory of it all had me aching inside.
Wendy asked us a few pointed questions about the time we were apart, the things that happened, the choices we'd made...
It was strange to know we were being analyzed. Strange to see it all from that outside perspective. Looking back now, it was so evident how flawed our communication was at the time. Which made it all the more apparent how flawed it was now as well.
She took us through the miscarriage. Asked us to discuss how we felt through that period of loss and grief. How we coped or didn't cope together. Then, into the pregnancy that brought us Lila. Where we were in our grief, if and how the fear of losing another affected our ability to enjoy the pregnancy.
What it was like when she was born.
Mads and I worked together to explain it all, filling in the little bits that the other couldn't and painting a canvas of emotions that colored the air between us with shades of love, heartbreak, sadness, grief, anger, and pain. Giving our own sides to each story, so that by the time we reached the present—by the time we got to this situation at hand—we were able to look each other in the eye again.
"And now comes this lack of trust again, leading to a lack of communication," Wendy said as we came full circle, looking between the two of us with that same patience she'd shown right along as we spoke. "It seems to keep cropping up, doesn't it?"
Mads and I weren't looking at each other anymore. I couldn't say what she might've been feeling in that moment, but all I could feel was a profound sense of shame.
"It's what you drove you two apart initially, if I'm understanding correctly, and what kept you apart for so long in the middle of your relationship with each other. And now it's driving a wedge between you again."
Wendy didn't say any of it with an ounce of judgment in her tone. In fact, she'd said it as nothing but a matter of fact. But I felt judged all the same.
"What do you think it stems from?" she asked then.
And we were both quiet for a little bit. My thoughts turned to one thing, and one thing only.
"I think we try to protect each other from feeling hurt," Mads said, her voice clear as a bell in that quiet room, her fingers still carefully folded in her lap. She looked at me. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we don't tell each other things we think the other won't want to hear."
"Things we think will be hard for the other person," I added, agreeing with her completely.
"Things that we think we have handled on our own." Mads looked from me to Wendy.
"And I don't think it happens all the time either," I said then, feeling a little bit more confident now, buoyed by the fact that Mads and I appeared to be on the same page, at least in this. "I think when we're good, we're good. But maybe, um... maybe when we're too good, is when we sort of start to keep things to ourselves."
It wasn't until I said it that I realized how true it was. At least for me.
"Yeah," Mads agreed. "Like there's this aspect of... at least on my end... not wanting to bog him down with stuff. Especially when things are good and especially because he's usually got a lot on his plate with work."
I tried to let the guilt roll off my shoulders.
"Harry, do you feel something similar?" Wendy asked.
"I think so." I glanced at Mads, who was waiting patiently for me to elaborate. "I think, for me, it's similar in that I don't want her to have to deal with certain things, but more because so much stuff comes with what I do, and I know that a lot of it isn't part of a normal life, and I want her to have that as much as possible."
"But I signed on for all that when I married you. I knew what I was doing."
"It doesn't mean I don't still want to shield you from some of it, Mads. Especially the worst of it."
"But if you would just—"
"The other reason I keep certain things to myself, I think, is because I'm scared of what it will do to her. Emotionally."
Madelyn was quiet then. And I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth.
"I—I wasn't around for her when she went through her last struggle with her mental health. After her first miscarriage. I had no idea what was going on." It goes without saying that she hadn't told me any of it while it was happening. "But after the second one... And then with the postpartum... I think it's very much been on my mind that she could become that fragile again. That I could hurt her irrevocably somehow."
"But you went ahead and kissed her anyway."
The words were cutting. The silence then, between us on that couch, deafening.
"I'm going to stop you there," Wendy said, seemingly unaffected by the storm of emotions brewing between us. She shifted her notebook aside and peered at us through her glasses, a slight smile to her red lips. "Now... to start, I don't like to call these kinds of things problems or issues or anything like that, alright? Even though they cause tension, heartache, and stress in relationships, I prefer to see them, and I hope you will, too, as opportunities for growth."
Her eyes moved between both of us again before she went on.
"So, it seems to me like you've had a lot of opportunities for growth in the past, and you've taken advantage of them. You've worked things out together by communicating and relying on one another. And maybe that communication didn't come easy. Maybe relying on each other felt like the hardest thing in the world at the time. Maybe situations weren't always healthy. Maybe circumstances weren't always optimal. Maybe it hurt more than anything to get through a particular rough patch. But that's life, isn't it?"
She leaned forward then, a smile growing on her lips, and patiently, kindly, she said, "Without diminishing what you're going through, I want you to understand that every couple in the world deals with this kind of struggle. And these opportunities come in waves. The peace and the strife tend to go together in some way, shape, or form. These periods of growth will come at you again and again in the future, and you'll have to face them as individuals, and as a team. You made a choice to come here today. A choice that says to each other how ready you each are to learn in a new way. To open yourselves up once more and welcome that growth. To love each other through this period, even though it may hurt."
Mads shifted on the couch then, and the movement drew my eyes to her legs, her hands laced upon them.
"Love is one big learning curve, filled with sharp turns and bumpy roads and steep hills. To continue on that journey is a choice you make every single day, and those twenty-four hours are filled with millions of smaller choices that guide you on that path."
The breath I took then brought awareness back to my body. I'd been completely caught up in what she was saying.
"Which is why I want you to take," she lifted a shoulder, "an hour. Each day, whenever it works best for you. After the baby's down for the night. Set aside that time, and talk to each other. No distractions if you can help it. Phones, computer, television, I don't want you to have any of that going during this one hour each day. I want you to sit down, look each other in the eye, and be honest. About... anything and everything. If something's on your mind, share it. No matter how you think the other person might react. And understand that this hour means listening as much as it does talking. Hear each other out. Even if it's hard to discuss. And I'll tell you why I want you to do this..."
Wendy situated herself at the edge of her seat, crossing her legs so that her red manicured hands clutched her knee.
"This world moves so fast. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that, particularly with your career." She tipped her head in my direction and smiled. I found myself smiling back a bit. "It's easy to get caught up in it, especially when things are good. It's easy to feel like having a long conversation isn't important—like holding onto that painful feeling or loaded thought or hurtful conversation is more important to spare each other the pain. But love, trust—it's like a plant. It needs near constant tending. And if you get into the habit of setting aside that time for each other as often as you can, I think you'll see a world of difference in the way you regard the opportunities for growth that present themselves to you in the future. As individuals, and as a pair."
Wendy had sat back then, glancing at her watch as her seat squeaked. "Give it a try for now, every day. And when we meet next week, we'll discuss how it went."
Three weeks later, the difference was already apparent.
I stared at Mads across the table of that cafe, a warmth in my chest as I watched her make funny faces at Lila as she tried to get her to open her mouth. Her own sandwich and fries were basically untouched.
I hadn't made a dent in mine for a different reason.
"Here," I said, reaching across the table for the jar of food and spoon. "Eat. I'll take over."
"But you haven't eaten either." She let me take the food anyway.
I shrugged. "I'll manage, don't worry."
Mads gave me a little smile and lifted her sandwich to her mouth, taking a nice healthy bite.
Two more therapy sessions since that first one, and I found myself looking forward to getting home. To that hour-long conversation I knew we'd have later today.
It hadn't been easy at first. That first one, that night after therapy—it felt like neither of us knew how to talk to each other anymore.
It didn't help that we were still in Michelle's house. We'd had to wait until we got Lila to sleep, and then we had to wait until Michelle headed upstairs. And then we had to turn off the television, leave our phones on the counter, and be with each other in the silence, with all those insecurities and doubts and shame eating away at our insides.
We'd sat on opposite ends of the couch, and where we might normally have tangled our outstretched legs together in the middle, Mads kept hers curled up against her, and my feet were planted firmly on the floor.
We must have wasted the first ten minutes just trying to figure out what the hell to say to each other, before I couldn't take it any longer.
"I think we're meant to spend the hour talking, not sitting in silence."
I meant for it to sound joking—funny. But it came out unsure and almost bitter.
"Well, if you have something to say, feel free to share it." Her words were right on the edge of annoyed.
I bit my lip. "I don't know what to say to you."
"I don't know what to say either."
"Anything. Lace into me again if you like."
Again, I was hoping to get a chuckle out of her, but once more, the words came out forced, having had to fight past the apprehension lodged in my chest, cutting off my airway.
She crossed her arms then, and seemed tired when she said, "I don't want to fight with you anymore, Harry."
A small thrill was my initial reaction, but it was quickly followed up by alarm. That could mean one of two things: the first being that she wanted things to get better between us and no longer wanted to fight. The second being...
That she'd rather give up than fight.
And that second thing kept me quiet for several minutes more, trying not to let my panic show, trying to understand what that meant, and why she wasn't saying more.
The fact that she wasn't saying more was making my anxiety so much worse.
When it stayed quiet for too long, when my fear had reached its peak, when I felt like there were words I wanted to say, but didn't know how to put together, strangling me, I decided to go with, "Do you believe me?"
I felt her eyes on my face.
"About why I sent you here. That I—that I didn't—"
She sighed when I trailed off. "I want to." Her brow furrowed. "I mean... I think I do."
"But?" I added, sensing it from the rise in her voice, afraid to feel too relieved.
"But I don't know." She hung her head. Stared at her fingers in her lap, just as she had earlier in Wendy's office.
It took a while for her to say it, but when she did, she looked at me again. "I don't actually believe you would've done that to me."
"You—you don't?"
She shook her head, blue eyes watering. "I—I think I just... let my doubts get the best of me. Again," she added with something like a laugh. Her smile wasn't even really a smile. "Deep down, I know you're telling me the truth."
The relief is like water doused over flames—or at least a small portion of them. This blaze has had weeks to tear through me, and it's reach has burned through most of my body.
"I wouldn't ever do that to you, Mads."
"I know." She didn't move at all, but somehow, it looked like she curled into herself even more. "But that doesn't change the fact that you felt the need to kiss her."
"It wasn't—"
"I know what it was." Her gaze stayed far away from me again. "You had to kiss her. It was practice. I understand that much. And I can even understand why you got caught up in it."
Flashes of that kiss with Vanessa flew through my mind, and I did my best to shake them away, hating what I'd done, and the way it made me feel to remember. Hating the way it felt to hear her talking about it so rationally. Trying so hard to understand, when even I couldn't. Trying so hard to forgive.
"You do?"
Her shoulders lifted until they were just under her ears. "I was completely unavailable. Physically, emotionally... We were in a bad place, and it was because of the postpartum."
"Mads, it wasn't your fault." I slid closer to her, but stopped myself before I could touch her. The movement brought her eyes to mine again. Unshed tears made the blue burn and sear that newly raw flesh somewhere inside me. "This is completely on me. I knew there was something going on with you, even when you didn't want to acknowledge it."
"I know, and I should've listened."
"I'm not saying that to make you feel worse," I rushed to say, my voice rising, feeling like I could tear my hair out trying to make her understand. It took effort to control my volume when I went on, "I'm taking responsibility for what I did because it shouldn't have happened. It was nothing but selfish and thoughtless on my part. And... I still don't know how what happened happened. I still don't fully understand why I did what I did, but I've regretted it every single second of every single day since."
"I don't think I want to know all the reasons or logistics of it anyway," Mads muttered, her attention returning to her fingers.
"Fair enough," I said with a breath of an uncomfortable laugh.
She stayed quiet.
"I'm so sincerely sorry, Mads. For everything. Including the way I told you. I know that doesn't mean much, and I know that there isn't anything I can do or say to make it better, but I—I appreciate the chance to work through this with you. More than you know."
"It's—it's still going to take some time for me, Harry. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but—"
"I wouldn't expect anything else."
"I just—" she gulped "—I want you to know that I understand how this could've been worse. I know it was just a kiss. I know you had to kiss her for the job. I believe you when you say that nothing more happened because I know you. I know us. But this—it played right into all my insecurities. You understand that, don't you?"
She was just being honest, but it felt like an accusation.
I swallowed back the need to defend myself again. "I do. And I hate that I've done that to you again."
"That's why I want us to keep up with therapy." She shook her head, and her smile then looked like a smile. "When we're good, we're amazing. But we've found ourselves in these situations enough now. I'd like to figure out how to deal with them in a healthier, more productive way. For me and for you."
"I couldn't agree more."
Mads sucked in a big breath then. Let it out slowly. "She made me feel like we could. Wendy, today."
"I know we can. And I think she's the perfect person to help us along."
"She's awesome."
When we fell into silence this time, I wanted it to feel like one of our comfortable silences. We were both people who were at ease in quiet—we had been right from the beginning of our relationship.
But this silence was heavier. Still. Even after getting some of it off our chests.
Because nothing was resolved. Not really.
Time. She'd said she needed time. We needed to work on us—our communication, our trust, our coping mechanisms... I was more than willing to do it. So relieved that she'd confirmed her belief in me just now, I couldn't even put it into words.
But that didn't completely put out the blaze roaring inside me. It barely put out a fraction of it. And I didn't know how long it would take to get back to a good place together, but I did know that I was willing to work for it—however long it took. However long she might need.
When that first hour was up, we had spent most of it in awkward silence. Mads had stood up, gave me a small smile that, really, was nothing more than the press of her lips together, and announced she was going to shower. When that first hour was up, it felt like we'd accomplished nothing. Gotten nowhere. But as I lingered there, on the couch in my mother-in-law's house, the same spot I'd been in the other night when things had gone so wrong between us, I'd also known that there would be another hour the following day, and another one the next, and so on.
It went against every instinct I had—I wanted to fix it now, and now, and now—but since then, I'd been reminding myself daily that our issues wouldn't be worked out in one hour at the end of the day. I couldn't solve everything in sixty minutes, even though I'd been able to fuck everything up in less than sixty seconds. But that wasn't true either...
Things had started going wrong for us months ago. Because of decisions we'd made together.
And though things weren't okay, it was okay that we'd each made mistakes.
We were working hard to learn from them now.
And it felt like it was paying off.
"Out like a light," I said to Mads once we were back home—back in our Manhattan apartment.
She was sitting on the couch, watching me walk over to her now that Lila was down for a nap in her room.
Mads gave me a grin. "I was sure you were going to wake her up."
Lila had fallen asleep in her pram on the way back from lunch, and I'd elected to be the one to lift her out of it and hope the jostling wouldn't wake her up completely.
I sat down on the other end of the couch, all too aware of the fact that despite our progress, we hadn't really been physical with each other at all since I'd been back, aside from quick touches to a shoulder or back as we sidled around one another in the kitchen. I tried not to dwell on it as I kicked my feet up onto the coffee table. "We really need to get a move on with her room."
Lila's crib was in the office space for the moment. Because we'd been in L.A. for the first several months of her life, we'd obviously had a chance to decorate her room and collect lots of nice things for her there.
But here, our spare room—her room—was completely empty. White and bare. After I'd arrived in New York a few weeks ago, we'd stayed in Michelle's house for a few days just because we needed the extra time to get a crib. And now that we had that set up in the office, along with some other toys, we'd been planning to paint Lila's real room, but still hadn't done it.
Nor had we decided whether we should have her furniture from L.A. shipped here, or whether we should just go ahead and get new things.
"I know," Mads said, closing her eyes with her head against the back of the couch. "We should at least go pick out a paint color."
"Tomorrow. Deal?"
"Deal."
Silence fell. But it wasn't like the silence of a few weeks ago.
We were back to that comfortable silence. Back to that trust of knowing that each of us was okay, content, to just be sitting here together.
"Want to start our hour now?" Mads asked then, turning her head toward me.
I felt a small jolt of something like excitement. "What if she wakes up?"
Mads shrugged, an easy smile on her lips as she propped herself up. "We'll finish it later if she does, but she'll probably be down for a while. She had an exciting day."
It was true. We'd been out wandering around since early this morning, and Lila had only had one small cry, too distracted by the goings-on of the city to get too worked up for long.
I sat up, too, smiling myself, wondering how the hell it could still be so exciting to talk—just talk—to the woman I'd been married to for two and a half years, the woman I'd been in love with for several more than that.
"Alright," I said, turning to face her, stretching my legs out in the middle of the couch to tangle them with hers. "Shoot."
___
Author's Note:
I would just like everyone to know that I've had my computer for almost 4 years, and the only key that's starting to blur is the H key lmao, so ummmmm... take from that what you will!
Anyway, I very much hope you liked this chapter because SHIT, I just read the last word and gave myself a YAAAAAS out loud haha! Needless to say, super proud of it! We're really getting there now, babes. These two are coming to the end of a beautifully rough journey, and goddamn are they stronger for it.
Also, very much struggled with NOT giving the therapist character my name LMAO. Only because these two have driven me crazy for so long and I would've LOVED to insert myself into their lives so that I could be the one to SMACK THEIR HEADS TOGETHER. But I felt like that would've been waaaay too self-indulgent and you all would've judged me/laughed at me/both. So let me know which one it would've been for you: judgement, laughter, or both, and also PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS CHAPTER. And I promise to get back to your comments on all the past chapters asap!
This leaves us one more chapter closer to the end, which is weird and kind of horrible but also kind of amazing? Like, look what we've done together?!? (im not okay) I still don't know for sure how many are left so we'll find out together! Love you all so very much. Thank you for always being there! Meet'cha back here in two weeks. xx