I'll Be There

26 | these days

Spencer's gaze burned into the wooden bowl on the coffee table, willing it to provide him the answers he was helplessly searching for. He had been tasked with trying to identify potential causes for his distress, but after three long minutes, his mind remained useless.

"I don't know," Spencer sighed, wiping his palms on his joggers as he scooted further into the couch. "Liv and I ain't ever had issues with our relationship before. At least nothing we couldn't work through within a few days."

"That's great to hear, but if there wasn't anything bothering you, then you wouldn't be here," Dr. Spears watched him calmly.

"I just had a bad day. I'm happy. I got my girl back," he paused before starting again with more conviction. "We had a rough start, but we're finding our way. We have our routines – we wake up, she does her morning stuff, I head to the training facility. When we can, we try to eat dinner together. We've been talking more," he held up his hands as if his points were all plausible solutions to his issue.

The therapist kept quiet as his long-term patient stared out into space, momentarily sitting in his own discomfort before choosing to ramble on.

"Like I said earlier, I'm doing better about not letting my workouts run so long, so she's not staying up as late. We go on dates. Our sex life is good. We're slowly coming back together," Spencer shrugged. "It's everything she said we needed. She asked to slow down, so we're slowing down."

"Do you have any opposition to slowing down?"

"Nah," Spencer shook his head. "I mean, I'm ready to move forward, start a family. But I get it, it's too soon. She wants to wait."

"Does Olivia know where you stand?"

"Yeah. But really, I get it. It's barely been four months."

"Why do you think you're so ready to press forward?"

"She's it for me. I don't want anybody else."

"Well, it sounds like Olivia hasn't held back from asking for what she needs from you, and you're providing that. But is there something that you need from her?"

"Liv," Spencer looked at him blankly. "I need Liv, and I have Liv."

"Your main focus in the past year has been getting back to your relationship with Olivia and moving forward. Be careful about getting stuck on that. You've mentioned Olivia as your end goal several times today, but there could be other factors at play."

Spencer's frustrations started to boil into aggression. "I don't understand. I came to you every week for a year. We talked through it. I did the work, man."

"It's not uncommon for feelings to resurface when circumstances change."

Taking a deep breath, Spencer rolled his neck.

"How about you talk me through the end of your relationship with Olivia and the time afterwards."

"We already been through this."

"Humor me."

"Okay," Spencer repositioned himself on the couch. "Um, our last two months were night and day. During the last month that Liv was pregnant, it finally clicked that our lives were going to change forever. There was about to be someone relying on me in a way that I've never been relied on before. It was a lot of pressure. So yeah, I started staying late during my workouts to cope with those thoughts, but Liv and I, Liv and I were solid. It was the happiest I've ever seen her. She used to tell me 'we made the perfect baby, Spencer James.' Everything was about me, her, and the baby."

"Then what happened next?" Dr. Spears prodded when he noticed his patient stalling.

"It was one night. One night, man, and everything was gone. Liv. The baby. Our future."