Shattered Pieces

Seventeen

"And what scares you the most, Olivia?"
Dr. Alexander, our new couples therapist asks me as my husband sits next to me with a loose grip on my hand.

"That my husband's love for me is conditional. That one morning, he'll wake up and decide that none of this was worth it."

We'd been coming to couples therapy for a little over a week now. We have three sessions a week, one alone for each of us and one together. Dr. Alexander came highly recommended by one of the player's wives. It took a little convincing the get Spencer here, but it felt like a necessary step.

"Spencer. How does that make you feel? Hearing Olivia share her truth."

His free hand slowly slides down his pants, and he gulps.

"I love my wife more than I've ever loved anything on this earth besides our son. It just feels like we're still cleaning up a four year old mess when it didn't have to be that way. I can love her and be hurt by her betrayal."

The grip that was already barely holding my hand to Spencer's loosens to the point it's almost nonexistent.

"He's punishing me like I set out to betray him." I scoff.

"A betrayal cuts all the same whether intentional or not, Olivia. Have you tried explaining where your head was that led you to keep this secret?"

"I have tried to explain a lot of things. He shuts me down at every turn."

"You conveniently didn't have an explanation until you got caught." He's quick with enough spark to burn this entire office down.

"Your wife is talking now, Spencer. Your time will come." Dr. Alexander tries to extinguish the flames.

"I saw her the day of our wedding. I hugged her, and there it was, a bump. I was nineteen and getting married. It couldn't be his baby. I don't get how you can't see that. It couldn't be your baby, Spencer." A lone tear falls, and unlike the millions of tears before, my husband doesn't reach to wipe this one away.

"Take your time." Dr. Alexander hands me a tissue.

"I was going to tell you at your parent's house the day of our wedding. Then you gave me this speech about how it was just us, and we'd have a perfect life and one day the perfect family. I... I couldn't do it. I deserved, at the very least, my wedding day."

"And then you just lost track of time every day after that?" His eyes dart to mine.

"Why are you being so cruel? Just last week, you showed up at the studio saying you wanted to fix things."

"Because I was trying to forget that you were ever involved in this whole fucked up situation, but you're insisting on airing out all of our dirty laundry."

I flinch at the tone of his voice. I'm not scared of my husband, but I've never seen him carry this level of anger.

"We spent countless nights laid up on the couch, your feet in my lap as we talked about our life— our future family. Even if you weren't sure, how could you never say anything to me?"

Silence

The quiet weighed so heavily on me— on our relationship. I had to find a way to shatter the silence. Words form at the back of my throat and die on the tip of my tongue

Spencer is my very best friend, yet right now, I can't figure out how to share with him the thoughts that run through my mind.

"I didn't want it to be true, so I chose to ignore it." My voice is even lower than a whisper as the ugly truth escapes my lips.

"What was that, Olivia?" Dr. Alexander asks.

"She doesn't need to repeat herself." Spencer's tone is almost lifeless.