Odell Quickies

One Chance

Tell me, how can I right my wrongs?
That's something that I should know
All the things that we been through, girl I never meant to put you through it twice

right my wrongs; bryson tiller

Final part for Unfaithful

It took what seemed a lifetime to get Lauryn back. I saw the wrong in everything I'd done and I wanted nothing more than to prove that to her when she agreed to couples therapy. Together on the small couch in the doctor's office we sat in silence. I tried being affectionate but she only tensed up. Jerking her hand away when I rested mine on top, things like that.

"No Odell." She whispered between us. The doctor wasn't in yet. "I agreed to this because I told you I want to fix this but trust and believe, it's still broken." Her words cut deep but I understood. I'd done a lot of damage.

"Mr. and Mrs. Beckham?" A short statured black woman walked in. Her curly hair pulled back into a bun and her makeup very subtle. "I'm Dr. Wright." Dr. Wright grabbed our hands and shook them, the smile she wore never fading.

"Nice to meet you as well." Lauryn's professional voice was on the front line at the moment. I loved it.

"Pleasure, Dr. Wright." I gave a smile and situated myself back in my seat.

"So I'd like to jump right in. Help me help you, I would like to know gist of what's going on between the two of you." She sat back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. Lauryn looked at me and I looked at Lauryn. "Please don't fight to go first." Dr. Wright joked, choking out the uncomfortable silence.

I didn't do well with expressing my feelings and Lauryn was always a shy person. She never fought to give out personal information, a trait I appreciated in her from the jump. "Well I've been a dog." I start bluntly. "Our marriage has been wonderful up until the last year or so, with me being in the NFL I travel the country and I have a lot of women fighting to sleep with me and I stepped out on my wife and her trust in me has been broken which I firmly believe is warranted."

Lauryn looked at me, there was so much sadness still in her eyes. I could just see her heart breaking over again even when she smiled at me. Dr. Wright scribbled away in a notebook, tagged Beckham. "Well, that's a serious issue. Lauryn, anything you'd like to add?"

While I spoke Lauryn had been staring at her hands, fiddling with her thumbs but now she looked at the doctor with tears welling up in her eyes. "I love my husband so much and it's just," her voice broke and like the reflex of a cheetah, Dr. Wright handed her a box of tissues, "this has all been so much on me. You know? I give and give and I make sure he's happy and I don't know what I did or how I changed to not be good enough for him anymore." I looked at her while she sniffled, dabbing away her tears.

"Odell, how does that make you feel? To hear that your wife thinks she's no longer good enough for you?" Dr. Wright pressed, I watched her glance up at me then jot something else down in our notebook.

"It tears me up inside. She's always been good enough, hell sometimes I think she's too good to be true." Lauryn glanced up at me, a little trace of a smile playing against her lips. "I never had sex with the girl that called our home though." The doctor stopped writing and looked up at me, prompting me to go further. "I was feeling some distance between Lauryn and I prior to the blow up back in February and I faltered, I admit. I met Asia at a bar in Dallas after a game midway through the season." I paused, Lauryn had never let me tell her this story but I felt like if we were going to make any progress in mending what I broke, she had to. "We exchanged numbers under the premise that if I needed to talk she'd listen." I looked at Lauryn's face, disappointment, anger, betrayal, everything showing in her eyes. "I told her somethings I probably shouldn't have about my marriage and she flew to New York on her own about a month into talking. I never wanted anything serious out of it. I wasn't looking to cheat I swear. I never invited her, I know I shouldn't have ever entertained her in the first place but I was...I was desperate for attention and she gave it to me." Lauryn moved from right next to me to the opposite end of the couch.

"May I ask what brought on the feeling of distance? What transpired to bring that rift into your relationship with each other?" The doctor looked on like she had a clue of what happened.

"Well I had a miscarriage, what would have been our first child." Lauryn's voice still cracked as she spoke, I know reliving the obstetrician telling her that hurt like a fresh wound was being sliced over an old scar. "I got distant, I felt like when it happened, he wasn't there like he could have been, but that's what I signed up for when a married an athlete and it was so sudden. Realistically I know I shouldn't have been mad at him but I still was and I was battling that."

—

"Well here's what I want you guys to work on. Separately and as a couple. Odell one thing I notice is you stay in your head a lot, you express your feelings in bare minimum. Work on that, when something is bothering you speak on it in depth please." I nodded, whatever she suggested I was willing to do. "And you Lauryn, yours may be the hardest of all. You must work on forgiving. You hold a lot of resentment towards Odell," she nodded in my direction, "I know it's hard to accept but I sense his feelings of remorse for what he's done and if you're to fix this marriage you have to learn to let go. Forgive him, your trust has been broken in him but in order for him to win it back you have to let him back in sweetheart." Lauryn nodded, her eyes were dry now and a huge weight felt like it'd been lifted off my shoulders. The dark cloud looming over us seeming a little lighter. "As for what you two are to work on together...I suggest you two start over. You two have grown a lot from the beginning of your relationship, things have changed. Go on dates, rekindle that magic you two claimed you've had all these years up until this point. Pick up from square one, it'll make a huge difference."

"Yes ma'am." Lauryn and I looked at each other, the optimism of us working through this made me so much more happier. "Thank you so much."

"Have my assistant schedule you two for an appointment a month from now. We'll work on this as a team." Instead of a professional handshake, she wrapped us in a hug, affirming to us that we could do this and come back stronger than ever.

And you know what, looking in the eyes of my wife, I had no doubts about it. I was willing to go to the moon and back, even further for her if she wanted. I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing but my wife back in my arms, eyes twinkling like the stars in a clear night sky. She was all the mattered to me.

*one year later

In the maternity ward of the hospital, I held in my arms the light of my life. My pride and joy. Odell Cornelius Beckham III. Looking at him bundled up in his pastel blue blanket felt like standing on the sun. But it was nothing like looking at his mother hold his twin sister Heather, named after my mother, in her arms. After a year of fighting for our marriage, I finally had my wife back and two little miracles to watch grow up. Lauryn glanced up at me, tears of joy streaming down our cheeks. Nothing was greater than this. Nothing in my life could ever top the emotions of this very moment. My son, my daughter, their mother. I had it all. The lord was really looking out for me.