Station 53

The Counsellor

This chapter has NOT been edited.

***

Daniel and I sat side by side, guiltily staring at the man before us as he educated us on the responsibilities that come with marriage. 

After Daniel excitedly called his lawyer and told him the news of our divorce, the lawyer told us that by law, we are not permitted a divorce unless we have been married for over 12 months. So that there screwed up many of our plans and taught us that we should probably do some research before jumping into life changing situations. Instead, the lawyer sent us to a marriage counsellor to help us "sort out our differences" and "go back to being a beautiful family". His words not mine. 

So now we were sat before a middle aged man who spoke to us about the greatness of this union and asked us stupid questions like "do you like the side of the bed you sleep on?" and "would you prefer the utensils in the first or second drawer?". 

"You have only been married for a couple of months," the counsellor noted, "why exactly do you want to get divorced?" he suddenly asked the real question after asking a million stupid ones. 

"We don't get along," Daniel answered after a moment of silence between the two of us. 

The counsellor looked between us as if trying to figure something out before looking back down at his papers. Daniel seemed to have taken his reaction as doubt so he quickly continued.

"You saw yourself," he went on, "we can't even agree on which side of the bed we'll sleep on." 

When the counsellor had asked us to pick a side of the bed on the count of three, we both said "left" which caused another bout of silence between the three of us. The counsellor thought that it was good progress to get our true thoughts and feelings out there, but truth was we didn't sleep in the same bed so we had no idea which side the other preferred. And when we did sleep in the same bed, it was after strenuous activities so we barely even noticed if we were sleeping on the side we personally preferred. Of course, our lack of knowledge worked in our favour but it was quite sad that I was learning more about Daniel through this one hour counselling session than through months of being married to him. 

"And she's super stubborn," Daniel suddenly suddenly added, making me turn my attention to him with a raised brow. I was going to assume it was to make this all the more believable until he continued, "She always has to have her way and she has to have the last say. It's impossible to reason with her!" he huffed, suddenly speaking from heart it seemed. I scoffed as I turned my whole body towards him. I guess it was time to let each other know how much we hated one another. 

"Well if you don't fight back, I wouldn't have to be stubborn, now would I?" I spat out, proving his point on making myself angry over it. The counsellor put down his notepad and sat back in his chair, looking somewhat amused. 

Daniel also turned in his chair so he was facing me with an incredulous look on his face, as if he couldn't believe my reasoning.

"You're joking, right?"

"No," I shook my head with immense amounts of attitude, "if you let me have my way, then I wouldn't have  to be stubborn over it."

I was being childish. I knew it, he knew and heck, even the counsellor knew it. But as much as it annoyed me when others pointed it out, I really was stubborn and I just couldn't let him get away with listing my flaws.  

"Fine," he began as if he couldn't be bothered getting into a fight over this. He turned to the counsellor who was still watching us with an amused smile on his face, "Do you know she has these random burst of attitude that drive me crazy? I have never been so angry in my life until I met her and I spend most of my time on the field with competitive men," he scoffed, his face began to tint a light shade of red, indicating that he was getting worked up now.