The Way We Feel

Chapter 38

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.