Almost Unreal | Violentine One-Shots

I Know Your Hello Means Goodbye - Part Two | Hope

The therapist's office is clinically clean and smells like peaches. It reminds Clementine of spring.

She sits in the middle of the grey fabric sofa drumming her fingers against the pillow on her lap. Violet sits off to her left, a few inches further away from Clementine than she's happy about. If someone were to walk into the room right now, they could mistake the two women for friends. Not lovers.

Their relationship counsellor sits on another light grey sofa opposite the couple. She's in her mid-thirties with short black hair and a small black nasal piercing standing out against her skin. Clementine lowers her gaze and notes the ring on her left hand.

"So, Clementine, Violet," she begins looking at each woman in turn, "my names Sarita and I'm a relationship counsellor, I'm here to help you two get your relationship back on track, teach you both how to address issues and remember what's really important."

Clementine nods and chances a glace and Violet; the blonde is nodding along with Sarita. That at least, is a good sign. Maybe there's hope after all.

The counsellor sitting opposite them clears her throat, tucking her hair behind her ear before she continues to speak. "People often come to me and ask me to fix their relationships, but that's down to you two. I'm just here to help you re-connect and teach you ways to deal with problems that threaten your relationship. The rest is up to you two."

Violet lets her gaze settle on the floor, but when Clementine looks at her, she can tell that Violet is listening. The issues in their relationship have clearly bothered Violet just as much as they have Clementine. Both girls are eager to get back to how things used to be.

"So tell me why you've come to see me," continues Sarita as she jots down a note on the pad in her hands.

Clementine coughs lightly and sits up in her seat, "we've been together for about five years now, and everything was fine," the brunette pauses as she looks over at Violet. The blonde smiles at her gingerly. "Then, Violet got a job offer. An offer halfway across the country," Clementine pauses, "and I decided that I wasn't going to move there with her. I decided that I was going to stay here while she left."

"That's where it all started to fall apart," adds Violet with a frown of her own.

Sarita bends her head and writes more notes to her notepad. When she looks up, she smiles, encouraging the two woman to continue discussing their relationship. "We agreed to talk every day, morning and night, but it very quickly changed to once a day... then once every other day, and then once a week," elaborates Violet, using her hands to emphasis her words.

"We tried," says Clementine as she reaches over and takes Violet's hand. A warmth spreads through her as her girlfriend tightens the grip around Clementine's fingers. Pulling her closer instead of pushing her away like she usually does.

Clementine and Violet collectively look over at Sarita, the brunette woman nods as she wordlessly pushes them to open up further. "It was almost like we just forgot what mattered, our conversations became bland and we just lost time for each other." Clementine swallows hard, "we talked about breaking up, but neither of us wanted that, so we just hoped that when Violet came back home that it would all go back to normal. But it never has. And she got back over six months ago now."

Sarita lifts her head and lowers her notepad, "okay, so what I'm hearing is that you two both have respect and love for each other, but you just lost it as well as your communication during Violet's time away." Both women nod and Clementine feels relief once more as she catches a faint smile on Violet's face. For the first time in a long time, she feels a flicker of hope that perhaps things will go back to how they used to be. Violet's always been so closed off; Clementine is almost amazed that she's talking so freely about this. A wave of reassurance floods through the brunette's body.