Alice passed the last office building on the street and stopped in front of the old tenement house. Even though she had used to show up in front of the building nearly every week since FP and Jellybean had left the town, she couldn't get rid of all of the mixed feelings inside her head.
Was it the right thing to do? Was it the right way to cope with the loneliness and long-distance relationship? Was it the right way of trying to feel relieved?
She repeated all of the questions in her head while searching for a correct answer, which seemed to be impossible to find. Maybe the answer didn't exist at all? She wished she should have known. She wished.
Alice took a last deep breath and reached for the doorknob to open the huge old-fashioned gate. She carefully stepped into the hall and walked past all of the flats. She knew the way to this one last apartment way too well but didn't want to admit it to herself.
She glanced down at the floor and pressed the doorbell which rang immediately after she took her finger back. After a while, she heard the sound of unlocking the locks. She bit her bottom lip nervously the second she saw the light coming from the opened door.
Looking up from the ground she saw the familiar welcoming smile. The tall middle-aged man gestured for Alice to come in. She gladly walked into the well known flat and send the man a thankful glance when he offered her help with taking her coat off.
"It's nice to see you, Alice." The man said sweetly while putting Alice's coat on the clothes hanger. Meanwhile, Alice positioned herself on the couch in the middle of the room.
She glanced around the room curiously wanting to know if everything was still the same since the last time, she had been left the room week ago. Everything was just the same as she remembered.
"Are you ready?" The man asked her softly while sitting in the armchair next to her. She nodded and nervously rubbed little circles with her thumbs all over her palms.
Although she had been joining the therapy sessions with her psychologist for nearly three years, it was always hard to start talking about her feelings. She wasn't the type of woman who was speaking openly about herself. Quite the opposite, she had always managed to cope with her issues herself.
Once they started chatting about the casual topics, her body relaxed a little and she slowly started to open up. Started from how had her past week been, from what had she been doing at work, to how was she feeling right now, their session was leisurely heading to the end.
There was one thing the man noticed about Alice since she had started talking. She didn't mention FP. Not even once. He knew, that FP was supposed to come back for the weekend, but decided not to ask about it at the beginning. He wanted Alice to tell him about it herself.
"And how are the things between you and FP?" He finally asked, just because their meeting was about to end up soon. From the look on her face and her body tensed immediately when she heard the question, he could tell, that she didn't want to bring up this topic.
What was she supposed to say? There was no weekend, no FP. She ended up crying all alone in the huge house that had used to be full of people, her kids, her loved ones. And now? She was all alone. And he didn't even show up for the two days.
"Everything is fine." She lied. The hurtful smile forming on her face told the man, that it wasn't the way Alice was feeling about FP. It wasn't fine, but the truth was that it caused too much pain and she couldn't take it anymore.
"Are you happy?" He asked her directly. If there was something she needed to understand, it was happiness, she had lost somewhere in the past. She needed to learn how to feel happy again.
