Therapy

“I’ll see you in three weeks, now just go and enjoy that second honeymoon,” Erin stated happily, bidding the couple who were leaving her office hand in hand farewell.

It always made her feel accomplished when couples were showing very definite signs of actually being on their way to a long and happy marriage.

“Another success story it would seem.”

Caught a little off guard by the familiar voice, Erin turned and smiled warily at her visitor. She glanced cautiously at Jude, as if looking for some kind of answer, only to be met with an apologetic shrug.

“Val, this is a pleasant surprise,” Erin greeted, stepping forward, and allowing her friend to embrace her in a somewhat awkward hug.

Now having sensed that this was more than a social visit, Erin stepped away from Val and showed her through to the office, asking Jude to bring through some coffee for them both. Erin busied herself briefly with putting the notes she had made and Dictaphone that was used during sessions to one side, ready to type up the last appointment once she was free later. Finally taking a seat, Erin looked at Val, not failing to notice the way her friend eyed her a little nervously before she spoke.

“I know you’re no fool Rin, you know why I’m here.”

Val’s tone was soft and somewhat wary, almost as if this wasn’t the conversation she wanted to be having. Erin did no more than give a nod in reply, there was no point in even claiming to be none the wiser.

“What I can’t understand is why you’ve been so insistent on staying away from him for so long, yet this you were able to do. You declined the invitation to our wedding so that you could avoid him, so I thought that as soon as you knew they had made an appointment, you would have found some way out of it.”

“I didn’t know it was them, Val. All I had was a surname to go on, which is unusual and frustrated the hell out of me.”

Noticing Val’s slight confusion, Erin went on to explain how the week Michelle had called to make the appointment, Jude was out with the flu, and she was having to rely on temps to work on reception. The one that had been on the desk that day had apparently been more interested in the stack of magazines she had brought with her, than actually taking notice of the guidelines Erin had given her should new clients call.

“If she had done that, I would have known exactly who I was dealing with. I always like to have their full names, so it’s less formal when we first meet. And there’s every chance had she taken their names, I would have had Jude call them back when she returned to make excuses and recommend someone else.”

“Why didn’t you do that after the first appointment?” Val questioned.

Sighing, Erin gave the briefest of smiles, one that didn’t reach her eyes.

“I saw a man, one that I still care for so deeply, who was a shadow of his former self, and it broke me to see him that way. And whilst I knew I should have turned them away, I couldn’t. I wanted to do everything I possibly could to help them mend what they had, to see them happy to be together,” Erin admitted quietly.

Continuing, Erin elaborated on how her one goal was to attempt to break the stalemate Brian and Michelle had found themselves in, which she found to be an increasingly impossible task once it started to become clear that maybe there was only one of them was attempting to make any kind of effort. She told Val of the continuous bickering and fights that broke out between the couple in front of her, and how she endeavoured to try and make peace between them, eventually bringing her to the decision that maybe one to one sessions would be the way forward.

“That didn’t quite go to plan though did it,” Val put to her.

“Val, she’s your sister, surely you know just how damn exasperating she can be at times. When she was here with Brian, it was as if we were going round in circles, I felt as though I was trying to converse with a brick wall. She didn’t want to take in anything I was suggesting, all she was interested in was picking at Brian and his faults and causing another argument to arise,” Erin countered. “She carried on in the same manner the day she was here on her own, until…”

“Until the subject of you came up,” Val interjected.

Erin listened as Val continued, informing her how she and Brian’s refusal to let her go had always been the biggest thorn in Michelle’s side, and that by even daring to bring the subject up was a sure fire way to hammer the final nail in the coffin on their relationship. There was something in the way Val spoke that had Erin wondering if Val was in some way trying to lay the blame solely at her feet, not even taking time to consider just why Brian and Michelle had remained married to one another, or why they had taken that step in the first place.

“Any advice I gave, or suggestions I may have made were only ever done to try and ease them into sorting through their issues, not to cause what’s happened. I know from what Zacky told me on Tuesday that Michelle was a little lenient with the truth when it came to just what I said, I can even prove that,” Erin defended.

Val wore a look of what could only be described as triumph, suggesting that she had accomplished what she had set out to do, confusing Erin further.

“I knew you were in on their little game!” Val exclaimed.

“Little game?” Erin asked.

“Oh Rin, c’mon! If you spoke to Zacky this week, you clearly knew what was going on!”

“I speak to Baker practically every day, still doesn’t mean I have a clue as to what you’re harping on about,” Erin answered, her calm exterior beginning to fade as she struggled to fathom just what she was possibly being accused of.

“So you’re saying that you really are innocent in all of this, that you never once saw what they had planned as an opportunity to come between Michelle and Brian?”

The door to the office flung open just as Val finished.

“No she didn’t.”

A breathless Brian stood in the doorway, appearing as though he had been in a race against time to get there. Closing the door behind him, he took a minute to regain himself, allowing the shock of his sudden arrival to sink in with the two women who sat staring at him.

“Val, if you had witnessed the look on Rin’s face when Chelle and I first came here, that alone would have told you that she knew nothing of what was going on,” he stated, remembering how the color had drained from Erin’s face, the way she had almost tripped over her words as she had attempted to piece a sentence together.

“Brian, what’s going on?” Erin asked softly.

Facing her, Brian’s lips bore a hint of a smile laced with sadness and slight trepidation. Not caring what Val thought, he knelt in front of Erin, taking her hand in his.

“We were set up Rin. You, me, Michelle…the whole thing was planned,” he explained.

Erin’s face contorted in disbelief whilst Brian continued to fill her in on what he had found out earlier that day. She looked over at Val.

“And despite Matt assuring you that I was clueless, you still believed that I was a part of this?” she threw at her.

“Rin, I wasn’t sure what to…”

“I don’t want your excuses Val. You of all people should know I would never have knowingly agreed to go along with that. I think you should leave.”

“Benny, please let me explain,” Val pleaded.

“Get the fuck out,” Erin murmured, averting her gaze.

Silence hung over the room whilst they waited for Val to leave.

“Oh my fucking god,” Erin whispered.

Brian’s long fingers caressed her cheek in an effort to console her.

“I don’t think they even thought of the repercussions, that people would look at it that you may have been involved somehow,” he told her earnestly. “Not that I condone what they did, because it’s beyond fucked up.”

“It certainly puts a whole new spin on the situation,” Erin observed.

Looking at her quizzically, Erin’s words slowly began to sink in and make sense.

“Baby, no…not when I’ve just got you back,” Brian implored, cupping her face in his hands as he brushed his lips against hers, wanting her to see that he wasn’t prepared to lose her over the foolish actions of people who had truly believed that they had been doing the right thing.

“Brian, we really need to give this some consideration, because no matter what we tell people, it’s only going to raise further questions.”

“No, Rin. I will not give up on us because of this…I love you way too fucking much for that.”

“And I love you,” she answered truthfully, “I just need a couple of days to get my head around this, that’s all I ask,” she added, allowing herself another kiss.

Slowly, Brian rose from where he knelt, understanding then that he needed to give her space.

“We’ll work this out, I promise,” he assured her, not waiting for her to answer before he left her sitting alone, praying that they came through the other side of what life had just thrown at them together.