i’ve been telling people that for the last year and a half, it’s felt like intensive couples therapy but without a therapist. before we decided to break up and right after i moved out, we saw a couples therapist that charged $275 an hour. i don’t think it was because we had any hope of reconciling but i think it was so we could say to our friends, family and most importantly to ourselves: you can’t say we didn’t try. during our first appointment, we sat on opposite ends of the couch with a box of kleenex settled between us. we arrived separately, always parking a street away from each other and awkwardly waiting for the other to walk up to the building so we could enter together. sometimes i intentionally arrived not quite late but too close to our appointment time and i would drop into the quiet lobby with my tote bag clanging against the heavy metal door. jeremy would notice but he wouldn’t say anything. he didn’t need to because i already knew what he was thinking.
i didn’t know how to act during therapy. sometimes i wanted to jeremy to reach out for my hand, to reassure me that we were in the ending of this together. i remember my childhood best friend grabbing my hand right before the first drop on a rollercoaster as a reminder that we were both ready to fall together. but i rarely wanted to reach out for his. at the time, my pain and anger was all that mattered to me and it was all i cared about. but still, i wanted our therapist to imagine what we once were when we were good. a part of me, no matter how angry and disillusioned i felt, still felt a sense of pride in the love we shared. i tried to feign closeness that was no longer there, when she asked me for my interpretation of the last year, i tried my best to praise jeremy and highlight how close we really are despite us sitting on the couch in front of her. but i kept my hands clasped in my lap, only removing them to gesticulate wildly when he said something i vehemently disagreed with or i was enraged by.
i was hostile and petulant but i couldn’t stop myself from crying during every single session. our therapist sat in front of us with patient eyes but i could tell she knew we were paying her to tell us what we already knew before we scheduled the first appointment. she asked about our age difference and i knew i seemed younger than my age while sitting on that couch with my smeared eyeliner, tissues balled up in my fist, my fake leather lug boots, my lack of self restraint, and my claims that he just didn’t see me!!!!! especially when compared to jeremy’s thoughtful and articulate expression and the subtle exasperation that slowly crawled onto his face when i would lash out. i wondered if she secretly judged me, or us, for it. i wouldn’t blame her, i guess but i hated the thought of it.