did you miss me while you were

looking for yourself out t h e r e

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One of the last places I ever expected to find myself was in a therapist's office.

Well, not actually in his office. Yet, at least. I had been assigned to sit in the waiting room and for the entire half-hour that had gone by so far, my knees hadn't stopped bouncing once.

The girls at the front desk couldn't have been friendlier, but I felt about as skittish as an unbroken horse trying to be corralled into a stable. I was fucking freezing, despite the thermostat on the wall across from me registering at 70 degrees. I didn't feel out of place, I just felt weird, to put it simply.

All nerves aside, I did want to be here – for me, for Gus, for us. This wasn't a one-way street anymore. We were in this together, to better ourselves separately and as a couple. After a month of being married, I knew it was time to grow up and face the facts. I promised him and myself that we were going to do this and there wasn't a part of me that wanted to take it back.

That didn't mean it still didn't scare the shit out of me.

It was my first time coming with Gus to one of his sessions. My first time in the building and if he wanted, my first time meeting his therapist, too. I left it completely up to him because by now, he had been going for almost three months. Whether he wanted me in the room with him or not today, tomorrow, or next month, I wouldn't hold it against him in any way.

I knew eventually I'd have to be in there at some point. When Gus came slinking down the hallway thirty minutes in, I knew today was that day.

Out of respect for the sign hanging directly above my head that kindly asked "please, no cell phone use in the vicinity", I had mine on silent in my purse and opted to read the stack of magazines on the table next to me. I was coincidentally lost in an article about a failing long-distance marriage when I noticed Gus standing in front of me.

My gaze dragged itself away from the tiny words of the page on my lap to see his fingers drumming anxiously against his thighs. I tilted my head up and his eyes were cast downward, avoiding me.

"Hey, is everything okay?" I murmured, afraid my voice would disturb the calm ambiance of the waiting room.

"Oh yeah, I'm halfway through my session," he assured me with a nod. I watched as he rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes still bouncing around so they wouldn't meet mine. "But uh... Wayne actually brought this up since I told him you came with me today. I was wondering if you wanted to join in on it."

And because deep down I knew that was the reason he came out to me just now, I smiled and said, "Okay."

"Listen, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I just thought I'd ask. I won't force you."

"Gus, I want to," I interrupted him before he could keep rambling. At my words, he finally looked at me. I closed the magazine in my lap and put it aside, sighing as I added, "I need to do this. We need this."

He blinked, then for a silent response, he offered one of his hands to me.

I swung the strap of my bag over my shoulder, latched onto his hand, and pulled myself up. We stood still, eye-to-eye and chest-to-chest, caught up in a moment in the empty waiting room until Gus whispered, "Thank you."

It was the softest little sound I'd ever heard, but it hit me like a stereo on full blast in my ear. I just leaned forward and pressed my lips to his for my own thank you.

Our hands remained locked while Gus ushered me down the hallway, past a few closed doors until we reached one that was cracked just slightly. Instantly, I noticed the plaque that read Wayne Holtz, PhD, LPC.

I couldn't believe I was about to meet him. The guy that pretty much saved my relationship. I thought the constant thumping I suddenly heard was someone banging on a nearby door – it took me a second to realize it was my escalating, violent heartbeat.

Gus pushed open the door and once we set foot in the room, there sat Wayne Holtz.

The first glimpse of him I caught was his body casually slumped in a baby blue suede chair that matched the loveseat placed directly across from him. Legs crossed, a slightly balding head, and circle-framed glasses on the very edge of his nose as he scrawled away in a notebook. It was an open, airy room that soaked in plenty of sunlight despite the towering skyscrapers that swarmed us by being in the dead center of the city. Gray walls that held more plaques of his name and life accomplishments, fluffy pillows on the loveseat, and one of the most interesting looking men I'd seen sitting in the middle of it all.

Gus cleared his throat and announced, "We have a special guest joining us."

His voice disrupted Wayne's focus and in a split second, he was on his feet and beaming at us. His feet that were jammed into a pair of sandals even though it was very much so the middle of March and we couldn't seem to escape the brutal Philly winter we had been stuck in for months. My mind was already stumped and we hadn't even started yet.

"So this is the Mrs," Wayne stated as our eyes connected, his grin splitting his face in half. "I'm Dr. Holtz but please, call me Wayne."

"I'm Bayla but I guess you already know everything about me," I introduced myself and attempted to cover up my anxiety with wit. Although it was hard to ignore when it was weaving itself up my windpipe and strangling me from the inside.

"Just about," Wayne chuckled, then he gestured to the empty loveseat with an outstretched hand that had rings on each finger. "Take a seat. Make yourselves comfortable."

Gus and I still had our hands clasped together, but I think I was squeezing him so hard that he didn't have a choice in letting go. He took me over to the couch and we simultaneously plopped into the cushions, our interlocked hands settling between our legs.

Wayne was busy readjusting his vest which was just a means of dressing up the wrinkled shirt he wore underneath of it. His pants were in an even worse state like they'd been in a ball under his bed for weeks, and they were cuffed unevenly at the bottom. I still didn't understand how the hell he was wearing sandals during this time of year.

As if he was reading my mind, Gus leaned over and muttered in my ear, "He looks like a trainwreck but when it comes to this shit, he's a genius."

My lips curled up in amusement and I turned to see Gus already looking at me with a stupid, yet undeniably sexy smirk on his face that had me swooning on the inside. He knocked his knee against mine before he swung his sapphire gaze over to Wayne who had finally taken a seat in his designated chair across from us.

He crossed one leg over the other and started jotting things down in his notebook again. Without taking his eyes away from it, he kicked off the session with ease and a sense of grace I couldn't wrap my brain around.

"Alright, so I write everything down by hand because I don't want technology to take over my entire life. My husband hates it because I am what he calls 'organized chaos', but at least out of the two of us, I'm not the forgetful one. I'm a little more unorthodox than your average therapist. One look at me and you can see that immediately. It can get confusing but since it works for Gus, I'm sure you'll catch on too"–his frantic scribbling came to a halt as he peeked up at me–"just relax. I don't want you to feel pressured or awkward, but I do want you to speak up. This is all pretty much an even exchange; you give me something to work with and I give you advice. There are no such things as stupid questions or irrelevant thoughts here. Everything is fair game."

I nodded my head in understanding. Gus started stroking his thumb against mine and a ragged sigh trapped inside my chest escaped me at the gesture. It was his way of telling me it was okay and this time, I knew it would be.

"Let's start with some basic stuff," Wayne cheerfully proposed, looking back and forth between Gus and I. "You guys have been together since high school and when I first met Gus, things were rocky. You two had separated, you weren't living together, and you weren't on good terms. Am I getting all of this right?" He paused for a response, so we both nodded. "Now you've made some major progress from what I hear. It's been three months since then, you're living together again, and you're married. Congratulations, by the way. I heard it was a bit of a wild ride for you two, but I'm elated to see that you've been making it work so far."

"Yeah it was rough," Gus concurred. "Unbelievable, really. You were telling me to ease back into things and then when I came in for my next appointment, we were married. I never thought I'd be telling you that. Not so soon, anyway."

"You kids are an interesting duo, that's for sure," Wayne quipped as he shoved his glasses further up his nose. "You've always struggled with communication, correct? That's been your downfall." The beat of silence made us both nod again, a little more sheepishly this time. Wayne inhaled and tapped the tips of his fingers together in thought. "Communication should be a solid foundation that we build all of our relationships on, whether they are romantic or not. And trust too, but I don't think you guys are lacking in that department. Without healthy communication, we get nowhere. Instead, we get things like repressed emotions, misunderstandings, disagreements, misdirected aggression. Any of these resonating with either of you?"

Gus raised his hand that wasn't holding onto mine and said, "Repressed emotions for her, for sure."

"Really? How so?" Wayne asked, intrigued by Gus' confession as he popped up in his seat and grabbed his pen again. My eyebrows furrowed at the stinging, honest remark, but I kept quiet. To be honest, I had no fucking idea what I was doing so I figured I'd let Gus guide the conversation since he knew Wayne's methods more than I did.

"She never really opens up about anything to me, even though we've been together for almost seven years now. Eight if you wanna get technical. We're not a syrupy couple and honestly, most of the time people don't even realize we're together, but she does have a weird way of showing how she cares. There's no vulnerability, she never tells me how she feels when I act a certain way, and not for nothing but I could probably count on my two hands how many times I've seen her cry."

"Well you never really open up to me either," I mumbled snarkily.

Wayne's narrowed eyes darted over to me. "Bayla, what was that?"

"He's just as bad. He swallows everything. He keeps it all in and then the dumbest thing will happen and we end up blowing it way out of proportion. I'm aggravated, he's fed up, we can't get to an agreement; that's always been our pattern. I mean, we'll get through it and go back to normal eventually but I don't know why every single argument has to turn into a major brawl," I rapidly spewed out all of my thoughts. Whether they were cohesive or not was for Wayne to decide.

"So you think your arguments get to that extreme point to make up for the fact that you're not communicating about what's really bothering you."

I wasn't sure whether to digest it as a question or an observation. His tone was absolutely confusing, but it struck a chord in me.

"Sure," I said hesitantly, "I guess that makes sense."

He pursed his lips and copied something into his book, then asked, "How would you describe your relationship, say... six months ago?"

Six months ago felt more like six years. I wished I could have said that I didn't remember. That wasn't the case.

Gus was silent, so I chose to chime in.

"I've always thought of us as human dominoes," I said, and Wayne's eyebrows raised at my analogy. "When we're up, it's great but one slight wrong move and we're down again... and it's a disaster. Sometimes we work, sometimes we don't. It's always been our thing."

"And that's fine," he assured, "Relationships aren't a smooth sea by any means, but you shouldn't expect a storm to roll in just because the water's calm."

"You definitely have a habit of doing that and you know it," Gus tacked on.

My nostrils flared and my mouth opened so I could explain myself, but Wayne cut in before I could do so.

"Have you guys ever heard the phrase 'if it's hysterical, it's historical'?" He asked us, and since I hadn't I shook my head. "It's a key phrase here in therapy. Typically, it describes why we overreact during certain situations. What you might consider 'small' and 'insignificant' or 'stupid' could be triggering for you and you don't even realize it. It's our past interfering with our present. It's residual feelings that you haven't properly dealt with rising to the surface after simmering for so long and exploding. It's human nature; we all have irrational moments. What you need to do is become aware of them. We can't let our pasts control our present or our future. Obviously we can't change our pasts, but we can change the way we feel about them."

I gulped. Gus was right – this guy was good.

Wayne shifted his attention to Gus then, our sweaty palms loosening up on one another just a bit.

"Gus, you've mentioned before your fear of never being good enough. We know you swallow that"–Wayne glanced at me as he used my term from earlier–"and continue to grow grass on it, so all of this pent-up aggression and self-induced pressure manifests into an uncontrollable rage that comes out particularly when you two argue."

My eyebrows furrowed at this revelation. "Never being good enough for what?" I turned to ask Gus. He was in a staring contest with our folded hands.

"For my dad. For work. For you," he rasped. "Just when I think I've reached whatever unrealistic expectation I made up, somehow I always end up three steps behind. I'm never where I want to be and that kills me."

Seeing Gus so exposed and so honest about this made me put both of my hands around his and squeeze it just a little tighter. How I hadn't picked up on his inferiority complex, ever, was beyond me. We knew each other inside and out, better than anyone else on this planet, but we couldn't communicate to save our lives.

It didn't take me a moment longer to realize how much we really needed this.

"So when you're feeling this way, what are some things Bayla can do to show you that she loves you and cares for you?" Wayne's voice had dropped to something much softer now.

Gus shrugged his shoulders and I felt myself sinking further into the couch, closer to him. "Just being reminded that I'm appreciated is always nice. A little encouragement goes a long way. Listening to me, even if what I'm saying makes no sense. And of course intimacy – can't forget that."

I giggled to myself because I wouldn't expect him to say anything else. I looked over to see Wayne just smirking at us, a glow in his eyes that I couldn't decipher.

"Alright... now that we know your love language, what are some things you could do for Bayla when she's feeling inadequate? When she's clamming up and refusing to communicate?"

"I don't know because she won't tell me," Gus retorted.

I veered back in my seat and scoffed, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"How am I supposed to know what to do when you won't open up to me?" Gus snapped back with pointed look.

"He's right," Wayne agreed. "If you can't properly express how you feel when certain things happen, how is he supposed to know how to react?"

"If something's bothering you, you have to say something. You can't keep bottling it up."

"Like I said, growing grass on an unrelenting issue isn't healthy."

Their back and forth shots felt like I was caught in the middle of a war zone and the end goal was tearing me apart. Every word was like a slap in the face and I couldn't keep track of who was saying what anymore. My blood was boiling, my head was spinning, and I wanted to crawl out of my goddamn skin. They pushed and pushed and pushed until they got what they wanted.

I cracked.

"Fuck, maybe sometimes I'd like you to just do something without me having to ask you all the time and after seven years, you'd think that maybe one time you could take a phone call from your mother instead of handing it over to me. Maybe I just need to be reminded to stop saying yes to everything. Maybe sometimes I'd like it if you realized what you did wrong, like leave your shoes out when you know Ziggy chews on them if he hasn't eaten, instead of just blaming me. And maybe I'm just tired of giving myself out all the time without really getting anything in return."

My chest was heaving by the time my tailspin came to an end. The room was dead silent.

I hadn't noticed that Gus and Wayne were both just watching me with shit-eating grins on their faces the entire time. It was mind-boggling, like this whole session has been.

"What?" I spat, frantically looking from one of them to the other.

"Bayla?" Wayne piped up. I jerked my head forward to see him still wearing that mischievous smile that really said it all. "You just opened up. Welcome to therapy."

〰️〰️〰️

- it HAPPENED you guys!!! they went to THERAPY together!!! probably one of if not THE most important chapter in this whole damn story. i won't lie and say that this chap didn't stress me tf out because lordy it DID. i rewrote it about 4 times before i finally got some help and figured my shit out (shout outs to kwil0727 and moonraess for letting me ramble on and bullshit this chapter out with y'all until i got my thoughts together. much appreciated. y'all are great. i'm sure you guys follow them and read their stuff and if you don't... what are you doing???)

what did you think about their first session together?!? obviously there is SO MUCH they could have discussed and that's where i struggled with this chapter, but i think getting bayla to crack and open up (even if it was a little hysterical lol) was the key. we all know communication is where they struggle The Most and getting her to just bring her walls down and actually talk about her feelings was a good place to start. what did you think of wayne?? i wanted to make him a little wild and sneaky but still super smart. i hope it all just makes sense lol i really struggled with this one y'all.

sooo the song i put with this chapter is drops of jupiter covered by with confidence and you MUST listen to it. this has always been one of my all time favorite songs and the fact that they took it and pop-punkified it is a dream come true. it's just so good. fits the vibe of this chapter pretty well, i'd say.

xoxo, sabbbycat