Wedding Bells

Chapter 21

"Are we really doing this? Really heading in for our first session of marriage counselling?" Carter complains as we stand outside of the front door of the ominous building. I nodded my head, reaching to grab his hand with my left, and holding my stomach with my right, before taking our first steps towards our future.

Carter pushed the large doors open, holding them for a few moments so I could waddle my way inside. I did as I was supposed to, smiling as if there wasn't a care in the world. On the outside looking in you'd be confused why we were here. But for some reason, we couldn't seem to stop hurting each other.

I was nervous about being here. Nervous about what others might think. Carter and I had only gotten married this year, granted we were working on our tenth month with was close enough to a year that you could pretty much say it, but things had been hard. Especially around the baby subject.

Maybe I was blaming it on Carter, as he didn't have the best childhood with his dad. He had a good one, but there were things that stuck with him and he wasn't too pleased to talk about them. I hoped today wouldn't be too hard for him. If Carter didn't want to talk about it then he wouldn't.

Carter was also a little worried I had scheduled our therapy session with a man, whose named happened to be Andy, a nickname for Andrew. If I had an option to change it I would have. My heart was beating in my chest at the amount of problems the name alone was going to cause. I shouldn't be this worried, I shouldn't have to tiptoe around things that were perfectly normal. Perfectly safe to talk about. If I was over it, than Carter should be. There was nothing for him to worry about.

I was slightly insulted that he thought anything of it. Andrew and I were years ago, a fling that ended with an engagement that crashed and burned when I found my true love once again. A part of me always knew I needed to be with Carter. So far it hasn't been how I expected it to be.

He wouldn't yell at me, he wouldn't scream, he wouldn't break or hit things, Carter would just disappear, he would need to think and that scared me more. I didn't know where he would go off to.

I shook my head as we finally make it up to the front desk. A smaller lady sits behind the counter smiling. Carter gives her our names. I cringe at the sound of her nails hitting the clipboard. She must have found us on the list.

"Yep, Dr. Andy will be out in just a moment for you two," She smiles once more, a very pretty smile. Carter clenches his fist around mine squeezing my hand as he drags me to the waiting area. I quickly mumbled a thank you before being yanked away.

I didn't like the way he was acting out here. Just the simple mention of the name and he was so hostile. This was hard for both of us, hard to understand what was going on. But we needed to make it through so that we could manage as a couple.

"Carter this will be fine, just relax," I rubbed his leg, doing my best to find a way to calm him down. He leaned his head against mine before whispering an apology into my ear.

"I will work harder I promise, I'm sorry I've brought us to this," He moans, pulling away to sit back in the ridiculously uncomfortable chair. I followed suit, sitting back as well trying my best to stretch out my back.

The baby was moving, filling up my stomach as much as one possibly could. I was growing tired of looking like a watermelon, holding my back to support it as I walked around. I couldn't wait til this baby was out of me.

Carter leaned over as if he noticed my discomfort and started rubbing the front of my stomach. This made me feel like a dog, like I wanted to start panting and kicking my leg. I couldn't quite reach the front of my stomach anymore and it had posed at more difficult than I thought it would be.

I chuckled slightly before a younger gentleman enters the room. Another one of those awful looking clipboards in his hand. I froze waiting for him to call our name.

I could sense Carter was freezing too, maybe he wasn't quite ready so go inside yet. The more I thought about it, the more I was worried about seeing a couples therapist as well. Someone analyzing a relationship they have literally no part in being around. Why do people do this?

When he called around set of names Carter and I immediately let out a sigh of relief. We needed a few more minutes to be a family. To just hang out in the waiting room hoping for everything negative to just go away. It wouldn't though. Eventually we would be called back.

I glanced at the clock. Carter and I had arrived fifteen minutes early anyways. We should have some time to just talk before we head in there. I turned to my husband who was scrolling away on his phone. Typing meticulously every so often. I watched him carefully, his blonde hair spiked up on top his head.

He had cut his hair shorter earlier this week, for the first time since high school. Carter was used to having slightly longer hair that would fall forward onto his forehead. I hadn't realized it until now that I never took the time to really look at his haircut. Or to look at his face and see all of it's shapes.

I was so proud of him for all that he did, and he still managed to take care of himself and me. I'd been so spoiled that last almost year. He took care of the house, took care of the laundry, everything you could possibly think of so that I wouldn't have to lift a finger when I got home from work.

I was still working full time, so by the time I was off work, I was exhausted. My feet would have had enough for the day, actually probably for the week, but those poor puppies kept going.

"Carter and Erin," The words pulled me out of my thoughts so quick I wasn't even sure I had been in them in the first place. My heart racing, was it finally time to meet our therapist?

Carter helped me up off the seat while grabbing my purse for me and we head towards the man. He smiles, nods his head while holding the fluorescent orange clipboard in his hand. The color made me want to scream. I shook my head trying my hardest to focus on the man in front of us. Carter took my hand holding it very gently.

"Follow me," The man muttered before taking us back into a hallway of doors, all of them blocked off with different name panels. I knew from the woman on phone when I had scheduled the appointment that our Dr. was on the right at the end of the hallway. So I counted down the doors. The nerves boiling up, they were getting ready to explode out of me. Hopefully that wouldn't happen. I continued to rub the side of my tummy to bring myself as much calmness as possible. Carter doing the same with my hand.

The gentleman we were following was walking so quickly it was hard for my aching legs to keep up, and I cherished the fact that therapist used couches in their sessions.

I almost couldn't wait to reach the room, knowing that I would be able to collapse onto the couch and rest for the next hour, whether I was talking or not. I shook my head trying to adjust my thoughts back to where they needed to be. But we were at the door.

Carter squeezed my hand once more for good measure as we enter the room. A younger man sat at the desk, his hair combed back and even though he himself looked young, his hair aged him. Specs of gray and silver dancing between the black strands. His eyebrows were really bushy making it hard to focus on any other feature on his face. He cleared his throat grabbing a new manila folder off the desk and writing our names on the little tab.

I wanted out of this. I thought the couch would be worth it, but I forgot what it felt like to be under a microscope. My mother had thought I needed therapy for a little while after my father had passed away. It was the only time her and I ever really got into a fight.

She would drive me to this lady once a week and make me stay there for a few hours. If I wouldn't talk I would see the next available therapist. Eventually she would come pick me up and it just left such horrible memories in my childhood about places like this.

But here I was as an adult at a place that I myself scheduled an appointment for, sitting next to my husband, apparently ready to talk about our feelings. I took a few quick breaths trying to calm myself down. Taking a seat on the couch we were finally staring into the eyes of the beast. The therapist himself.

"Good afternoon and welcome, my name is Dr. Rodgers but please just call me Andy, or if you are weird about nicknames my name is Andrew. For this first session I would really just like to get to know the both of you so we can make this a comfortable environment for all of us." His words seemed rehearsed, of course they were. It made the whole thing seem strange to me. \

I felt like I was in a movie, and the bad guys were going to pop out at any moment, but thankfully for me I had my husband. His hand resting gently on my leg as a reminder that we were here together.

"Please start off by telling me your names and the reason you think you are here," I froze. I didn't want to talk about any of this right now, this did not feel like a safe environment.

I could feel my blood pressure spike but the more I tried to fight it the more it seemed to get worse, so I closed my eyes. Trying my best to focus on anything other than here.

Maybe the question would help. Why did I think we needed to come in the first place. I turned to Carter hoping he would answer first.

Thankfully Carter did answer first.

"My name is Carter, I married this beautiful woman almost a year ago, and I wouldn't trade any of it for a thing, but I feel like I'm overworked, overused, i'm tired and running out of energy and I just can't seem to catch a break. I'm putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect for her, and perfect for myself, and now that there is a baby on the way things have only gotten worse and I find I need a lot of time to think about things. That only makes her mad, and it hurts her because I need to go somewhere to think, need to watch the waves or drive down a back road. Back in California that had become so easy to me. There was always a back road, and always an ocean. Here it's hard, the waves of the lakes aren't the same or the tide on the docks. Anyways, the docks here are too dangerous for me to run to anyways,"

"Why do you say that? Why are they too dangerous?" The therapist asks, his words soothing to Carter, as he wrote down anything he thought of on a piece of paper. I was feeling slightly better about this. My heart not beating in my chest like it was going to explode.

Carter actually gave me a lot to think about in just his one comment. I hadn't realized he was feeling that way at all. Here I was in my own world bragging about how amazing my husband was for all of these things he does yet he was drowning in all of those things.

"Because of Andrew," Carter sniped, the words still bringing so much anger to his voice. I shook my head cutting in for him.

"I was engaged to a man named Andrew as well before Carter and I got back together," I mumbled, trying to take some of the pressure off of my husband. The therapist nods.

"There seems to be a lot of tension between this man and your husband, do you happen to know why?" The therapist was digging now, and though we had walked right into this trap I suddenly felt like an idiot.

"Because years ago I picked Andrew over Carter, and was planning to marry him. It was only when Carter and I ran into each other in California did both of our engagements fall apart. Now we are here, married with a child on the way and Andrew hasn't learned to respect that. He calls me all the time, trying to get a rise out of Carter," I grabbed Carter's leg, hopefully he would realize it showed I was on his team. I was here for him. I didn't care about Andrew anymore.

"How long were you and this Andrew guy together?" I shook my head trying to think back to those days.

"We dated for a year, and were engaged for a little over eight months." Then it hit me. Carter and I were coming up on that exact same timeline. This is when I was getting ready to leave Andrew. When things started falling apart.

I never thought of it before but maybe Carter was starting to worry about it. unintentionally because I hadn't given him any sign that I was going to leave. I didn't want to leave. I loved Carter more than anything on this entire planet.

I was nothing without him.

"Carter, are you worried that she is going to leave you just like she left Andrew?"

Carter nodded almost immediate and that kind of hurt. Why hadn't he talked to me about it before.

It hurt to know that there were things that were wrong with us. We were supposed to be so perfect, our hearts finally lining up after all of these years. Kid from our high school would cheer us on as they knew we were meant to be together. That was if any of them remembered or knew us, since we only hung out with each other.

Carter was my best friend and lover, and soon to be the father of my child. Why would I ever leave him.

"The other thing is, I realized over a year later that she had lied to me about Andrew, when she told me she went to visit him, and I can't quite get that out of my head. Because she did the same to Andrew when she came to California. It was only when she had to tell him about our kiss did she call him and explain what was going on, to be honest I have a lot of fears about that. That you won't tell me until you have to," Carter put his head down.

"Oh Carter, please don't think that. I promise none of it was meant to hurt you and Andrew tricked me into thinking he really just needed to say goodbye. I shouldn't have gone, but I never felt like it was wrong, because I never had any ill intentions. I've always loved you and I always will. You are the one for me, my very best friend, and I'm sorry that I at all hurt that trust in our relationship." My head sunk to my feet as well. Waiting for the next bomb to be fired, to shoot through the air and crash into me.

"Carter, how does that make you feel? Her apology to you?" He pauses waiting for a response before writing something down on the sheet of paper.

"I've heard it before, so I don't think an apology will fix the issue for me. I think I just need to work through it and build some trust, to realize that I have no reason to doubt you, and I never have."

"Do you feel like it is because of this Andrew character though that you have had some sense of doubt about your wife or your marriage?" Carter nodded his head, fiddling with his finger.

"I would say it does, because when she picked him over me, I was so confused. We had always been best friends, and each other's number one, but for some reason this other man had swooped in and I was second place. I couldn't trust her to pick me anymore, and that really devastated me. That was when I truly found my love of the ocean,"

"Carter, I was scared you wouldn't stick around. You left me without a goodbye when you left for college and how was I supposed to just believe you wouldn't do that to me again? I was scared to love you, too scared to commit myself to you fully when I knew you had just up and left before. I wasn't sure how we were going to work. You lived in California, you didn't live here..." Carter stuttered before fully cutting me off.

"I moved here for you, I moved back for you Erin," He shook his head, but I did the same in return.

"But would you have years ago when I had the choice to make between you and Andrew?"