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“You want us to sit in front of a stranger and talk about our worst moments?”
Colleen didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
Andrei ran a hand down his face, the lines of exhaustion etching deeper into his features. “You think that’ll fix us?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But silence is killing us faster than the truth ever did.”
Session One
The room was too bright. Too beige. Too calm for the storm brewing inside them.
Dr. Elora Villanueva had kind eyes and a voice like silk, but even she couldn’t soften the way Andrei sat with his arms crossed, a wall already built around him.
Colleen spoke first. She always did.
“I don’t trust him anymore.”
Andrei’s jaw tightened.
Dr. Villanueva turned to him gently. “Andrei, would you like to respond to that?”
A pause. Then, flatly: “I messed up. But I didn’t sleep with her.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Colleen snapped, her voice cracking. “You lied. You chose her — even if just emotionally. That’s still betrayal.”
He looked away. “I didn’t choose her. I just didn’t know how to talk to you anymore.”
Her breath hitched.
“So you talked to someone else instead.”
Session Three
Progress was slow. The tension remained, but cracks were forming in the silence.
Andrei admitted to feeling unseen, like he had to always be the strong one. That the pressure made him retreat.
Colleen admitted she shut down too quickly. That her silence wasn’t indifference — it was fear. Fear of needing someone so much.
One session ended with them both crying.
Not from anger.
But grief.
Grief for what they were. What they lost.
And maybe... grief for what they could still be.
One Night, After Therapy
They sat side by side in the car outside her apartment, not speaking. Rain tapped gently on the roof.
Andrei turned to her, his voice low. “I miss you.”
Colleen looked straight ahead, fingers clenched around her purse.
“Then stop hiding,” she said. “If we keep blaming each other, we’ll never make it back.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’m trying,” he whispered. “But I’m scared you’ll never forgive me.”
Her eyes finally met his.
“I’m scared too,” she admitted. “But I still showed up. That has to mean something.”
They were two broken hearts, sitting in the same car, staring into the same storm.
Not healed.
Not yet.
But not giving up either.
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