Page 19 of Mahogany 1

Duke, with his mouth turned down, threw his hands up and said, “Right, right. I know. Ethics.”

“Exactly. Which is also why you don’t have to worry about this being some sort of… gang up. I’m not here for ‘tea’, personal gain, or anything outside of helping you two tackle the issues that landed you here.”

Duke nodded, took a deep breath, and sat back. “And that’s what we’re here for. I trust you—I’m just a lil nervous.” Pausing, he nervously laughed, turned my way and kissed me on the side of my head. “I can’t lose my baby. So shit, if you say you can help us… help us.”

We locked eyes, and I sighed.

Nicole smiled. “Well… shall we begin?” She asked, before grabbing her iPad and Apple Pencil.

“Yep,” I said through a sigh, as my anxiety started to creep back up. Started with my heart racing and then my knee began to bounce. I wasn’t only afraid of therapy being a waste of time. I was afraid of it working. Didn’t know who we’d be, or how we’d be if it did. It was complicated. My feelings about the whole thing.

Duke kissed me again and ran his hand over my bouncing knee, in an effort to ease my anxiety. Nicole glanced at Duke’s hand and smiled, probably thinking we would be a cakewalk. However, she was going to be in for a rude awakening. There was nothing easy about Duke and I.

Because we’d been together so long, we had been through a ton. Just about everything except for side babies and STDs. We met young—veryyoung. I was fifteen, D sixteen. Life moved very fast for us. One minute he was asking me to be his girlfriend, thenext, we were finding out I was pregnant. No exaggeration. We had our first child when I was fifteen. So, when I said life moved fast for us, I didn’t lie. Eighteen years later, we were grown ass adults, with four children, careers, and problems bigger than the both of us. Problems I kept sweeping under the rug because they were too…ugly… to face. The gravity of the damage they’d caused was at least.

With a nervous, tightlipped smile, I asked, “Where would you like us to start?”

“Well,” She tapped around on her iPad, likely pulling our intake form up. “I see infidelity has been?—”

“Was,” Duke pointed out with a nod, as if that shit even matter.

She nodded. “I apologize,Wasa big issue in your marriage.”

“Relationship too,” I added, since he wanted to add shit.

He shifted, uncomfortable.

“Okay, got it,” Nicole said, nodding. “And you guys have been together how long? Eighteen years. Wow, that’s a long time.”

“Tell me about it,” Duke stated. “We grew up together. You know how that be. I was a knucklehead?—”

“Not yet,” She paused. “I don’t mean to cut you off. But not yet. We’re not going there just yet. I’m just going over my notes right now. Besides… I like to start at the beginning and then work my way up to the not so pretty things. That way, I can see what the foundation was built on with hopes of possibly getting back there. To the roots.”

The roots were fucked up. The roots were weak. Feeble. Undeveloped. Why the fuck did she want to start at the roots, knowing we got together when we were fucking kids? I didn’t want to start at the roots. The roots were a lie.

“With all due respect,” I intervened. “I appreciate your method. I think it’s phenomenal, honesty. However, that doesn’twork for us. Being that we met when we were children, I would like to start someplace else.”

Chanté nodded. “Gotcha. Where would you?—”

“The first time he cheated,” I blurted out. I didn’t want to spend too much time here. Wanted to move on. Wanted the healing to hurry up and beginning. Wanted to rip the band aid right off. Didn’t need to talk about the fairytale he sold me. Didn’t need to talk about the good days because shit… the good days were far and in between. I had loads, and loads, and loads of heartbreak. My heart was heavy with the shit. So… no… fuck the pretty shit. I wanted to get right down to the nitty-gritty. Needed to. I was like that. Fast paced. Impatient. In a hurry to get shit done. I needed to leave the session lighter—not with that shit steady wearing me down.

But she shut me down. Sat her iPad aside, locked in on me and straight up told me no. She didn’t sugarcoat it. Didn’t make the ‘no’ look pretty. None of that. She was stern. But she did give me reason.

“I understand. You want to get right to it. But that’s not how this works. This is marital counseling—we have to talk about it all. You have your perspective, and he has his… let’s do this the right way. Rushing, skipping over the parts that made you fall in love with him, won’t work here. Because quite frankly, you’re doing that already.”

Ouch.

I drew back with raised brows.

“You are. Now, I’m not one to pacify, or to,” she paused. “To um…”

“Bullshit,” Duke answered for her with a light laugh.

She laughed and pointed at him with raised brows as to agree. “Expect honesty from me. Thorough counseling that’s going to get in there. All the way in there. Skeletons will be dug up, eventually. But I would like to hear about how you started,first. Why you started and what this man did to make you happy. Because despite meeting at a young age, you weren’t young always. And he wasn’t bad always. No offense.”

“None taken,” I reassured.

“But, before we get into that, I would like to know what brought you two in. Your why. I have what I have in my notes but I... you know… would like to hear it directly from the two of you.”

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