Page 20 of Mahogany 1

I shifted around uncomfortable, toying with the tassels on one of the couch pillows. My anxiety was rising again. I didn’t know how I was going to survive marital therapy if I couldn’t get through simple questions. Talking about my marriage with Chanté was one thing, but actually sitting next to Duke talking about it with a therapist… I mean, digging, digging, was going to be another. He wasn’t really aware of just how much he hurt me. I might’ve given him the cold shoulder here and there or went a little crazy on him. But that was just me showing a fraction of the pain he’d caused. I cheated for crying out loud. Gave my body to men I didn’t know. He pushed me to limits I never saw myself going to. I couldn’t blame it all on him… I was a grown ass woman with a moral compass after all but pain… it makes you do questionable shit.

“Well,” I started with a light shrug and a nervous giggle. “Cheating, of course. We need help because of cheating.”

“I understand that,” she paused, shifting around in her chair. “But I want to know, if he cheated in both the relationship and marriage, why choose to come to therapy this time?”

“We needed help,” Duke blurted out. “That’s it. To get through moving on from it.”

“I apologize, Duke, but I was speaking to Mahogany. I want to know why from the both of you, of course but,” she paused again. “I was addressing Mahogany just then.”

Oh shit. He wasn’t used to this. Us having a mediator. Nervously, I swallowed because I knew in the back of my mind,if this—Nicole cutting him off to address me—kept happening, we wouldn’t be in therapy for long. And well, you know how that goes. That cycle of fear would just keep circling and we’d never be okay and… Ineededus to be okay, remember?

I cleared my throat and pushed that timid, feeble, weak version of myself aside. She was creeping. About to make me lose my footing, for real.

“To navigate through the grief,” I told her. “I have a lot of emotional and relationship trauma. And… I need to heal. I—I tense up at every touch, at every kiss… we have a lot of issues, and I believe the root cause is the cheating. I wasn’t like this before.”

Duke wrapped his arm around me, slowly running his hand over my arm.

She nodded. “The body never forgets.”

“What does that mean?”

“You forgive but the pain… the trauma… it’s stuck on you. We’re only about five minutes into the first session and I’ve learned a lot about you already. You like to move on. You don’t like to deal with or sit with the uncomfortable.Youmove faster than your brain and body are ready to. The tensing, flinching, or whatever else is a trauma response.”

Duke cleared his throat. “Trauma response? You act like I beat her or something, Nik’.”

“Emotional abuse is just as bad as physical abuse, Mr. Morris,” she pointed out, before turning her body to face him. “Would you like to share your why?”

Duke tensed up a bit. Stopped rubbing my arm and unwrapped it from around me, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I’m here because I don’t want to lose my wife. I want to do whatever necessary to make sure she’s happy.”

“Even if she decides that she’s happier without you?”

Oop.

“Hold up,” Duke intervened, sitting up. “We’re not here to divorce, Nicole. I thought you said this was marital counselin’, Ne’.”

I sighed and ran a nervous hand through my hair. “Okay look. Can we just get to the beginning? He gave you his why and I gave you mine. I feel like we’re getting off track.”

I didn’t want to talk about leaving. I didn’t want to talk about any of it really. I didn’t like who I became when the ugly shit was brought up. I wasn’t me. I was her. That little naïve, broken ‘girl’, who still had a lot of unresolved issues. The broken part of me that recoiled at the mention of us breaking up. The insecure part of me that hated the thought of him loving someone, the way he loved me. I—I hated it. I wanted to run. Wished there was a big, oversized clock on the wall for me to shift my eyes to. Wished we were more than five minutes into the session. I just… Chanté was right. I did like to run. Nicole was right. I didn’t like to sit with the uncomfortable. The uncomfortable being that girl. The weak one. The desperate one. I wanted to be fiery. Wanted to sit with my shoulders pushed back, poised, and confidence on ten. I wanted to be the bitch who’d cheated back. Not the one who cried on the car ride home after every time.

Nicole sighed. “Okay, gotcha. We will build, like I said before. Whatever’s comfortable for the both of you. Duke, would you like to share how you two met?”

“Shit,if every session like that, baby we gon’ be ‘cured’ before we know it,” Duke stated with a dry ass laugh. “I didn’t like how she kept cuttin me off but other than that, shit was smooth.”

I paid him dust. I wasn’t in the mood, and he felt it. I was over it. I hated every fucking moment of that therapy session. Ithought talking about the why would be the hardest part but I was wrong. When Duke started talking about how we met, gears shifted and we were in a territory I hated. The past. The good stuff. Reminiscing about what we used to do, how we used to be, and how much he loved me back then was a complete waste of time.

I was fifteen.

Duke was sixteen.

That wasn’t love. That was delusion. That was kid shit. But for some dumb ass reason Nicole thought it was wise to start at the beginning. I hated the beginning. Why? Because there shouldn’t have been a beginning. Not for us. Not the way it unfolded. And I loved my baby to pieces. Loved every last one of my blessings but baby, if I had a choice, I would have done something else. Something more with my life. I wanted to talk about that. The regret and why there was regret to begin with but no… the professional just had to start at the fucking beginning.

“NeNe—”

I looked over at him, brushed my hand down the back of my neck and continued my stride towards the parking lot.

“Ne—“

“What Duke? Damn, I’m thinking. Trying to see where I’m going to stop for dinner.”

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