You Belong With Me

Chapter 1

LIV

Seven o’clock on Tuesday evening was the time I had been dreading since Jay had first told me that he had booked the appointment for us.

I had been counting down the hours with an impending sense of dread.

I’d had a knotted tummy and racing heart all day.

I hadn’t told anybody about it, not even my family knew.

It was too… personal. The truth was, I felt embarrassed about it all; I didn’t want anyone to know where we were going.

At five to seven, Jay reversed the car parallel with the pavement, then he reached across the gearstick for my hand and gave it a squeeze.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

I nodded, afraid that if I tried to speak, I’d end up crying.

‘We’d better go in,’ he said, releasing my hand.

I climbed out from the passenger seat and stepped onto the footpath.

A bus went past; the hiss of the hydraulics rent the air as it slowed to stop at traffic lights.

I kept my head down, keen not to be seen by anyone we knew.

The clinic was located on the first floor above a solicitor’s office.

There was a door to the side marked with a neat brass plaque dulled by age which read:

Julia Walsh Counselling we were happy the way we were.

We were both of the belief that life was too short to spend it worrying about a few extra pounds.

Despite my reluctance to be here, I couldn’t help but grin back at him.

He always knew how to make me smile. I linked his arm and we continued down the landing until we entered a waiting room.

Six plastic chairs ran along the perimeter of the room and a coffee table littered with tatty, dog-eared magazines stood in the centre. We sat down and waited to be called.

I had always thought people only did marriage therapy when there was something badly wrong in their relationship so when Jay had first mentioned it to me, I had laughed.

I was sure he was joking but when he showed me the list of accredited therapists he had found in our area, I knew it was no joke.

It was only when I studied his face that I realised he was deadly serious.

At the very least, marriage counselling was for couples who argued or were trying to navigate tricky situations like infidelity or addictions; it wasn’t for couples like us.

We loved one another and frequently told each other so.

We always kissed goodbye heading out the door to work in the mornings.

We watched Netflix curled up on the same sofa together whilst working through a packet of chocolate Digestives.

We never fought. I can’t remember ever having a proper argument; of course we often disagreed about things but we were always able to talk about it calmly and reach a compromise.

We made a point of always sorting any disagreements before they festered.

We weren’t a couple that raised our voices or shouted.

After a moment, the door opened and a woman appeared and shook our hands.

She smiled warmly. ‘I’m Julia, you’re both very welcome.’

‘I’m Jason – Jason O’Dowd,’ he said, introducing himself, ‘but everyone calls me Jay.’

‘And I’m Olivia,’ I mumbled, lowering my gaze to the pockmarked floorboards.

‘It’s nice to meet you both,’ Julia enthused. She was a petite woman, with a narrow face, dark, beady eyes and a pointed nose that reminded me of a mouse. ‘If you want to follow me in here, we’ll get started.’

We both followed her into the room and sat down in the seats she gestured to. Immediately, I felt my heart start up again.

‘I want to begin by saying that this is a safe space and everything that is said here remains entirely confidential.’ She circled the room with her index finger. ‘So, would one of you like to tell me what brought you here today?’

We both shifted uncomfortably and I felt my cheeks flare.

‘I’ll start then,’ Jay said eventually. ‘We’re almost eight years married and we have one son, Finn.’ As I listened to him describing the issues we had been having, I kept asking myself, how we had got here? How had things got so bad that this was where we had ended up?

‘Would you agree with that, Olivia?’ Julia asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Immediately, I felt my chest tighten and my cheeks flush. It was like being back in school again.

‘Sorry… I…’

‘Jay was saying that whenever he raises the issue, you tend to change the subject. Would you say you are avoiding it, Olivia?’

Julia held my gaze until I had no choice but to look away. I shifted position in the chair.

‘Do you have a tendency to avoid difficult discussions, Olivia?’ she tried again.

I squirmed, my eyes darting to Jay for help, begging him to say something to take the attention off me.

‘She hates conflict,’ Jay broke in eventually.

‘We can only help you if you’re willing to talk, Olivia.’

‘Call me, Liv, please,’ I said.

‘Okay, Liv, are you avoiding the issue?’

‘I wouldn’t say avoiding…’ I said, deliberately non-committal.

‘Jay has tried to talk to you but you refuse to open up to him. My role as your therapist is to provide a safe space for you both to discuss your problems but I won’t be able to help you unless you’re willing to trust and engage with me.’

We talked in much the same way for the rest of the hour until Julia checked her watch and realised the time was up. I said a silent thank you that this session at least was over.

‘Our time has come to an end for today but maybe you could use the week to really think about this, Oliv— I mean, Liv. You seem like a really united couple which is great because not every couple who sit opposite me have the togetherness that I’m seeing with you two.

Think about what I’ve said to you tonight; you need to be willing to open up.

The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. I’ll see you both at seven next week.’

We thanked her and got up to leave. Jay tapped his phone on her sum-up machine to pay her and then we left the room and went out to see another couple were waiting to go in.

They were both sitting on chairs on opposite sides of the room, hunched over their phones.

They were a good-looking couple, I thought.

She was tall and slim. Long, lean limbs and a fine bone structure.

Her fingers were studded with diamonds and, judging from the clothes that they both wore – him in a cashmere sweater, and suede leather driving shoes and she in an elegant silk shift dress – were very wealthy.

The woman looked up then and our eyes met.

She looked as embarrassed as I was – I could tell she didn’t want to be seen here either.

It was almost like we were each exposing our deepest, darkest secret to one another.

‘Well, what did you think?’ Jay ventured as we drove through the city streets on our way home afterwards.

‘She seemed nice,’ I said, looking out the window at the broad-chested swans parading along the canal bank in the balmy August air.

He nodded. ‘She was. She really put me at ease.’

I turned to him. ‘Do we have to go back next week?’

‘Come on, love, it’s for the best.’ He reached across the gearstick and patted my leg. ‘We need to talk about it and you know we’re both useless at that stuff.’

‘But we’re good, you and me,’ I pleaded.

‘We don’t argue.’ In fact, if I thought about the marriages of people we knew, we were one of the strongest couples.

I often heard my sister Linda talking about her husband and how much they fought with one another.

They argued so much that it was a wonder they were still married. Me and Jay weren’t like that.

‘That’s the problem.’ He sighed. ‘I think we need somebody to help us.’