Anabell stared at the ceiling.
"Do I have to?" she asked
"You know its time as well as I do." the doctor replied.
"What if...what if I can't? What if he...what..." Anabell trailed off, she knew it was useless.
The doctor leaned closed and in her most convincing voice said "I know you can. YOU know you can. We've reached the plateau Anabell. It's time."
Anabell sighed. She knew the therapist was right. She also knew this would more than likely be her last visit here. This time her sigh had some quiver attached, she felt like she was leaving home for the last time.
"There's no need for drama Anabell. Just do it like we said and you'll be fine. You'll BOTH be fine."
* * * * *
1:35 am. "How did it get so freakin' late?" Rick asked himself. Once again he was arriving home from work at some ungodly hour. "If I don't get a handle on this I'm gonna have a heart attack before I'm 40," he thought. He quietly slipped into the house and made it upstairs in the dark. His wife was in her all too familiar position, fetal with the covers pulled up to her chin. "I wouldn't blame her for never wanting to have me again, what kind of romantic marriage is this?" He pondered his wife's slow distancing from sex, and thought maybe she had just tired of him. "She used to be pretty adventurous," he remembered, but lately she seemed to be sending out signals telling him to back off. Or if they did fool around it was quick and void of any creativity. They had lost their bond.
Rick was assaulting himself for the lack of communication and time together that seemed to be separating himself and his wife more and more these days, but he didn't feel like it was ALL his fault. "I know I'm hardly around," he thought, "but would it kill her to stay up late ONE night for me?"
After 5 years, things were pretty shaky and Rick was starting to wonder if it would ever work out.
Rick had heard about this therapist from a girl at work who swore by this woman, he thought he might call her tomorrow and see about joint counseling.