Cassidy's Therapy definitely wasn't like mine

Cassidy got a bigger welcome out of her session than I had since she had double the people to hug her. She also looked a lot more haggard than I had a feeling I did. My fiancee came out with her shoulders low, looking tired and flat.

Cattie let me wrap Cass up in my arms and circled around to add on, hugging her from behind.

“Hey, baby,” I said carefully as Cass hugged me back weakly.

“I think I need to try someone else,” Cass murmured.

“OK,” I said softly. “Do you need a minute of quiet, or do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, not really answering. I was looking over her head since her cheek was pressed to my chest, and that let me exchange glances with Cattie, who looked as concerned as I did.

Cass sniffed and then wriggled uncomfortably a little, so we let her go. She took a deep breath and let it out, then sniffed again and wiped at her eyes with her hands. “Gimme a minute,” she said, then went over to the front desk. Cattie and I watched as she spoke quietly with the blonde receptionist, and I was a little surprised when their conversation went on longer than mine had with booking and setting up the insurance co-pay and everything.

“Is it bad form for me to go back there, find the Doctor, and give her a kick in the cunt?” Cattie murmured to me, making me snort and cough, covering my mouth to stop from grinning. “I don’t know what she did, but I blame her.”

“Let’s hear what Cass has to say about it before we go hunting down a random lady,” I murmured, scooping my arm around my gothy girlfriend's waist and pulling her close.

The blonde receptionist was frowning as Cassidy was talking, leaning over the counter and keeping her voice down, and I could tell that the black guy was being diligent about not looking like he was listening in while he was. The blonde said something else to my fiancee and then typed away at her computer for a moment before they exchanged a few more words and she gave Cassidy a sad smile and a nod. Cass thanked her, then came back over to us and grabbed my hand.

“We can go,” she said.

I didn’t wait to ask more questions, and we headed out of the building and into the warmth of a Las Vegas spring evening.

“Do you want to walk it out a bit before we get in the car?” Cattie asked, gesturing to the sidewalk.

“Actually, Robbie, do we have time to go to Peccole?” Cass asked.

“Of course, baby,” I said, glancing at the sky and figuring we had a good couple of hours before it would be too dark.

“What’s a Peccole?” Cattie asked as we headed for the truck.

“Peccole Ranch Trail,” I clarified. “It’s a park, mostly, with a nice walking trail instead of a hiking one like over at Lone Mountain or Exploration Peak.”

“Converse shoes aren’t exactly good for hiking,” Cass smirked a little as we got to the truck. That’s where I hesitated, though. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Uh,” I said, and then chuckled. “I’m probably OK, but I kind of downed two tall boys in the last hour and a half or so. Maybe one of you should drive just in case.”

“I got it,” Cattie said, gesturing for the keys. “I’ll just need directions.”

“Wait- You got beer in your session?” Cassidy asked. “What kinda bullshit is this!?”

The ride over to Peccole on the west side of the city, with Cattie driving and Cass in the passenger seat while I sat in the middle of the back to stay in the conversation, mostly consisted of me telling Cass about the weirdisms of Doctor Samson, and a quick rundown of the general topics we’d covered. She was more than a little jealous that I got the ‘cool therapist.’

Then I broke the news to them about my homework.

“Wait, so basically we’re going to say goodbye tomorrow when you go to work, and then I don’t even get to text you that I got home safe from my flight?” Cattie asked, clearly a little disappointed.

“And I can’t call you while Terra and I are doing a cross-country drive?” Cass asked, a little less disappointed and a little more worried. She was entirely capable of managing all of it herself, but I knew having me as a lifeline to help manage them getting lost, looking things up for them or generally being available in case of an emergency would be a huge weight off her mind.

“OK, first off, it’s not as dramatic as me actually going off grid to a cabin in the hills with no reception or wifi,” I said. “Yes, I would appreciate a quick text when you get home safe, Catherine. And I’m not going to leave it on read; I’ll acknowledge it. And getting update texts or an emergency call from you and Terra while you’re on the road would probably be more help than a hindrance, Cass. I’m not shutting off my brain or emotions here; I’ll be thinking about you guys all the time. And only some of it will be when I’m alone in bed.” That got snorts out of both of them. “Look - I think it’s more like… if you’ve got an injury, you need to let it rest to heal, right? Not keep poking and prodding it, and using the limb that’s hurt, and stuff like that. We can touch it while it’s healing, but light touches and letting the wound breathe during the early part of the process.”

“You watch too many medical dramas,” Cassidy sighed. “That worked too well.”

“I watch one medical drama,” I said.

“Wait, which one?” Cattie asked. “It’s not Grey’s- You know what? Not the time.”

That got laughs out of us, and we pulled into the parking lot for the Peccole park a couple of minutes later and piled out of the truck. As we headed for the walking trail, the sun slowly slipping deeper in the sky and casting a warm glow, I was reminded of the photo shoots out in the desert around Lake Powell. We were likely going to be on the walking path when the ‘Golden Hour’ came around, and I knew I wanted to get a couple of pictures of the three of us before everything switched up again.

Next week Cattie would be in Portland again, and Terra would be with me and Cass. And there likely wouldn’t be another time that it was just me, Cass and Cattie any time soon.

It felt odd to be sad about that when I was also excited about seeing the others and having them close to us.

“Nope,” I said as the girls automatically flanked me as we hit the path. “Cass, you’re in the middle.”

I stepped around her to rearrange us, and soon Cass was holding my hand and her other arm was looped with Catherine’s as we started walking.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Cattie asked Cass after a long moment of silence. We didn’t have the park to ourselves - it was a warm night and there were a variety of people in the green spaces or also on the walking trail. That meant we couldn’t be completely careless about who might be listening - and likely not be too explicit - but we could still talk.

Cassidy sighed, swinging her hand with mine as she put off saying anything for a moment more, chewing her lip nervously. “Well, unlike Mr Two Beers here, I think my lady was about as by-the-book as they come,” she said. “And I guess I was OK with that for the first part of stuff. She had me fill out a little questionnaire thingy, and asked me some questions which would have been fine or whatever. I don’t know if we were, like, vibing or anything, but I don’t know how that’s supposed to feel with a therapist. Then I started to tell her the whole backstory of stuff, and that’s when I got super uncomfortable because a couple of times she looked up at me from her notepad and I swear she was, like, sneering at me. And it was only when I was talking about the cheating - which, I mean, yeah. I deserve sneers for that. But I could tell it was at me, not because of what I’d done. And I also couldn’t tell if it was because I’d cheated or because I’d cheated with women. I don’t know if she was actually homophobic, but I got judgy vibes the whole time after that and it just made me fucking uncomfortable. And then at the end, she was just like, ‘We’ll need to get you scheduled in again; there’s clearly deep trauma that you need to work through regarding your mother. It may take some time for you to get to the root of this,’ and like - fuck her? Because we barely talked about my Mom dying, and for just assuming that I’d be coming back after all that.”

Cattie glanced over at me with her eyebrows raised just enough to communicate, ‘And you said we should wait.’

“That sucks, baby,” I said instead, giving Cassidy’s hand a squeeze.

“Fuck her,” Cattie said.

“Until the end part of me wondered if I was just being defensive,” Cass said, her lips pulled back in a wince. “Like - it’s not like I like talking about being an absolute fucking cunt of a person to do what I did to you, Robbie. Telling the girls was hard, even if I knew it needed to happen. I thought maybe telling a therapist, someone who didn’t know me yet, would be easier? Now I don’t think so.”

“You gotta try again, though,” Cattie said. “And think positive about it being good when it clicks. You booked an appointment with someone else there, right?”

Cassidy pressed her lips together firmly and nodded.

“What was the secretary asking you?” I asked.

Cass sighed a little and shrugged. “If I was sure, if there was a particular reason. I got the feeling that maybe the secretary was on the lookout for something.”

“You told her the truth, right?” Cattie asked.

“That I got a maybe homophobic vibe from the 60-year-old lady?” Cass asked back. “When she could have just as easily been reacting to the fact that I’m a fucking disgusting cheater?”

“Either way,” I said, keeping my voice even because I didn’t want to find out if I was feeling rage or despair for her if I let it out of my chest. “What did you tell her?”

“That me and the Doctor didn’t get along well, I didn’t think,” Cass said. “And that I got uncomfortable based on her reactions to some of my answers. And she asked for more details, so I said her facial expressions. Then she booked me in with someone new - I guess you set up more with yours, Tiger? So she booked me at the same time as you.”

“OK,” I said, stopping on the path and pulling Cass and Cattie to me so I could hug them.

“Don’t be mad,” Cass murmured.

“We can be mad if we want to,” Cattie said.

“What we feel doesn’t affect what we do about it,” I said a little more reasonably, giving my fiancee another squeeze. “I love you, Cass.”

“I know,” she whispered, her face pressed to my chest as Cattie and I hugged her. “I love you guys too.”

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