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“See that? He's at it again.”
“At what?” His dark skin shone beneath the fluorescent lighting, and Melinda wondered briefly what it was her therapist had been doing prior to their session that he'd be sweating as profusely as he seemed to be at that moment. Five minutes in, and breathing like he'd run a marathon. “Andrew.”
“I can't watch every video you have of your husband, Melinda. You told me he's fascinated with Captain America, and building model airplanes is a perfectly healthy hobby for a man his age to have. Fifteen videos on your iPhone isn't what I'd call a healthy hobby for you, though.”
“He's building one for the baby.”
“Congratulations.” His eyes drifted down to her stomach, perfectly flat beneath a Rolling Stones t-shirt, and Melinda grimaced. “I didn't realize you were expecting.”
“I'm not.” She smiled at the phone resting on the table between them, the screen frozen on an image of her husband's foolish grin as he brandished a tube of glue. The smell had been horrible- wood glue being worse, in her opinion, than any of the adhesives she'd ever used for the few projects she ever managed around the house- and Phil's liberal use of it meant it would take days to be taken over by the scent of cherry blossoms again. “He's hopeful. He's always hopeful.”
“Sounds like that bothers you.”
“No. It doesn't- not exactly. I can't really put my finger on what does bother me.”
"Something does.”
“Of course something does. Everyone's bothered by something.” They'd started sessions before she'd gotten married...or she thought they had, though the memory was hazy at best, and that bothered her, Melinda realized. It bothered her that she couldn't pinpoint the day they'd started their sessions, or why she knew this man whose smile was oddly charming but whose personality rubbed her the wrong way in more ways than she could count, and the thing that bothered her most was that she suddenly couldn't remember the day she'd married her husband.
But it was probably the adrenaline, she mused. The frustration in the moment, being called out for being bothered by anything at all by a man she paid two hundred dollars a session to talk to.
“Melinda.”
“I'm just thinking.” Her phone buzzed and she lifted it, felt the warmth of the battery through the thin casing and smiled again as Phil's name flashed across the screen. He always forgot that she had therapy on Tuesdays, and his forgetfulness never stopped being something she found endearing. Nothing he did was anything but, including the way he woke her up in the morning. “I never thought I'd get married, let alone to someone like Phil Coulson.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Different,” She mused aloud. “It's the way it's supposed to be, and I don't know how I know that, but it's true. Whatever part of the universe planned my life for me- this is the way it's supposed to go. He loves me, and I deserve that.”
“Of course you do.”
“Do you ever wonder what else would have been in your life, if you hadn't made one decision a certain way?” His skin had dried, she noticed, and goosebumps began to dot the places where beads of sweat had lain before. “Have you thought about it before?”
“This is supposed to be my time to ask the questions.” He smiled with all of his teeth, a brilliant mouthful of white that seemed predatory and yet instinctively she wasn't afraid as she expected. Doctor Garner never smiled- not like that- and he'd never been the way she'd seen him at the start of their session, yet the curiosity at the change remained just that. Curiosity. “We all deserve to be happy, Melinda, and you're no exception to that. Whatever decision you made to get there...you can't let that make you second guess every decision you make from here on out, wondering if it might be some sort of turning point for you.”
“What if I make the wrong decision and unravel all of it?” Phil's smiling eyes, waking her up as they clung to her curves every morning. His hands holding hers, flipping pancakes and dancing over her ribs to make her laugh. They were all things that were a product of one decision, whenever it had come up in the cards, and she realized she feared losing it more than she'd known before. “What if it all goes away because I make a horrible choice?”
“Then do good, Melinda. That's all you can do- your best. It'll be good enough, and it sounds like your husband loves you enough to know that you are.” He glanced at the clock on the wall and rose, offering his hand as he always did. “I'm proud of our progress today. You didn't lash out like you usually do when I challenge you.”
“I'm not inhuman, Andrew.”
“Then try to stop taking a video every time you think your husband's getting out of control with his hobbies, Melinda. It's going to be fine.” He shook her hand and gestured toward the phone in her hand, the buzz faint through her fingers as they curled around it. “Answer the phone.”
“See you next week.” She lifted the humming bar to her ear, a smile breaking out as she gathered her things, fingers wriggling in a wave before closing the door behind her. Next week could be the week she decided to stop. Or, she mused, as she walked into the sunshine with Phil's voice soothing in her ear...next week she could be pregnant, and soon enough she could have different videos to show off.
And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't need a therapist anymore.