Chapter Twenty-Six: The Silence Between

                                        

                                              

We sat on opposite ends of the couch. The couples therapist, Dr. Mireille, sat across from us, legs crossed, notepad resting on her knee. She'd spent the first half-hour just listening. No interruptions. Just nods, the occasional jot of her pen, a few well-placed "Go on"s when things got tense.
Finally, she set the notebook down.
"There are two separate issues here," she said gently, her voice steady, almost soothing. "But one feeds the other. There's the affair. And there's the miscommunication that came long before it."
October shifted slightly beside me, her legs crossed tight, her arms folded like a shield. I didn't move. I couldn't. The words were landing too close to home.
"We'll address both," Dr. Mireille continued. "But we need to start at the foundation. The affair is the fire, yes but miscommunication? That's the gas line running underneath. It's what made everything flammable to begin with. A leak you never noticed. A pressure build-up left untended. It was always there, hissing in the background, long before the first spark."
I nodded slowly. Couldn't disagree. I didn't even try to.
She let a beat of silence pass—comfortable, deliberate—before continuing.
"One of the most common mistakes I see in long-term couples," she said, "is the belief that silence means peace. That if something isn't said, then it doesn't exist. That avoiding conflict is the same as solving it. But silence isn't neutral. It doesn't disappear. It collects. It thickens the air. It hardens into resentment. Builds pressure under the surface. And before you know it, the person sleeping next to you becomes a stranger—someone you stopped updating. Someone you stopped inviting in."
My throat tightened.
Her voice stayed calm, but it pressed in close, like a truth you'd been avoiding.
"That's the real danger. Not conflict. Not tension. But the quiet. The space where questions go unanswered, where assumptions take root. Where one person pulls back and the other, unsure and hurt, fills in the silence with worst-case scenarios. Doubt grows. Distance settles in. And little by little, you stop being a team. You stop checking in. You stop being curious about each other."
She leaned forward slightly, her voice quieter now, like she was asking something sacred.
"Now, tell me, is there anything you've never told your partner?" she said.  The question hung in the air like a thread pulled too tight. October didn't move. I could feel her beside me, very still. I swallowed, the words pushing at the back of my throat. My palms were damp, my fingers twitching against the fabric of my jeans. But I spoke.
"My dad opposed our marriage and even threatend me if i went along with it," I said.
October turned to me quickly, eyes sharp with surprise. "What?"
 "He told me I was making a mistake. That marrying you would ruin my life. Said I was too young, too naive to know what I really wanted. He didn't stop at words either. There were threats. Insults. It even got... physical, for a moment."
The words felt thick in my mouth, like they'd been buried too long.
"And then," I continued, "he had this conversation with Joseph. I don't know what was said, exactly, but after that, he hated the whole thing even more, like marrying you became some kind of rebellion. An insult to his authority."
I paused, let out a quiet breath through my nose.
"Remember when he didn't come to the wedding?" I asked, glancing up at her. "He said he had work. That it was last-minute. It wasn't. That was a lie. He just didn't want to be there. Not after I stood up to him."