I booked the first appointment myself. After months of turning every disagreement into days of silence, I wanted to speak to someone outside our apartment. Emil had neither sent me nor made it a condition. He said he was glad I was trying to do something for myself. That sentence pleased me so much that I carried it all the way to the counseling office door. Then I walked past and sat in the cafe across the street.
I canceled too late, with a short message about work. At home I said the conversation had been difficult. Emil did not ask for details. He made tea and left me in peace. I could have admitted then that I had never entered. Instead I said I had another appointment the following week. I had not booked one. I entered the same time in the calendar, creating an obligation that existed only between me, him, and the waiter who remembered my order.
I invented no professional advice. I invented my own courage. I said I had managed to express something difficult, that I needed time, that change was not immediately visible. All those sentences were plausible enough to escape questioning. Sometimes in the cafe I genuinely wrote down things I wanted to discuss. But no notebook could answer when I started explaining why I was always the one who had to give in first.
One Wednesday Emil finished work early and sat at my table. He had not followed me. He saw me through the window on his way to a shop. I said the appointment had been canceled. He asked whether I wanted company. The waiter brought my usual coffee and asked whether I would stay until six again. Emil did not understand immediately. I understood that continuing would turn him into a man to whom yet another coincidence had to be explained with lies.
I said I had never attended. He sat still, which was harder for me than anger. He asked why I had let him believe we were waiting together for some progress. I had no good answer. I feared speaking to a stranger and simultaneously enjoyed his newfound patience. He was not angry because I had failed to seek help. He was angry because I used nonexistent effort to postpone every question about behavior that hurt him.
I did not put the next appointment in our shared calendar. I booked it and went, without promising that it would repair our relationship. Afterward I told him only that I had attended. He did not make tea as a reward. He asked whether we should have dinner, and at the table told me something I usually refused to hear. I did not manage a graceful answer. I managed to stay and say I needed ten minutes, rather than three days of punishing him with silence.