Dr Reeves hasn't changed her office in the three years I've been coming here. Same beige walls. Same box of tissues strategically placed on the coffee table. Same motivational poster about growth that I've been ignoring since my first appointment.
The only difference is me, sitting here at nine AM on a Wednesday, trying to explain why I've cocked up the best relationship I've ever had.
"So you asked for a prenup," she says, not looking up from her notes. "How did that feel?"
I shift in the chair that's supposed to be ergonomic but mostly just makes my arse go numb. "Like the smart thing to do."
"I didn't ask what you thought. I asked how it felt."
This is why I stopped coming. Dr Reeves has this annoying habit of actually listening to what I say instead of what I mean to say.
"Terrifying," I admit. "But also safe, I suppose. Does that make sense?"
She looks up then, pen poised over her notepad. "Tell me about the safety."
"If we have a prenup, I know exactly what happens if things go wrong. No surprises. No one gets to use money as a weapon."
"Whose weapon?"
The question catches me off guard. "David's. Obviously."
"Is it obvious?"
I hate when she does this. Answers questions with more questions.
"David used money to control me. I've told you this a hundred times."
"You have. And now?"
"Now what?"
"Now who's using money to control things?"
I open my mouth to argue. Then I think about Roland's face when I said the word prenup. The way he looked at me like I'd just told him our relationship came with an expiration date.
"That's different," I say, but it comes out weaker than I intended.
"Is it?"
"I'm protecting myself."
"From?"
"From ending up like I did with David. Trapped. Having to ask permission for my own money."
Dr Reeves sets down her pen. "And how is Roland like David?"
"He's not."
"Has he ever tried to control your finances?"
"No."
"Asked you to quit your job? Stop seeing friends? Give up your independence in any way?"
"No, but..."
"But what?"
The heating kicks on with a soft whoosh. I stare at the motivational poster. Something about roots and wings.
"But he might," I say finally. "He could. Anyone could."
"So you're protecting yourself from something that hasn't happened."
"From something that could happen."
"And in the process?"
I don't answer.
"Camille, what are you actually controlling here? Roland? Or your fear?"
The question sits there between us. My eyes are stinging and I don't want to cry in therapy like some cliché, but the tissue box is right there, positioned exactly where it's always been.
"I don't know how to stop being afraid," I say.
"I'm not asking you to stop being afraid. I'm asking what you're going to do about it."
I grab a tissue. The expensive kind, soft enough that they don't leave your nose looking like a tomato.
We spend the rest of the session going in circles. She doesn't tell me what to do. She never does. She just keeps asking questions until I can hear myself saying things out loud that sound completely mental when they're not just bouncing around in my head.
By the time I leave, I've used half the tissue box and my eyes look like I've been crying for a week.
I sit in my car for ten minutes before I get the courage to call him.
It rings four times before he picks up. "Hello."
Not "hey" or "hi, Cam" like usual. Just "hello" in a voice I don't recognise.
"It's me."
"I know."
My carefully planned speech evaporates. "Can you come over tonight? There's something I need to tell you."
Silence. Then, "Is this about the prenup?"
"Sort of. But not in the way you think."
More silence. I can hear machinery in the background, probably a circular saw.
"What time?" he says finally.
"Seven? I'll cook."
"You don't have to cook."
"I want to."
Another pause. "Okay. Seven."
He hangs up without saying goodbye, and I sit there staring at my phone.
I stop at Tesco on the way home and buy ingredients for Roland's favourite meal. Shepherd's pie with extra cheese on top because he's essentially a large child when it comes to food preferences.
The house smells like garlic and rosemary by the time he knocks. I've lit candles, opened wine, changed clothes twice.
He looks tired when I open the door. Still gorgeous, but there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair's doing that thing where it sticks up at weird angles.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi."
He follows me to the kitchen without trying to kiss me hello. Bad sign.
"Wine?" I offer, holding up the bottle.
"Sure."
I pour two glasses and hand him one. Our fingers brush and he doesn't immediately pull away, which I'm taking as progress.
"Smells good," he says, nodding toward the oven.
"Shepherd's pie. The way your mum makes it."
He looks at the shepherd's pie, then at me, then back at the pie. "You didn't have to do that."
"I know. I wanted to."
The timer goes off.
We move around each other carefully. He gets plates and cutlery while I dish up food.
"This looks incredible," he says when we sit down.
"Thanks."
He takes a bite and makes that little noise he always makes when food is good. For a moment, things feel almost normal.
"So," he says after we've eaten in silence for a few minutes. "What did you want to talk about?"
I set down my fork. "I saw Dr Reeves today. My old therapist."
"And?"
"She asked questions I didn't have good answers for." I push some shepherd's pie around my plate. "About who I'm actually trying to control. Whether it's you or whether it's my own fear."
Roland's fork stops moving.
"She didn't tell me what to do," I continue. "But I've been thinking about it all day. About David. About what I've been doing."
"What do you mean?"
"David used money to make sure I couldn't leave." I pick at a bit of cheese that's stuck to the edge of my plate. "And I've been using money to make sure I always can. Which sounds completely different when I say it like that, except."
I stop. Start again.
"Except it's still making money the thing that decides everything. It's still letting what David did run my life. Just in a different direction."
Roland doesn't say anything. He's looking at me, but I can't read his face.
"I want you to move in with me," I say.
He goes very still.
"No cohabitation agreement," I say. "No legal protection. Just move in because we want to."
"Are you serious?"
"I'm terrified. But yes."
"What about your assets? Your flat?"
This is the hard part. This is the part that makes my chest tight and every alarm in my body start screaming.
"I don't know. I haven't figured out some magical way to stop being scared." I can hear myself talking faster. "I just realized that planning for everything to fall apart is probably a good way to make it fall apart. And I don't want it to fall apart. I want you."
Roland doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he reaches across the table and takes my hand.
"What if you wake up tomorrow and change your mind?" he asks. His voice is careful.
"I might. I probably will, actually. I'll probably wake up at three AM panicking about what happens if you die and I can't afford the mortgage."
"That's reassuring."
"I'm not saying I'm fixed, Roland. I'm saying I want to try doing something different. Even though it scares me."
His thumb traces across my knuckles. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll move in."
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Really?"
"On one condition."
My stomach drops. "What?"
He grins, and it's the first real smile I've seen from him since he walked in. "You have to let me pay for dinner sometimes without looking at me like I've just asked to see your bank statements."
I laugh despite myself. "I'll try. I can't promise I'll manage it, but I'll try."
"That's all I'm asking."
We finish eating while talking about logistics. Whose furniture to keep, which of his tools can fit in my garage. Normal couple things.
After dinner, we move to the sitting room with the rest of the wine. Roland settles into his usual spot on the couch and I curl up next to him.
"Can I ask you something?" he says.
"Mm."
"What made you call your therapist?"
I think about it for a moment. "You, mostly. The way you looked when I mentioned the prenup."
"How did I look?"
"Hurt. Surprised. Like I'd just told you I was only in this conditionally."
He's quiet for a moment. "That is how it felt."
"I know. And Sophie said something too. About how I was making my whole life smaller to avoid getting hurt. Like she used to cross the street to avoid dogs after she got bitten as a kid."
"That's not a bad analogy."
"I wanted to argue with her, but I couldn't."
Roland's hand finds my hair. "You're nothing like David, you know."
"I don't know about that."
"I do. David wanted to hurt you. You were trying to protect yourself."
"Maybe." I'm not sure I believe it, but I don't want to argue about it either.
We sit there for a while. The wine is almost gone. Outside, I can hear cars passing on the main road.
"Roland?"
"Yeah?"
"I need to tell you something else. About David."
He shifts slightly, his hand still in my hair. "Okay."
"There's stuff I haven't told you. About how bad it got. I don't..." I trail off. "I don't really know how to talk about it."
"You don't have to."
"I know. But I feel like I should. Like you deserve to know what you're getting into."
He's quiet for a moment. "Cam, you don't owe me your trauma."
"It's not about owing. It's just." I stop again. The words won't come. I've rehearsed this in my head a hundred times, but now that I'm here, everything feels stuck.
"I keep thinking if you understood why I'm like this, you'd be more patient with me. Or something. I don't know."
Roland shifts so he can see my face. "I am patient with you."
"I know. You are. I just."
Another stop. Another start that doesn't go anywhere.
"I'm sorry," I say finally. "I thought I could do this and I can't."
"That's okay."
"It's not, though. You've been so honest with me and I can't even..."
"Camille." His voice is gentle. "Stop."
I stop.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me tonight. Or ever, if you don't want to. I'm not going anywhere."
I want to believe him. I want to just accept it and move on. But there's this feeling in my chest, like I've failed some test I set for myself.
"I feel like I should be able to talk about it by now," I say quietly. "It's been two years."
"There's no timeline for this stuff."
"I know. Logically. But."
"But what?"
I shake my head. "I don't know. Forget it."
We sit there in silence. It's not comfortable, exactly, but it's not unbearable either. Just quiet.
After a while, Roland says, "Do you want more wine?"
"Yeah. Okay."
He gets up to get the bottle. When he comes back, he pours us both another glass and settles back onto the couch. We don't pick up the conversation. We just drink our wine and watch the room get darker as the sun sets.
Eventually I say, "I have something else to ask you."
"Should I be worried?"
I sit up so I can see his face. "Probably."
He raises an eyebrow.
I get up and walk to the kitchen. There's a drawer by the sink where I keep random things. And, as of three hours ago, a small velvet box.
I bought it on impulse after leaving Dr Reeves' office. Walked into the jewellery shop next to Tesco and asked to see men's wedding bands.
When I come back to the sitting room, Roland's sitting up straighter.
"What's that?" he asks.
Instead of answering, I get down on one knee in front of the couch. Right there between the coffee table and the telly, same as he did two nights ago.
Roland's eyes go wide. "Camille, what are you doing?"
"Something that scares me."
I open the box. The ring catches the candlelight.
"Roland Beck. Will you marry me?"
He stares at me. Then at the ring. Then back at me.
"You're proposing."
"I'm proposing."
"You. The woman who wanted a prenup two days ago."
"Yeah." I don't have a clever response for that. "I don't know what I was thinking."
He laughs, and it sounds surprised. "I don't know what to say."
"Yes would be good. Or no. Either way, I'd like an answer before my knee gives out on this floor."
"Yes." He slides off the couch and joins me on the floor. "Obviously yes."
I slip the ring onto his finger with shaking hands. It fits.
"How does it feel?" I ask.
He looks down at his hand. "Strange."
"Good strange or bad strange?"
"I don't know yet."
I laugh. "Fair enough."
He kisses me then. When we break apart, we're both a bit wet around the eyes.
"We're getting married," he says.
"We are."
He grins. "Your accountant brain must be having fits."
"It is. It's screaming at me right now, actually. Very loud."
"What's it saying?"
"Something about asset protection and worst case scenarios." I lean my forehead against his. "I'm trying to ignore it."
"Is it working?"
"Not really. But I'm doing it anyway."
Three weeks later, we're standing in Sophie's back garden surrounded by fairy lights. It's not a wedding. More of an engagement party crossed with a moving in together celebration.
Roland's wearing the ring I bought him. I'm in a dress that cost more than my car payment.
"Speech!" someone shouts from the crowd. Probably Sophie's husband, who's had three beers and thinks he's hilarious.
Roland looks at me with raised eyebrows. "Want to do the honours?"
"Absolutely not."
He squeezes my hand and steps forward slightly. The chatter dies down.
"Right," he says. "I'm not good at speeches, so this'll be quick."
Someone laughs.
"Three weeks ago, Camille proposed to me." He pauses. "Two days after asking for a prenup."
A murmur from the crowd. Sophie snorts.
"I don't." He stops, rubs the back of his neck. "I had something prepared, but I've forgotten it. So. We're getting married. We're both a bit mental. Thanks for coming."
He steps back quickly, looking relieved.
"That's it?" Sophie calls out.
"That's it."
"Worst speech ever!"
"To Camille and Roland!" someone else shouts, saving him.
"To Camille and Roland!"
The crowd raises their glasses. Roland takes my hand again, his palm slightly sweaty.
"That was terrible," I say.
"I know."
"I loved it."
"Did you?"
"It was honest."
He squeezes my hand. "How are you doing?"
"Terrified. You?"
"Same."
Later, after everyone's gone home and we've fallen into bed exhausted, I lie awake. My brain's doing its usual thing. Shared finances. What happens if his business has a bad year. What happens to the house.
Roland shifts beside me, his arm tightening around my waist.
"Can't sleep?" he asks.
"Just thinking."
"About what?"
"The usual. Everything that could go wrong."
He's quiet for a moment. Then, "Still loud?"
"Yeah." I consider. "Maybe a bit less than yesterday, though."
Somewhere outside, a fox screams. That horrible noise that sounds like a woman being murdered.
"I hate that sound," I say.
"Mm."
His breathing starts to even out.
The thoughts don't go. They never do. But his arm is still around me, and the ring on his finger catches the streetlight coming through the curtains.
I watch it glint for a while. My brain keeps running numbers in the background, calculating risks I can't control. Eventually it gets tired, or I do.
I fall asleep before I notice it happening.
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