Chapter Text
Carina agreed to try couples therapy. She wasn't sure at first. They hadn't been dating that long, they hadn't even said I love you yet, but under all the hurt and the anger, she did love Maya, and she did want to make it work. She didn't know what happened, but she knew something did, and it made Maya start going to therapy. Now, the blonde wanted to try couples therapy.
So, here she was, the therapist's office was a small room with a couch and a chair on one side and a desk on the other. Carina had walked in to see Maya sitting on the couch fidgeting with her fingers, and who she assumed was the therapist on the other side, sitting at the desk. "Ciao, Dr. Carina DeLuca," Carina stuck out her hand, and introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Dr. Brooke Lane, but just call me Brooke," The woman stood up to shake her hand, Carina instantly noticed she was short. "Take a seat," the counselor said motioning to the couch and the chair on the other side of the room.
Carina instantly went to the chair, still not ready to be that close to Maya. "Hi," Maya said quietly. "Hi," Carina said, looking down, avoiding eye contact. "Okay, so let me just ask you guys a few questions," Brooke said, she grabbed a notebook from her desk before turning around to face them. "Now, Carina, I already know a little from what Maya has told me in our private sessions, but I am not allowed to say it or anything." Carina nodded, she started playing with the rings on her right hand, suddenly she was nervous. It hadn't occurred to her that she obviously already knew about her from her private sessions with Maya. "Are you currently seeing a separate therapist?"
"Si, I have, uh, OCD and depression, so I go to a therapist and psychiatrist."
"You do?" Maya asked, eyes wide from the couch. She didn't even know Carina had mental illness, let alone go to therapy.
"Yeah," Carina said, still fidgeting with her rings.
"What kind of OCD?"
"Symmetry and Orderliness." That made sense to Maya, Carina always kept stuff neat and organized, she didn't realize it was to such an extent, but she obviously didn't know as much as she thought she did.
"And since you see a psychiatrist, I'm guessing you treat it with medication?"
"Yes, this feels dumb, why is this important?"
"Just trying to understand your relationship a little better."
"Okay, are you guys sexually active?" Brooke asked, before quickly adding, "With each other."
"Yeah." "No." Maya and Carina said at the same time. Respectively. "We were until two weeks ago," Maya explained. "Right, when the incident happened." Carina scoffed, "That's what you call it? The 'incident.'" She did finger quotes while saying incident.
"Yes, would you call it something different?" Brooke asked with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I would call it a lot of different things."
"Okay, well, how about we get into those later, how often do you see each other right now, say how often over the past 2 weeks.
"Today's the first time we've seen each other since Jack."
Carina's body tensed at the mention of Jack's name, Maya noticed and looked at her hands. "Okay, why?" Brooke asked with a curious tone.
"She slept with someone else, I haven't exactly been in the mood to see her," Carina said, aggressively, still facing the short woman who was observing closely.
"We both needed- need space Carina, I-"
"I would not need it if you just were faithful!" Carina cut her off, finally looking at her.
"I was frustrated, and I-"
"And you don't care enough about me to-"
"God, I care about you so much it hurts sometimes Car!"
"Questo è stupido (This is stupid)," Carina mumbled under her breath, and broke eye contact. She spoke quickly and quietly, so Maya didn't know what she said, she barely gathered it wasn't English.
"That's not fair! You can't just speak in Italian to avoid having a conversation!"
"I said, 'this is stupid,' beca-"
"Okay!" Brooke interrupted them. "How about you guys try having an actual conversation? You know, one of you says something, the other one listens, doesn't interrupt, and waits their turn to respond? One of those."
Maya nodded, "Car, do you want to start?" Carina shook her head no, and Maya sighed. "I'm sorry, I was upset, and I- I lashed out. I wanted to hurt you-" Carina opened her mouth to cut Maya off, but closed it, she was biting her tongue just to keep herself from speaking. "I was angry, and you were trying to get me to admit to something that wasn't- isn't true."
"Well, since you like to do everything right, I'll tell you, you succeeded in hurting me," Carina snapped at her before her phone started buzzing, "It is the hospital, I have to go, it was nice to meet you Dr. Lane." That's how their first couples therapy session ended.
The next one was a week later, Carina absolutely refused to talk about Jack in that one, changing the subject every time he was brought up. Brooke suggested they see each other at least once a week, so they decided to do the therapy sessions once a week, just so they always had a buffer, they could barely have a civilized conversation in counseling, so they didn't even try outside of it.
"When you ignore the fact Jack happened, I feel like you're deflecting!" Maya snapped back. They were on their 4th or 5th, and Carina had said something about how she felt when Maya ignored the way she felt. They were using the "When you... I feel..." format, but only because Brooke was making them.
"When you bring up Jack, I feel pissed, Maya! I do not want to talk about him, or think about him, yet it is one of the main things I do because I am always thinking about you, and thoughts about Jack always follow!"
"We have to talk about Jack eventually!"
"Dio mio (oh my God)! You think I don't know that?"
"You never let us talk about him so yeah kind of!"
"The moment that we talk about what happened, I am gonna say something I don't mean. If I say something I don't mean, you are gonna want to run! I don't want you to do that."
"I don't want to run!"
"Alright maybe we leave it here for today," Brooke said, looking up from her notes. "We still have 15 minutes left," Maya pointed out confused. "Oh yeah," Brooke started to chuckle, "Uh, you guys are about to start a conversation that will last a lot longer than 15 minutes, so I say you just don't until next week."
"Can we meet at my apartment later?"
"What?" Carina laughed nervously.
"We're in a relationship, but I only see you here, we don't have to talk about anything big at my apartment, just let me make you dinner o-or something?" Maya started stammering at the end, suddenly nervous.
"I think that would be great for you guys," Brooke cut in, they both looked at Carina who bit her lip in thought. "Uhm, sure, I have a surgery at 5, it should be done at 7:30, so I can be at yours by 8:00. Maya smiled widely, it caused Carina to grin, she missed seeing the girl smile.
"No sex!" Brooke told them.
"I wasn't planning on it," Maya chuckled.
So that night, they had dinner, it was somewhat awkward, they talked about work, Carina was informed about Andy’s recent drama, she talked about her brother and how he was doing, Maya updated Carina on her brother, and then they finished eating and Carina left. The small talk was nice, the two that didn’t result in yelling was nice, but Carina wasn't sure how long the peace would last.