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The first session starts with Dr. Michael Robinavitch arriving twenty minutes early and nearly leaving three separate times before the therapist even opens the office door.
Not because he’s scared of therapy exactly.
Robby does fear the idea of being known, though. There’s a difference, thank you very much.
The office itself annoys him immediately.Too warm. A lamp in the corner glowing amber like somebody trapped sunset in linen. Bookshelves. Plants. One aggressively soft-looking couch that seems like a trap. A few “inspirational” quotes on posters.
The therapist, Dr. Eli Mercer, notices Robby eyeing the couch and says, gently, “You can sit in the chair if you’d rather.”
Which somehow makes Robby more defensive. So he sits on the couch out of spite. For the first ten minutes, he gives the kind of answers that probably make therapists develop drinking problems.
“How have you been sleeping?”
“Fine.”
“How’s your stress level?”
“Normal.”
“What brings you here?”
“My husband staged an intervention.”
“Do you feel resentful about that?”
“No.”
“Do you want to be here?”
“No.”
Mercer nods like this is useful information instead of the conversational equivalent of dry toast.
Robby watches him carefully after that.
He’s younger than Robby expected. Late thirties maybe. Rolled sleeves. No clipboard. No fake soothing voice. Which almost makes it worse because Robby had prepared himself to hate someone more obviously therapist-shaped.
Instead Mercer just sits there, waiting.
“So,” Mercer says eventually. “Tell me about your husband.”
Robby snorts before he can stop himself.
“That’s dirty.”
Mercer’s mouth twitches.
“How so?”
“You therapists always do that. Sneak in through the side door.” Robby rubs at his jaw. “You ask about the person we’d crawl through broken glass for because it’s easier than asking about us.”
“And is it easier?”
Robby opens his mouth. Closes it again. “…yeah.”
Mercer nods once, like they’ve agreed on the existence of gravity. So Robby talks. Not deeply. Not yet.
Just facts.
Jack Abbott. ER physician. Army veteran. Smartest man Robby’s ever met and also somehow the most reckless. Drinks too much coffee. Steals fries off Robby’s plate despite always claiming he isn’t hungry. Keeps spare hearing aid batteries in six different locations like a tiny paranoid squirrel preparing for winter.
“He bullied you into therapy?” Mercer asks.
Robby smiles despite himself. “No. Jack doesn’t really…” He exhales. “He just waits. Which is honestly worse.”
“How long has he wanted you to come?”
“Years.”
“And why now?”
There it is.
The trapdoor opening beneath him.
Robby shifts back into himself immediately, shoulders tightening.
“Bad few months.”
“What made them bad?”
“Work.”
“What happened at work?”
Robby laughs once.“You got six hours?”
Mercer doesn’t smile this time. “I’ve got fifty minutes.”
The truth is Robby cannot remember the last time someone sat with him without needing something. At work everybody needs.
Patients need. Residents need. Nurses need. Jack needs, sometimes quietly enough that nobody else notices, but Robby always does.
Robby has built an entire life around being useful. And now this man is sitting across from him calmly asking nothing except honesty. Which feels unbearable.
So naturally Robby changes the subject. “You married?”
Mercer actually laughs softly. “Deflection noted.”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“Happily?”
“Most days.”
Robby huffs at that. “That’s probably the realist thing anyone’s said to me in months.”
Mercer tilts his head slightly. “You and Jack not having most days lately?”
The thing about exhaustion is that it loosens bolts you didn’t realize were holding the structure together.
Robby answers before he means to. “He watches me sleep sometimes.” Mercer stays quiet. Robby stares at the bookshelf instead. “I wake up and he’s awake already.” His throat tightens unexpectedly. “Like he’s checking.”
“For what?”
“That I’m still there, I think.”
Robby suddenly regrets saying any of this.
He stands abruptly, restless energy flashing through him like static.
“Look, I’m not suicidal.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“No, but everybody always fucking thinks that when doctors get burned out.”
Mercer remains seated..
“Are you worried Jack thinks that?”
Robby crosses his arms. “I think Jack’s seen enough people break apart to know what it looks like.”
“And do you?”
Robby looks away. Because the ugly truth is he does know. He knows exactly what it looks like. He’s just never allowed himself to imagine it happening to him.
By month two, Robby starts bringing coffee for both of them. He pretends it’s accidental the first time.
“I had extra.”
Mercer looks at the second cup. “This says my name on it.”
“…don’t make it weird.”
Therapy becomes less like a hostage negotiation after that.
Some sessions are almost light. Robby talking about the absurdity of emergency medicine. The resident who fainted during a rectal exam. The nurse who smuggled a waffle maker into the break room. Jack accidentally falling asleep with an anatomy textbook on his face.
“Your husband comes up a lot,” Mercer notes once.
“Well he’s unfortunately involved in most of my emotional landscape.”
“Unfortunately?”
Robby smiles into his coffee. “He’s annoyingly emotionally intelligent.”
“And you aren’t?”
Robby gives him a look. “I’m an ER doctor. I repress things professionally.”
But other sessions are… harder.
The Adamson stuff surfaces slowly. Not in neat chronological order. Trauma rarely behaves politely enough for that.
A patient saying please don’t let me die alone in a voice that overlaps with memory badly enough to make Robby leave work and sit in his car for forty minutes gripping the steering wheel until his hands cramp.
One session in month three, he talks for nearly twenty uninterrupted minutes about the shooting and the aftermath.
How everybody called him strong afterward like it was a compliment instead of a sentence. How leadership in medicine often means bleeding privately. How he’d gone back to work too quickly because the department was drowning and Robby genuinely didn’t know how not to save people.
“And what would’ve happened if you’d taken time?” Mercer asks.
“They needed me.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Robby goes silent. If he stopped moving, he might fall apart. So he kept moving.
Months later, during a heavy evening session, Mercer finally asks: “What do you think would happen if you became impossible to rely on?”
Robby laughs immediately. “That’s not really an option.”
“For whom?”
“For anyone.”
“That’s a large burden to carry.”
“Well somebody has to carry it.”
Mercer studies him carefully. “And when do you get carried?”
Robby looks down suddenly, jaw tight. His voice comes rougher now. “Jack tries. He….” Robby rubs hard at his eyes. “He’s always trying to make space for me to land somewhere. I’m just not very good at landing.”
Robby doesn’t notice he’s crying at first.
It’s only when he wipes his face in irritation and finds his hand wet that he stops talking altogether. Embarrassment flashes hot and immediate. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Mercer quietly slides the tissue box closer without comment.
Which somehow makes Robby emotional enough to laugh weakly through the tears. “This is humiliating.”
“No,” Mercer says softly. “I think you’re just tired.”
By month four, Robby has stopped pretending he only comes because Jack wants him to.
He has not admitted this out loud. Obviously.
He no longer sits closest to the door. He no longer keeps his phone face-up on his knee like the department might burst into flames if he isn’t reachable at all times. He doesn’t watch the clock counting down the time left in his sessions.
Progress, Mercer has told him, is often boring.
Robby had said, “That sounds like something printed on a mug.”
Mercer had said, “Would it help if I got a mug with it printed on?” And Robby, despite himself, had laughed.
It is raining hard the day he comes in looking wrecked. Not work-tired. Not the usual grey-around-the-edges exhaustion that comes from twelve hours of human catastrophe and vending machine coffee.
He sits down slowly, both hands wrapped around the coffee he brought but hasn’t drunk from, and stares at the carpet.
Mercer waits. He has become infuriatingly good at waiting. Robby hated him it a bit for it.
Eventually Robby says, “Jack and I fought.”
Mercer nods once. “About?”
“Me.”
“That’s a broad topic.”
Robby makes a humourless sound. “Yeah, well, apparently I’m a broad problem.”
Mercer doesn’t take the bait. Robby looks annoyed that he doesn’t take the bait. Then the annoyance flickers out, leaving something smaller underneath.
“It was stupid,” Robby says. “Jack had this whole evening planned for us. He wanted us to spend some time together, it's been a busy month. I got home really late. He’d cooked. I forgot to text. Again. He wasn’t mad at first, just… quiet.”
“Quiet how?”
“Jack quiet.” Robby’s mouth twists. “Which means he was making as little noise as possible. Washing dishes too carefully. Moving around the kitchen like he was trying not to be upset loud enough that I’d notice.”
“And did you?”
“Of course I noticed.”
“What did you do?”
Robby looks away. “I made it worse.” Robby leans forward, elbows on knees, coffee abandoned on the table. “He asked if I was okay. I said I was tired. He said that wasn’t what he asked. I told him not to therapise me in my own kitchen.”
Mercer’s eyebrows lift faintly.
Robby points at him. “Do not look pleased.”
“I’m not pleased.”
“You’re therapist pleased.”
“That is not a recognised clinical category.”
“It absolutely is.”
Mercer lets the corner of his mouth move, then lets the silence return.
Robby swallows. “He said he wasn’t trying to therapise me. He said he was trying to be married to me. To be a good husband.” Robby’s expression shifts before he can hide it. “He said sometimes he feels like I give the hospital all the parts of me that are still alive, and he gets whatever’s left crawling in at midnight.”
Mercer says nothing. Robby’s hands tighten together. “And I knew he was right. That was the worst part. I wanted to be angry because it would’ve been easier. But I just stood there and looked at him and I knew he was right.”
“What happened then?”
“I said something shitty.”
“What did you say?”
Robby exhales hard through his nose, ashamed already.
“I said he knew what he was marrying so he needs to learn to live with it or move on.”
Mercer’s face does not change much, but Robby has been coming long enough now to notice the small things. “And how did Jack respond?”
“He didn’t yell. I almost wish he had.” Robby rubs at his forehead. “He just looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I knew. But I didn’t marry you so I could watch you disappear.’”
The rain lashes against the window. The office smells faintly of wet wool and coffee. The clock ticked monotonously.
Robby’s voice is quieter when he continues. “He slept in the guest room.”
“Has that happened before?”
“No.”
“How did that feel?”
“Awful.” Then, because therapy has apparently infected him, Robby adds, “And deserved.”
Mercer leans forward slightly. “Those are not the same thing.”
Robby laughs once, brittle. “They felt pretty fucking similar at three in the morning.”
“What did you do?”
“I sat outside the guest room like a dog.”
Mercer says, very gently, “Did you go in?”
“No.” Robby stares at his hands. “I wanted to. But I didn’t know if I was going in because I wanted to fix it, or because I wanted him to make me feel better about having hurt him.”
That answer seems to surprise both of them, very self-aware.
Mercer’s voice softens. “That’s an important distinction.”
“Yeah.” Robby’s mouth twists. “Didn’t enjoy learning it.”
“What did you do instead?”
“I left him a note.”
“What did it say?”
Robby sighs, embarrassed.
“It said, ‘I’m sorry. You deserved dinner with your husband. I love you. I’ll do better when I know what better looks like.’”
Mercer is quiet for a moment. “And what did Jack do?”
“He came back to bed at five.” Robby’s voice goes rough at the edges. “Didn’t say anything. Just got in behind me and put his hand on my chest.”
Robby blinks hard. This is something Robby has learned here, unwillingly at first and then with a fragile kind of trust. Mercer does not rescue him from feelings. He also does not leave him alone with them. It is a strange middle ground. A narrow bridge.
Robby hates it less now.
“I don’t want to make him lonely,” Robby says finally.
“No.”
“I think I do, sometimes.”
“You work in a job that teaches you to triage everything. Including yourself. Including your marriage.” Mercer continues, “The problem is, Jack isn’t asking to be your highest-acuity patient. He’s asking not to be left in the waiting room indefinitely.”
Robby lets out a weak, reluctant laugh. “That’s manipulative. Using ER metaphors.”
“Effective, though?”
“Unfortunately.”
Mercer smiles faintly.
Then Robby looks down again. “I love him so much it scares me.”
Mercer’s voice stays careful. “What scares you about loving him?”
Robby’s throat works. “That it gives the universe somewhere to aim.”
For the first time in several sessions, Mercer does not immediately ask another question.
Robby regrets saying it and also knows it is the truest thing he has said all month.
“I’ve lost people,” Robby says. “Everybody has. But Jack…” He shakes his head. “Jack got under my skin before I realised it was happening. And now he’s in everything. He’s in my house. My routines. My coffee order. My laundry. My emergency contacts. My stupid future plans.”
“Stupid?”
“Retirement. A garden. Maybe a dog if he wins that argument, which he will, because he fights dirty and sends me pictures of elderly rescue dogs with bad hips.”
Mercer smiles.
Robby does too, briefly. Then it fades. “If something happens to him, I don’t know what happens to me.”
Mercer nods slowly. “So part of you keeps one foot out the door.”
Robby’s eyes flick up. “I don’t.”
“Not physically.” Mercer’s tone remains kind. “Emotionally. You stay useful. Competent. Controlled. You love him through tasks because tasks are safer than needing.”
Robby looks like he wants to argue. He cannot quite find the lie.
“I take care of him,” he says.
“I know.”
“I’m good at that.”
“I know.”
Mercer asks, “Can he take care of you?”
Robby looks away. The answer is immediate and complicated.
Jack can.
Jack does.
Jack has patched him together in silent kitchens, in dark bedrooms, in locked hospital offices where Robby has shaken so hard he could barely breathe. Jack knows where Robby keeps his worst memories. Jack knows the exact pressure of palm between shoulder blades that brings him back into his body.
But allowing it still feels like handing over a weapon.
“I don’t like needing things,” Robby says.
“No.”
“It makes me…” He searches for the word, annoyed to need one at all. “Available.”
“To be hurt?”
“To be disappointed.”
Mercer nods.
Robby’s expression folds, just slightly.
“My dad was not a bad man,” he says, and it is such an abrupt turn that Mercer only stills. “He just wasn’t someone you went to with things. My mother either, really. They loved me. I know they did. But love in our house was… food in the fridge. Bills paid. Good grades noticed. Illness managed efficiently.” He laughs without humour. “Probably explains a lot.”
“What happened when you were upset?”
Robby shrugs. “You got over it.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“Then you got quieter about it.”
There is the childhood, plain and brutal in its simplicity. A house where nobody hit him. A house where nobody came. Robby’s eyes are wet again, though he looks furious about it.
“I don’t know how to be comforted,” he says. “Jack tries and half the time I just feel… trapped. Exposed. Like if I let it matter too much, I’ll never get myself back under control.”
“What do you imagine would happen if you didn’t get back under control right away?”
Robby opens his mouth. Nothing comes. His face shifts, faint and frightened. “I don’t know.”
Mercer speaks softly. “Maybe that’s something we can test. Not all at once. Not in a crisis. Small moments. Letting Jack see ten percent more than you usually would. Letting comfort last thirty seconds longer before you make a joke or stand up or start cleaning the kitchen.”
Robby sniffs, irritated. “That sounds unbearable.”
“It probably will be.”
“Great sales pitch.”
“I’m not selling peace as comfortable. I’m saying discomfort isn’t always danger.”
Robby sits with that. Discomfort isn’t always danger. He exhales slowly, then leans back against the couch.
“Jack wants me to take two weeks off.”
Mercer’s eyebrows rise. “And?”
“And I told him I’d think about it.”
“That sounds unlike you.”
“I know. I may need imaging.”
Mercer smiles.
Robby’s own smile appears, tired but real.
Then he sobers.
“Going back to work after time off, well, sometimes it's harder than just carrying on. I’m scared if I stop, I won’t know who I am.”
Mercer nods. “That sounds like something worth finding out.”
Robby gives him a look. “You make existential dread sound like homework.”
“It often is.”
“Do I get graded?”
“No.”
“Good. I’d be insufferable.”
Mercer laughs then, properly, and Robby feels something in his chest loosen. A knot learning, with great reluctance, that it is allowed to become something other than a knot.
And when the session ends, Robby does not immediately stand.
He sits for a moment, looking at the rain.
Then he says, almost grudgingly, “I’ll talk to Jack tonight.”
Mercer nods.
“About the time off?”
Robby picks up his untouched coffee.
“About the future.” His voice is rough, but steadier now. “And maybe the dog.”