No More Do Overs - Sequel

four.

Outside of Aubrey's pending legal proceedings , he and Camilla had made their commitment to one session per week of counselling and it was time for their second one.

"Glad to see you two back here" Nicola beamed at them.

"You're being paid by the hour, why wouldn't you be glad?" Aubrey muttered, causing Camilla to clear her throat.

"Likewise" Camilla smiled awkwardly.

"Let's talk. What's been going on since our last meeting? How's the homework I gave you?" Nicola looked at the pair of them.

"Honestly we've had a lot going on, so to be quite frank we fell off of doing part of the homework with the at least 5 things part, but we definitely have been showing a lot more gratitude"

"Well that's still something!" Nicola grinned. "Something I want to touch on today is your family history. If at any point it feels too much then feel free to stop me, is that okay?"

Even though they both nodded, Aubrey briefly glanced over to see Camilla's demenour shift from calm to apprehensive. Her once relaxed arms were now folded over each other.

"C, you're sure you're okay?" Aubrey whispered to her.

"Yeah, don't worry" she smiled at him.

"This will probably be a quite surface level, I just want an understanding of what type of romantic dynamics you both saw growing up. So, Aubrey...who were you raised by? What were they like? If they had romantic relationships do you know what it was like? What did those relationships teach you?"

"I was raised by my mom for pretty much most of my life, I can vaguely remember her and my father being together but they divorced when I was five and he went back to Memphis, he went to jail for some years...I don't know a lot about what he got up to, once he divorced my mom it was kind of like he divorced me too..." Aubrey trailed off, clearly deep in thought. "But as I got older I spoke to him more, I saw him more I guess. I couldn't tell you anything about romantic relationships either of my parents had because I didn't see either of them with partners. I don't even remember think my mom thought about dating after my dad. I was there when my mom used to be upset because of the things my father would do. So I guess the one thing my dad confirmed is that I should treat women better" Aubrey finished. Camilla stared at bim momentarily, her expression gentle as it was obvious she wanted to get up and wrap her arms around him.

"I'm so sorry" Nicola frowned momentarily. "I'd say your takeaway from all of that is still somewhat positive, you understand that your father's error is something you don't want to form within yourself. Camilla, what about you?"

"Erm, well...I was raised by my mom. My parents separated when I was like 3? I don't know, something along those lines. I just know they were married and had me when they were young, separated and never divorced. I don't have any good memories of my father to be honest, he was awful to my mom and right before he died, he was pretty awful to me. I really wanted my parents together before I learned about what he was like. One minute super loving and the next minute he would hit her. My mom has this scar on her calf from him trying to burn her with an iron when he thought she was flirting with someone" Camilla glanced over both Nicola and Aubrey's shocked faces. "My mom definitely had a boyfriend but she never was affectionate with him in front of me, but I knew that was her boyfriend. He used to send her flowers and stuff, when she'd leave me at my grandma's house I knew she was with him"

Nicola swallowed the small lump in her throat seemingly affected by both their words. "I-I, I'm so sorry Camilla. How do you think that effected your view on relationships?"

"I don't know, I didn't know a lot of stuff about my parents until I was well into my teens. I just thought they weren't together. By the time I found out I'm pretty sure I was already starting to want to date and all of that"