This, That, and The Other

“My name is Martha and I’m here to help you both during these couples therapy sessions together,” the therapist said. “The purpose of this first session is to allow the two of you to get in touch with your feelings and to be able to voice them to each other without negative consequences. So let’s forgo any formalities and get right down to it, shall we?”

“Yes,” Maggie said enthusiastically.

James stared at the therapist, arms across his chest. “Yeah, fine.”

“When a marriage seems to be falling apart,” Martha said, “it’s not a venial sin, so I suggest that we keep these sessions casual and maybe even a bit playful.”

“Good,” Maggie said. “I like being playful.”

“And what about you, James?” Martha asked.

“Sure, that sounds fine.” And then under his breath he uttered, “If you like walking barefoot on narrow shards of glass.”

“Alrighty then,” Martha said, “we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

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Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (touch), My Vivid Blog (voice), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (forgo), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (venial), Word of the Day Challenge (playful), Ragtag Daily Prompt (narrow), and Your Daily Word Prompt (shard).