Berkley woke up the next morning to the feeling of something tickling her nose. She put her hand up to scratch it when she felt something soft all over her face and she heard Dean laughing. She opened her eyes and realized that he had filled her hand with shaving cream and then tickled her nose making her smear it all over her face.

"Dude! I'm gonna make you pay for that!" she laughed as she got up and scooped the shaving cream off of her face and attempted to wipe it on him but he was too fast and sidestepped her, laughing.

"Nice try!" he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand towards her own face, rubbing it in again as he laughed like crazy.

"Dean!" she screamed as she scooped the shaving cream out of her hair and tackled him onto the bed, wrestling with him in an attempt to rub shaving cream on his face, but it was no use because he was so much stronger than her, easily pinning her arms down to the bed.

"You're such a freakin' idiot! I swear!" she laughed, looking up into his face. "No wonder you don't have a girlfriend. No woman would put up with your shit."

"You put up with me," he laughed.

"I don't count. I have to put up with you. Our Dad's own a business together."

He let go of her wrists and sat up, clutching his chest like he was shot in the heart. "Ouch! That really hurts. You've wounded me," he said, falling over onto the bed beside her, pretending to be dead.

"You deserved it. A gentleman would never treat a lady like that," she said in her best attempt at a Southern Bell accent like her roommate.

Dean scoffed. "First off, let's get one thing straight. I don't have a girlfriend because I don't want one. And I'm sorry ma'am but I'm no gentleman and YOU sure as hell are no lady," he said laughing. "You can burp louder than any man I know and you can beat every single guy I know on video games AND you even know about cars. Are you sure you're not really a dude? Maybe I should start calling you Bobby instead of Berkley."

She punched his arm and said, "Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm not a dude, unless you know guys that have tits this big."

He gasped in fake shock putting his hand to his chest. "Such language! I thought you were a lady?" he laughed. "As for your boobs I've never seen them. Who's to say you don't stuff your bra?"

"Ha!" she laughed, smacking him and rolling her eyes. "Nice try pervert. I'm not showing you my boobs. Anyway, you got quite the eyeful last night."

"Yeah and so did everybody else," he laughed shaking his head. "Maybe I should start calling you ho instead of prude."

She smacked his arm. "Wearing a revealing dress doesn't make me a ho mister. I've never even slept with anybody. I mean sure I've made out with a few guys in the back seats of their car but that's as far as it went. You and my brother made sure of that. Every guy that's ever even gotten close to getting in my pants has been threatened within an inch of his life."

"This is true," he laughed. "But now it's up to me since your brother's all the way in California."

"Nope, high school's over. I'm about to be 19 years old and I'm in college now. I don't need protecting anymore from you or my brother or anybody else. I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself. I'd really rather not die a virgin thank you very much, so if you would please back off and give me some space to date and find a guy to fall in love with, without scaring him off, I'd really appreciate it."

He hung his head and sighed. "Yeah you're right. I guess it's time to let go and let the baby bird fly from the nest. It's just hard. It's like they say, old habits die hard."

"Yeah well habits won't be the only thing dying if you don't stop running every guy off that tries to get in my pants."

He laughed. "I swear every guy I see look at you I feel like breaking their nose and telling them not to even think about it."

"Well you're just gonna have to get over that mister."

"I'll try. I promise."

"Well as the great Yoda once said, do or do not. There is no try," she said in her best Yoda voice, which wasn't good at all.

He laughed and they laid there for a few seconds in silence until he finally asked, "So what was up with your roommate last night? Why was she acting weird? You never did tell me."

Her face blushed red and she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep to avoid the conversation.

"Nice try," he said, tickling her side, and making her squeal and laugh.

"I'm not telling you no matter how much you tickle me!" she laughed.

He stopped tickling and looked at her.

"Since when do you keeps secrets from me? We always tell each other everything."

"Yeah well, I'm not telling you this. We're not 12 any more. You're my best friend always and nothing will ever change that but sometimes there are gonna be things I can't share with you."

He sat there just looking at her for a minute thinking before he finally got up and grabbed a wet wipe and sat back down on the edge of her bed in front of where she was laying. He reached up and started slowly wiping the shaving cream away from her face and hair with the wet wipe. She noticed he was being very gentle as he finished cleaning off her face and she looked into his eyes and gave him a little smile.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"You're welcome. Now get up and take a shower. We've got shit to do before classes start on Monday."

"Yes sir," she said sarcastically.

As she got up she noticed Ember's side of the room was still empty and untouched. She had met a hot guy at the party last night and gone home with him. She couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

"Sorry Ember. I don't think I can finish the movie. I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open any more."

"That's alright. We can finish it another time. I'm tired too," she said with a yawn, flipping the movie off and snuggling under her covers.

Berkley laid her head down and she was so tired and exhausted from the past couple days that she was sound asleep within a minute.

She heard her Mom's piercing screams off in the distance and her heart raced, adrenaline flowing through her body as she fought to get to her but the ground moved beneath her feet and sent her stumbling backwards. She struggled to get to her feet again but the ground lurched making her tumble forward, landing hard on her knees and she winced in pain.

"MOM! Hold on!" she screamed as loud as she could but the sound was carried away in the wind and her throat burned. She stood up and tried to run but it felt like her feet were stuck to the ground with magnets and no matter how hard she struggled she couldn't lift them.

"Mom! Hold on!" she cried out.

She heard her Mom's screams even louder and she crumbled to the ground and pulled as hard as she could trying to get the shoes off so she could free her feet but nothing worked. Tears ran down her cheeks and she threw her head back and screamed as loud as she could in frustration.

She felt herself shaking and then she blinked her eyes and realized she was back in her dorm room and Ember was looking down, shaking her with a panicked look on her face.

She blinked a few more times as she sat up and the room and her surroundings came into focus. Her heart was racing and she could feel the sweat beading on her forehead as she panted.

"Berkley. Are you okay?" she asked. "You were screaming like you were being murdered."

Berkley took a deep breath in and let it out, trying to slow down her racing heart.

"Yeah. I'm okay. It was just a nightmare. I'm so sorry I woke you up."

"That's okay. I'm just glad you're not hurt. You scared me," she said, visibly shaking as she went back to her own bed.

Berkley grabbed her phone as tears stung at her eyes.

10 minutes later there was a soft knock at the door and she tiptoed over and saw Dean standing there with bedhead and a t-shirt and pajama pants on with sleepy eyes.

She motioned for him to come in and he yawned and slipped his shoes off and climbed in under her covers. She laid down in front of him and he spooned up against her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight.

She sniffled and whispered, "Thank you."

"It's okay. I'm here now Berk. Everything's gonna be okay," he whispered into her hair.