Monday morning they both got up and packed all their stuff into the car and milled around the house in silence, cleaning up everything and taking the trash out before they left. She left his Aunt's dress hanging in the bathroom just like she asked.

On the four hour ride back she was able to finish the rest of her report and study for a couple hours. After that she was so tired and emotionally exhausted that she just leaned against the passenger side door and slept the rest of the way back. Dean just listened to some light music and didn't give her a hard time about not talking.

Somehow he always knew when she needed to be left alone. When they got back to Boston he dropped her off outside her dorm and got out and popped the trunk. He lifted her suitcase out for her and as she turned to walk away he called out, "Berkley".

She turned to face him and in a shallow, broken voice said, "Yeah?" She felt empty, tired, and depressed. The nightmares about her Mom on top of having her heart broken by Dean was more than she could mentally handle.

He looked really worried about her. It was like he could tell how much she needed him right now. He stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, holding her tight like he wanted to take all her pain away but even hugging Dean couldn't fix this, not this time.

She stepped back and looked at the ground for a second before saying sadly, "I decided I'm going to go to that therapist. Maybe they can make the nightmares stop. I honestly don't know how much more of this I can handle."

For her, admitting that was a big deal. She had a bad habit of putting on a tough face and acting like everything was okay, even when it wasn't.

He gave her a sympathetic look.

"I think that's a good idea Berk."

She nodded and gave him a pained smile before slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading inside.

When she got up to her room she flopped onto her bed with a deep exhale and looked at the business card for the therapist she had been carrying around in her wallet for months.

It was on black card stock with pink swirls around the edges. Her name was Dr. Kimberly Price.

She got out her phone and dialed the number and a woman answered, "Hello this is Dr. Price."

"Oh wow. I'm surprised you answered on Labor Day. I thought I was going to have to leave a message."

"Oh no. This is my 24 hour emergency cell phone honey. My clients find comfort in the fact that I'm available if there's an emergency, any time day or night. Obviously this system works because people only use this number for real emergencies."

"Oh I'm so sorry. I was just referred to you by a friend and I didn't realize this was the emergency line. I'm sorry to disturb you."

"Oh no. That's fine. Don't worry about it. You're new and you didn't know. So tell me about yourself and why you're wanting to see a therapist."

"Well, my name's Berkley Lansing and I'm 19. I'm a Freshman at Boston University. I'm wanting to see to a therapist because my life is completely screwed up and I'm feeling really down and depressed and hopeless right now."

"What about?" she asked, "and just remember, anything you tell me stays between us, doctor/patient confidentiality and everything. That's the great part about talking to a therapist. I'm like a really good best friend you can vent to and get advice from but I'm legally not allowed to share what you tell me with anybody else."

Berkley took a deep breath in and let it out. "That sounds amazing actually. I think it would be nice to have someone to talk to about everything and get an outside perspective."

She proceeded to tell her all about what happened with her Mom on the boat and the night terrors she had been having because of it and about sleeping with Dean and falling in love, but that he didn't feel the same way. It felt so good to finally get it all out and talk about it.

"So if you had to guess, what would you say is triggering these night terrors that you're suffering from?"

"I don't know. I think maybe it's the guilt. What happened to my Mom is my fault and maybe the nightmares are my way of subconsciously punishing myself for what I did."

"It wasn't your fault Berkley. You know that right?"

She exhaled and said, "No honestly I don't know that. What makes you think it's not my fault?"

"You can look at things from lots of perspectives. Maybe it was your Mom's fault for not telling you no that day and being too much of a pushover even though she knew it was a bad idea. She's the Mom and she should have stood her ground. Maybe she should have spotted the storm and told you to get out of the water sooner. Then you would've had enough time for the Coast Guard to save you both. Maybe it was your Dad's fault because he hadn't been maintaining the boat's engine properly. If the boat had started up, you guys probably would have made it to the shore in time. Maybe it was your Dad's boat maintenance guy's fault for not spotting the engine problem and fixing it. Maybe it was your brother's fault for moving all the way to the other side of the country so he wasn't there that day to talk you both out of going. Maybe it was Dean's fault for being with a girl & not being out there on the boat with you to help you fix the engine. Do you see how different people can spin a situation to find a way to blame themselves for it? It's our human nature to blame ourselves for things that may have been completely out of our control."

Berkley sat there thinking it over. "Wow. I never looked at it like that. It makes so much sense."

"As for your situation with Dean, I bet he's struggling with his feelings about what happened between you two and he doesn't know how to talk to you about it. Men feel just as many emotions as us women but they usually hold them inside and don't express them. Trust me, I've been a therapist to both men and women for years so I know the differences between how the two communicate very well. It's harder for them to open up and talk about how they feel about things so when you're dealing with a man you have to give them more time, and have lots of patience. Don't get angry if you feel like they're holding back information, because that will make them close back up. Just keep nudging little by little and eventually they'll open up to you. It's like creating a statue out of stone, you have to chip away at it little by little."

She processed what she was saying and took a breath in and let it out.

"Wow. Thank you so much Dr. Price. You've helped me more today than you'll ever know. So how much do I owe you?"

"The first session's always free, but I'd love to start seeing you regularly at my office, maybe twice a week. What do you think?"

"I think that would be great," Berkeley said, feeling relieved. She could already tell Dr. Price was going to be the lifeline she needed to get her life back on track and she wished she had called her sooner.

"Ok. Well call the office tomorrow morning and Gladys will get you on my schedule. It was good chatting with you Berkley."

"You too Dr. Price. Talk to you soon. Bye."

When she hung up the phone she programmed Dr. Price in as a contact. Just knowing that she had her to call if there was an emergency was a huge relief. People had been telling her for months it wasn't only her fault but she hadn't believed them. The way Dr. Price explained it made a lot of sense and for the first time she really did believe it. That felt like a weight lifted off of her heart and mind. Being able to share at least a little bit of the blame with others made it easier to bear.

Her phone dinged and it was Zander.

''

"Shit!" she groaned. She realized she never explained the change of plans to him. He was still thinking they were planning to sleep together tonight.

'.'

A few minutes went by before she finally got a text back.

''

She struggled with what to tell him. There's no way she could say it was because Dean had sex with her so she wouldn't sleep with him.

''

'?' he asked.

'. If not though I completely understand.'

.'

''

'No not really. You could teach me though.'

'.'

She felt weird about lying but it's not like she could say she was in a relationship with Dean because she wasn't. She also couldn't think of another excuse for why she couldn't sleep with him that he would accept other than having a boyfriend.

That night she heard a knock at the door and she opened it to see Zander standing there looking as handsome as ever, holding a bottle of wine and some movie snacks in his hand.

"Hey," he said with a warm smile. "How are you?"

"I'm pretty good. Come on in," she said, motioning with her hands and he walked into the door.

"I've already got a lasagna baking in the oven downstairs. It should be ready in about 10 minutes. So you brought wine?"

"Yeah," he said, with a smile. handing it to her. "It should go really well with lasagna. I also came prepared for the movie with some popcorn and candy."

Right then her dorm room door flew open and she turned her head to see Dean standing there and he was looking at her and Zander like he had seen a ghost.

He looked at her and scrunched his eyebrows. "What's going on here?"