Thank you to everyone who has been leaving reviews/comments – they mean so much to me.

I'm sorry that the updates are so sporadic, real life is so busy these days I don't have as much time as I'd like to update.

Thank you to Sunny for beta-ing for me. The final version of this chapter wasn't beta'd before she went on her hols, so I take full responsibility for any mistakes!

Kirsten's eyes had barely drifted from the colourful flowers that now decorated her room. When they did, they would drop to her hands which still held the note that had accompanied them. She had grasped those few words as she slept, her dreams filled with a montage of her happiest memories. No nightmares, no fighting, no sadness.

The card in her left hand and a pen in her right, she lay across her bed on her stomach. In front of her, her journal lay open. She still had trouble filling it with words and instead it was covered in sketches and doodles. As she stared at the flowers, picturing her family in her head and wondering what they were doing at that moment, she was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Someone's popular."

Kirsten looked up to see Mark stood at the door.

"Hi Mark," Kirsten greeted him warmly.

She pushed herself up to sitting, gesturing him into the room. Mark came in and sat on the chair in the corner of the room.

"From your family?" he asked.

Kirsten nodded.

"Have they been to visit you yet?" Mark asked. "You've passed the two week probationary period."

"No. I, uh…I'm taking my time over that one," Kirsten said cautiously.

Mark had a way of making her feel guilty without trying, knowing that she was pushing her family away while he longed to have his back.

Mark smiled, understanding. "So, what are your plans for today?"

Kirsten gave him a curious look, intrigued by his jovial mood. "I don't have any plans."

"Good," Mark announced, standing up from his chair and walking over to the bed. He noticed the scribbles in her journal in front of her, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Did you draw these?"

"Oh, yeah, they're just silly things," Kirsten dismissed.

"Can I see?" Mark asked.

"Um, sure," Kirsten said, passing him the journal.

Mark flicked through the pages, impressed by her drawings. "These are really good. You're quite an artist."

"I used to be," Kirsten answered, a hint of nostalgia in her voice. "I guess I needed something to fill all the free time I have here."

"You know they have art classes here? You should join," Mark commented, handing back the journal.

"I know. I've thought about it, I just…"

"Haven't found the courage to join in yet?" Mark finished.

"Something like that," Kirsten smiled, grateful at having someone understand her so easily.

"Well, we can change that. Come on," Mark said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up gently from the bed.

"Where are we going?" Kirsten asked.

"You'll see."

Nearly two hours later, Mark stood beside Kirsten, his head tilted to one side and an amused expression on his face.

"That's quite…something that you've created."

Kirsten rolled her eyes. "I told you I was out of practice."

"I wish I'd listened to you," Mark said.

Kirsten glared at him, nudging him with her elbow as she held her dirty hands out in front of her.

Bending forwards, Mark carefully poked his finger at Kirsten's creation. The soufflé deflated, a pocket of air escaping from inside and leaving a gooey mess on the table. His finger flinched backwards, before he dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"What did you do that for?" Kirsten asked indignantly.

"You're not blaming me for ruining this?" Mark laughed.

"I warned you I wasn't a good cook," Kirsten murmured, pulling her apron off.

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry," Mark apologised, failing as he tried to hide his grin.

"So where did you learn to cook anyway?" Kirsten asked.

"My mom," Mark answered. He noticed Kirsten's surprised expression. "My parents weren't always unreasonable bigots. Before I told them I was gay, we were pretty close. When I was growing up, every Sunday was a family day. My grandparents would come round, my aunts and uncles, my cousins. I would always spend the weekend helping my mom prepare the food. It was like a tradition that just the two of us shared."

Kirsten nodded, understanding how the simplest task could bring a mother and child closer together.

"Have you ever thought about calling them from here and asking them to visit? Maybe they'd want to make amends if they knew what you'd been through," Kirsten suggested.

Mark laughed sadly at her naivety. "I don't think my parents would be any more enthused to see me if they found out I was a drunk who was locked up in rehab."

"You're not a drunk," Kirsten scolded lightly and Mark chuckled.

Kirsten didn't say anything more about it. She didn't feel it was her place to pressure him. She knew how it felt to have someone telling you the right, or wrong, thing to do. They slipped into a more casual conversation, cleaning up the mess that Kirsten had created in the kitchen. She was glad to have him as a friend in rehab – it was simple and uncomplicated. He understood what she was going through and she knew that he didn't judge her for her mistakes. Living in Newport, Kirsten had felt constantly judged; every move, every decision was watched by her neighbours. The pressure had weighed on her shoulders every day since she was old enough to understand the world she lived in. It was a pressure that had eventually made her crack.

The only person who had ever lifted that burden was Sandy. When she had met him, he had taught her to be free. No-one else could have convinced her to pack up and travel the country in the back of a mail truck, or backpack through Europe living off whatever money they could scrape together through any job they could get, or settle down in a house that was falling apart with a promise that he would fix it up. He had changed her life and taken her in a different direction. No-one else could have done that except Sandy Cohen.

But where had he been when life had taken an unexpected turn and she had ended up at rehab? This was a direction that Kirsten had not expected to take, but she was here – and sometimes, she felt herself blaming Sandy: for leaving her, for not seeing it sooner, for not stopping her from repeating her mother's mistakes. She knew it was unfair. She had filled her glass with vodka, not Sandy; she had hidden the bottle in her bag, not Sandy; she had got behind the wheel of the car when drunk, not Sandy.

Of all the things she knew she had to talk about in counselling, Kirsten feared talking about her marriage the most. She had always had faith in her marriage, believing that she would always be able to depend on it to get her through whatever life threw at her. It was when that faith had been taken away from her that Kirsten had found herself stumbling.

What if she couldn't get that faith back?

What if her counselling sessions made her realise that she could never recover the marriage that had been her rock for the past 20 years?

What if picking apart all the problems made her realise that it was too late to piece it back together again?

These thoughts plagued her mind over the next few days, knowing that in the timeline of her life, she would soon be talking about Sandy. She arrived at her next counselling session feeling apprehensive. She knew she would have no choice; she knew how important it was to talk about Sandy and her marriage, especially everything that had taken its toll over the past couple of years. The good memories would come easy; the bad memories would be hard.

"Good morning, Kirsten," Dr Halliwell greeted her lightly when Kirsten entered the room.

"Hi," Kirsten replied.

"How are you today? How are you coping with your withdrawal symptoms?"

Kirsten was surprised by the question. They rarely spoke about the physical side effects of rehab.

"I'm ok. Some days I can get through and not feel anything; other days, I still feel sick or my hands will shake," Kirsten answered.

Dr Halliwell nodded. "And how are you sleeping?"

"Better than I was. I kept having nightmares or my dreams would be so jumbled, they didn't make sense – at least, not to me," Kirsten admitted.

"And now? Are you still having nightmares?"

"Sometimes," Kirsten said.

"Are you using your journal to record your dreams? You might find that helps you to explain why you're having those dreams, or nightmares; or find a pattern to your dreams."

Kirsten blushed. "I've tried to write in the journal, but …I don't know, I can't seem to find the words."

"But you're doing well in our sessions. I think you have a lot to say."

"I know," Kirsten agreed. "But it's like there's too much in my head to write down. In counselling, at least I have some direction – you ask the questions, and I answer them."

"I understand," Dr Halliwell smiled gently. "Let's get started then, shall we?"

Kirsten nodded. Dr Halliwell leaned back in her chair, her pen in her hand and her notebook in front of her.

"We've already talked about your abortion – that was in your first year at Berkeley. Did you ever think about leaving after the abortion, to start again?"

Kirsten shook her head. "No, it never entered my mind to leave. I loved that college, it taught me so much about myself and about life," she mused.

"But you felt pressure from your friends there? You told me that was why you felt like you had to sleep with someone you barely knew."

"I did, at first. But things changed after my first year. I changed and my friends changed. I guess I threw myself into my studies in my second year too, I didn't want to get into that situation again," Kirsten said.

"But you told me that you kept drinking after the abortion, until you met Sandy?"

"But I didn't really go to parties. I kept to myself and I did my drinking in private. It quelled the loneliness, I guess," Kirsten answered.

"Did your drinking ever worry you then?"

Kirsten shook her head, no. "I didn't really think about it then. I just knew that I wanted to just get on with my studies and forget about everything else. When I met Sandy, I didn't want to hide from life any more. He gave me a new life."

"When did you meet him?"

"At the start of my third year," Kirsten answered, smiling at the memory. "It was a blind date. My flatmate was dating one of his friends, and they thought it would be a good idea to set us up. I don't know why, we were so different, I don't know how they knew it would work. It almost didn't!"

"What do you mean?"

Kirsten laughed. "They set us up at Halloween. I didn't really want to go and I almost cancelled, but my flatmate convinced me that it would be a good idea. All I knew about him was that he was a Jewish, surf-loving law student from New York who lived in the back of a mail truck and loved to get involved in political activities – very different to the guys I knew at home. He turned up late and hadn't bought a costume, so he'd come up with the idea of putting a paper bag over his head. I opened the door to him and didn't know what to think, except that it was going to be a bad date!"

"But he proved you wrong?"

Kirsten nodded. "It took a while. I kept asking him to take off the paper bag and he kept refusing. All I could hear was this quiet chuckle from underneath, it was driving me crazy! And then, when he finally took the bag off his head, he just swept me away. He has the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen, they're so big and they really see you. And he turned out to be pretty charming."

"The date must have ended well if you agreed to a second one?"

Kirsten smiled. "He knew that I didn't really want to be at the party, so he offered to walk me home. It was then that we really started talking. He was so easy to talk to and nothing like the person I thought he was. He really surprised me – he was funny and kind and sweet. I've never let my guard down with anyone as quickly as I did with Sandy. We ended up stopping for coffee on the way home and we were sat in the café so long that I didn't get home until nearly 4am. My flatmate wanted to know everything but there wasn't anything to tell – he didn't try anything, he was the perfect gentleman. All I got was a kiss on the cheek and a promise to call the next day."

"Did he?"

"Yeah, he did," Kirsten smiled. "We had a second date – and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. We talked about pretty much everything – our families, our childhoods, our hopes, our dreams. No-one knows as much about me as Sandy does."

"It sounds perfect."

"Oh, believe me, it wasn't always easy. We connected in such a surprising way, but we were so different in our beliefs and the way we viewed life. We would find ourselves arguing over the smallest things – things that seemed so silly the next day," Kirsten remembered. "We could never agree on which restaurant to eat at or which movie to see."

"Did you ever argue about anything big?"

"I guess the biggest thing we argued about was our families. We still do. It's the one thing we've always argued about," Kirsten answered.

"What is it about your families that you argue about?"

Kirsten smiled sadly. "Ever since we got together, it's like we've had to prove why we're together. You know, our backgrounds couldn't be more different; no-one believed we would work and our families just didn't understand. They never approved of us being together. Sandy's mom is a social worker and she hates everything that my family stands for. My dad was one of the most powerful and influential men in Newport, and a Jewish guy from the Bronx with no money was never going to be good enough for him. We fell in love, but that wasn't good enough for them."

"How did you deal with your families' disapproval?"

"We argued about it at first. Sandy has always been comfortable with who he is and my dad's disapproval didn't seem to bother him. That annoyed me at first. I mean, before Sandy there was only Jimmy and my dad loved Jimmy, and I guess I wanted my dad to love Sandy that way too. I wanted my dad to accept him, but he wouldn't; and I wanted Sandy to fight harder to get on with my dad, but he didn't. I had to learn to accept that they would never be friends."

"That must have been hard?"

"It was…until I met the Nana," Kirsten laughed.

"The Nana?"

"Sandy's mom. She hated me – she still does. No matter how hard I tried, nothing I could say or do would get her to like me. So eventually I had to learn to accept that she would never approve of me, and that's when I realised that that's what Sandy had been doing," Kirsten said.

"What about your mother? Did she disapprove of Sandy too?"

"No, she liked him. She told me once that she understood why I'd chosen him, why I'd fallen in love with him," Kirsten smiled.

"When did you know you had fallen in love with Sandy?"

"Hmm," Kirsten leaned back in her chair, drawing her legs up so that they crossed. She had fallen in love with Sandy quickly, she knew that, but could she pinpoint a time when she had realised she loved him?

"Is that a difficult question?"

Kirsten's eyes had glazed as she pondered the question, but they suddenly cleared as a smile spread on her face.

"No," she shook her head. "We'd been dating a couple of months and we were about to go on Christmas break. I was gonna miss him and I decided that I would cook for us, to make it special. I'm not exactly a good cook…"

"I've heard," Dr Halliwell passed comment, smiling at Kirsten.

Kirsten laughed. "Well, growing up in Orange County, you had some to cook for you. I hadn't had much practice. I'd been pretty much living on takeouts since I'd got to Berkeley. I guess I was trying to be too adventurous too soon, because it was a disaster! Everything burned, I broke the blender and I practically ruined the kitchen when the sprinklers came on."

She could see Dr Halliwell stifling a laugh. "How did Sandy react?"

"He…didn't. I mean, he just laughed and said that it didn't matter, that he loved me anyway, even though I couldn't cook, and then he walked away. I don't think he even realised he'd said it, but I wanted to run after him and tell him that I loved him too."

"But you didn't?"

Kirsten shook her head, no.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I was scared, I guess," Kirsten said.

"Scared of what?"

"Scared that he didn't mean it; scared of jinxing it. I knew I was falling in love with him already and I thought that if I pushed him too quickly, I'd push him away. I mean, what guy wants to be tied down at college?"

"Something tells me Sandy wasn't like that?"

"No, he wasn't," Kirsten smiled. "He…he's just Sandy."

"So when did you first tell him?"

"As soon as I saw him after Christmas break," Kirsten laughed. "It was the longest three weeks of my life. Being apart from him made me realise just how much I'd fallen in love with him. I missed him so much. Being back in Newport made me realise how much I'd changed, I didn't fit there any more – I didn't really fit anywhere without Sandy. I spent the whole holiday counting the days until I could go back to Berkeley."

"What about the physical side to your relationship? How long was it before you were having a sexual relationship?"

Kirsten blushed. She had learnt to be open and honest with Dr Halliwell about most aspects of her life, but talking about her sex life was still something that made her embarrassed.

"It was our third date," Kirsten said shyly, dropping her head.

"That was quick?"

Kirsten shrugged. "It didn't feel quick. It felt…right. Everything felt right with Sandy."

"He was your first sexual partner since the abortion?"

Kirsten nodded.

"But that didn't deter you?"

"No. I mean, I thought about it – of course I did – and I didn't expect it to happen so soon. But I trusted him, he made me feel comfortable. And our relationship was always…passionate."

Dr Halliwell noticed her blush again, becoming flustered, and moved the conversation forward.

"Kirsten, let me ask you this. Did you notice a change in your drinking once you and Sandy started your relationship?"

Kirsten frowned. It wasn't something she had thought about before.

"I guess I stopped drinking alone. I didn't need to any more, I guess I didn't have chance to be alone as much as I was before. Sandy and I spent so much time together," Kirsten said. "And I don't think I felt the same need to drink as I used to. When things got complicated, I had someone to talk to."

"Did you ever find yourself drawn towards drinking? When you and Sandy were fighting, for example?"

"Sometimes. I remember during spring break, I went home because my cousin was getting married. I didn't invite Sandy to come with me, because I knew my father would spend the whole time making snide comments and I didn't want to have to listen to them. Sandy was upset by that – more upset than I thought he would be. We had this massive argument and we left on bad terms. I felt so guilty about hurting him and my dad was putting pressure on me about my post-graduation plans, that I just wanted to escape from it all," Kirsten told her.

"And you escaped at the bottom of a bottle?"

Kirsten nodded. "I stole a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and snuck it up to my room. It's crazy, I was about half way through the bottle when Sandy called, and by the end of the conversation, I didn't need to drink any more. I guess I should have realised it sooner."

"Realised what?"

"That I was too dependent on him. Is it wrong that I depend so much on one person?"

"Do you think it's wrong?"

"I don't know. Yes?" It was phrased as a question. "I find myself blaming Sandy sometimes. Not for bringing me here, I know that he did the right thing. But I think about the way I feel when I'm with him, and how I feel when I'm not – or when we're arguing, or when we're not quite 'us', and it's those times that I find myself drinking. And I blame him. For not being there, for making me feel that way. But it's not his fault, is it? I shouldn't depend so much on him to make me happy."

Kirsten rubbed her temples, confused by her feelings.

"There's nothing wrong with loving someone," Dr Halliwell said.

"But can you love someone too much?" Kirsten questioned.

"No, I don't think so," Dr Halliwell said. "The question you should be asking yourself, Kirsten, is why you don't love yourself enough to stop you from reaching for that bottle. It's not because you depend on Sandy – or anyone else – too much; it's because you don't depend on yourself."

"But I feel like I've become lost. I feel like I don't know who I am any more," Kirsten sighed. "I'm not strong enough to exist on my own."

Dr Halliwell leaned forward in her chair, resting her arms on the table. "Kirsten, you're so much stronger than you realise. I've seen it, in this room, during these counselling sessions. What's it going to take to make you see that?"

"I don't know," Kirsten shrugged.

Dr Halliwell paused for a moment. "Kirsten, I have a task for you. I'm going to end this session here and before we next meet, I want you to use your journal."

She saw Kirsten's face fill with scepticism.

"Trust me," Dr Halliwell assured her. "First, I want you to think back to when you first arrived here four weeks ago and try to remember how you felt during your first week; I want you to list all the feelings you were experiencing. Then, I want you to think about everything you're feeling now and write that down."

"Why?" Kirsten asked curiously.

"Because I want you to see for yourself how far you've already come. I can tell you, but I know that you don't believe me. I hope that seeing it written down in black and white will help convince you," Dr Halliwell explained.

Kirsten nodded slowly, understanding her task. She felt strangely nervous about it. When she had arrived at rehab, she had been in a dark place; a place that she never wanted to return to. And now Dr Halliwell was asking her to go back to those feelings.

"But…but what if…" she didn't dare ask the question.

"It won't," Dr Halliwell answered, knowing her fears. "You're stronger than that. And by taking you back to those feelings that you had, I hope that you will understand how different you are now."

Her session ended and Kirsten wandered slowly back to her room. She followed a route which took her outside and she inhaled the fresh air deeply. Maybe Dr Halliwell was right, maybe she had changed. She knew that she felt more positive about her recovery and she was learning to believe in the rehabilitation process, but she was still learning to believe in herself. After everything that life had thrown at her recently and realising that she had tried to hide from her problems using alcohol, it was difficult for Kirsten to find the inspiration from within herself. She used her family – her husband, her sons – to give her the strength she needed to get better; she depended on them to get her through this. She knew that Dr Halliwell was right: she needed to learn to depend on herself to get better.

When she arrived at her room, Kirsten grabbed her journal and curled up on the windowsill which stared out over the grounds. She turned her attention immediately to the task she had been set – always the model student. Procrastinating was not a quality that Kirsten Cohen possessed. The pen in her hand, she stared at the blank page in front of her.

She sighed, wondering how she was going to fill the page.