This chapter is short, but will transition things over to the evolving story line.
There are days when Joss wakes up and wishes her reality were a dream. A horrible, bizarre and insane dream. In the morning when she wakes, just for a minute she is able to forget what her world has become, to forget that she is a werewolf in love with her vampiric best friend and that her other best friend is a ghost. That things have become a mess all too quickly since Aidan was forced to do Mothers bidding and that for the first time ,since being scratched and launched into bizzaro land, she feels completely alone. Aidan is off being second in the leading of Boston, the tantalizing promise of absolute freedom from the other Vampires too much for him not to take on the job and Sally is dealing with her own ghost issues, also disappearing for long lengths of time, although she is still present enough to lock Joss in to her newly rented storage unit so she can change every full moon in safety. There are so many days that she just wants to sit in her room and cry from frustration, because things seem to be going nowhere and her family, her biological family, hounds her every other week to come home and get help for her Psychosis. Instead she throws herself into trying to find a cure for her condition, recording her changes and the wolf's actions on the night of the moon. Aidan may no longer be able to be there for her all the time, but she'll be damned if she's going give up on herself.
Sometimes, on the nights when she can't sleep, she reflects on everything that has come to pass since she was changed. She wonders what happened to Ray after she forced him to leave her alone, if he'd found a pack or if he was still drifting aimlessly. Sometimes she thinks about her family and about Julian, her ex-fiancé. She wants to ask her sister about him so badly, just to make sure he's moved on and that he is okay. He was her best friend and her first love; she had planned on spending the rest of her life with him and eventually having children, because that was what you did right? That was what was normal. Except now she wonders if that would have been enough, if she would have been truly happy. Part of her says no and she hates it, because normal is what she wants to be so badly, but if she had been normal she would never have met Aidan or Sally and she loves them too much to want to imagine a world where they are not in her life.
Her nighttime reflections have also lead her to the conclusion that as much as she may love Aidan, that she and he are better off as friends. They have only ever shared one kiss, dozens upon dozens of meaningful looks and touches, but no defining words have ever been spoken. And that was how she was going to keep it. This wasn't some Twilight-esque romance after all, there would be no happily ever after with half mortal children (Joss didn't even think she was able to have children anymore) and the white picket fence; she would rather be happy with what she has with Aidan now, than try for something that in the long run could just turn out bad for both of them. It didn't mean she would ever stop loving him, she knew that that would never happen, but she could love him and still find a way to be happy without him. And really, if her happiness, her true balance in life, depended on a man, whether he was undead or not, than she was in trouble and it might just be time to take her dad up on his offers of therapy.
There are even days when Joss wonders if it wouldn't be better if she moved out and tried to live on her own. But in the end she always convinces herself that staying with Aidan and Sally is what is best; she loves her house, leaky pipes and all, and she loves what the three of them have created. Its this thought that she tries to hold on to as the months move forward, things go to hell again and she finds herself on the brink of a major breakdown, this time a real one and not one that her parents have imagined up to explain her behaviour of the past few years. And even when Aidan lets her down, she still holds on to it because she's beginning to think that it really would be better if her reality were a dream. At least in dreams you could wake yourself up before the monsters got you.