Dillon took Summer into the waiting room of Dr. Young's office for her next appointment. She turned to face him and looked up into his eyes.
"Thanks for giving me a ride." She said softly as she held his hands, gently stroking them. "You didn't have to walk me in."
"It's alright, I wanted to." He replied. "Just give me a call when you're ready to go back to The Garage."
Summer didn't say anything else. She just pulled him down, giving him a warm kiss. He smiled at her and turned to leave. Maxie, the receptionist let out a small whistle of approval, eyeing him up as he left.
"I can see why you're so desperate to get through therapy." She remarked cheekily. "If I had someone like that waiting for me, I'd have been pushing through it all too."
"He makes me feel good about myself." Summer said nervously, trying to hide a small blush. "I'd never met anyone like him."
"Well you shouldn't have had much trouble finding admirers." Maxie commented. "I remember seeing your picture in the magazines ages ago. Chas Winchester the Fourth seemed cute."
"Unfortunately there would have been three of us in that marriage." Summer joked weakly. "Chas, his ego and me in that order."
"It's a shame really, why do the cute ones always seem to know how cute they are?" Maxie asked her. Before she could answer, Dr. Young came through from his office, putting a couple of notes on her desk.
"Maxie, would you mind filing these away for me?" He asked her, before turning to Summer. "I wish all my patients were so punctual. Normally I have to drag them into their first few sessions."
"It depends who does the dragging how much they struggle." Maxie joked in reference to Dillon. She caught a slight look from Dr. Young and stopped there. "I'll file these away."
"It's alright; it often helps to have someone there for you." He assured her as he showed Summer into his office. She hung up her jacket and took a seat on the couch. "I guess Maxie approves of Dillon?"
"She seemed to like him." Summer answered him as he handed her a cup of water.
"How are things?" He asked her.
"There have been a couple of dramas lately." Summer admitted. "My friends and I kind of got into a fight with our boss, and we're all getting used to a new...house guest."
"These things can be trying." He said reassuringly, taking out his metronome and placing it on the desk.
"It sounds strange, but in a lot of ways I'm almost glad it happened." She responded. "It seemed to clear the air a little. Dillon and I took a ride out to the bay and just sat there watching the people go by. I talked to him a lot."
"It sounds like he's being very patient with you." Dr. Young said with a smile.
"He's really something special." Summer replied cheerfully, lying down and making herself comfortable. "He really respects me; he makes me feel really good about myself."
"Well it's important to have people like that in your life." He reminded her. "Are you ready to begin?"
"I am doctor." She replied as she closed her eyes and started to relax. Dr. Young started the rhythmical ticking of the metronome.
"I want you to follow the sound of my voice." He said soothingly. "You're entirely safe here; nothing you see can hurt you. You can end the session at any time. Just relax and follow the sound of my voice."
Summer slowed her breathing and felt herself beginning to slip away a little, finding herself in another state of consciousness. Images started to form in her mind.
"We began talking about your childhood, and you mentioned that your housekeeper, Mrs. Kitchner and her children were thrown out." He continued. "Are you comfortable to talk anymore about that?"
"After Mrs. Kitchner left, Andrews took over raising me." Summer told him. "Mom and dad had him under strict orders to do anything I said. They always told him to remember that there were plenty of others that would do his job, and that they had already fired Mrs. Kitchner. They then started making me spend time with a bunch of kids from the surrounding estates, all the other rich kids."
"What about Andrews?" He asked her. "How did you feel about him?"
"Mom and dad always taught me that he was only there to do what I said." She replied. "For a while I tried to be nice to him. He was always so sweet to me, he reminded me of Mrs. Kitchner, but any time they found me being nice to him they'd pull me aside and explain again and again that he was a servant. I still always had a soft spot for him, but it just got harder and harder to avoid my parents interfering. Before long, it was just easier to treat him that way."
"Your parents didn't want you to get close to the staff?" He asked her. Summer shook her head.
"They just kept telling me that I was a Landsdown, and that such people were beneath me. They were only there to serve us. They only wanted me to spend time with the other rich kids." She explained, recalling her childhood. "They kept pushing me to make friends with all their friend's kids. The girls anyway, the only boy they really let me spend any time with was Chas."
"Chas? You mean Chas Winchester the Fourth?" He asked her.
"I sometimes saw other boys, but he was the only one they let me spend much time with." She reiterated, recalling her childhood. "I had known him since I was young, the Winchesters and the Landsdowns had been friends for a long time."
"They wanted you to get along with him." Dr. Young surmised. "You were going to marry him at one time weren't you?"
"I eventually asked my mom why Chas was the only boy I was allowed to be with." Summer told him. "I went to a girl's school, but the Winchesters were around so much, it seemed like Chas was being forced on me. Even when he wasn't there, they'd talk about him all the time. It was always 'Chas won the big polo match,' or 'Chas just got straight A's on his report card.' It was like a non-stop advert for him. One night I asked mom about it. I must have been about 13 at the time. She finally told me that I had been arranged to marry him since I was 5."
"That must have been surprising to hear." He commented. "How did you feel about that?"
"I had mixed feelings about it. In a lot of ways I'd always kind of thought things were going that way. Chas was the only boy I spent a lot of time with. I have to admit I found him kind of cute at the time. I'd never really considered the idea of thinking about another boy that way." She explained. "When she told me that, a lot of things made sense. I was shocked that I wasn't getting a choice in the matter, but in a lot of ways I'd made the choice myself earlier..."
"Had you?" Dr. Young asked her. "You said you had mixed feelings about it, but so far you haven't said anything about why you weren't happy about it."
"I guess I didn't like the fact that they had chosen him for me." Summer replied. "I knew he was a catch, they had made sure I knew that since I was a kid. They took every opportunity to tell me so, they..."
Her words tailed off a little, and her brows furrowed as she found herself back in the drawing room with her mother, discussing the revelation that she had been promised to another man when she was barely able to walk.
"No, I wasn't happy, not in the slightest." Summer responded. "When mom told me I screamed at her. It had been a long time since I had raised my voice to my parents. I never dared to, that was their number one rule."
"Why were you angry?" Dr. Young asked her.
"She had manipulated me. She had kept me isolated, stopped me meeting other kids and making friends with other boys." Summer mumbled a little. "I had been arranged for more than just marriage, they had set up my whole life to make sure I chose him. Mom slapped me when I told her I wouldn't marry him. She then poured me a glass of brandy. It was the first time she ever let me drink."
"What did she say after that?" He asked her.
"She sat me down and explained that this was just the way the world was." Summer told him. "She told me that she and dad had been arranged by their parents. She told me it was expected of them that I marry into a good family. The Landsdown name had to be kept in the esteem it had earned over the generations. I couldn't believe that after being made to marry that mom would want me to go through the same thing. I felt so betrayed, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. All those arguments seemed to make a lot more sense. They didn't love each other when they got married. In a lot of ways, I don't know if they ever did."
"It must have taken a long time for you to get over that." He said sympathetically.
"In time I just came to accept that my future was with Chas." She replied, a tear beginning to run down her face. "I felt like an object, like I wasn't meant to be cared for. I resisted for a while, started to act up, but it was just too hard to break away. In time I just gave up and accepted my fate."
"You said everything changed after Mrs. Kitchner and her kids left." Dr. Young reminded her. "Summer, you need to tell me, what happened to them?"
"I can't." She whimpered. "I don't want to."
"Summer, that was a turning point in your life." Dr. Young reiterated. "What happened that made your dad fire them?"
"It was my fault!" She sobbed, her hand straying to her face. "It was my fault she was fired..."
"What did you do Summer?" He asked her.
"I kissed Freddy!" She replied in a couple of sniffs as she wiped away some tears. "I kissed her son."
Her mind rushed back to that day, reliving it in detail.
"I was playing with Freddy and Julie as usual. They were playing with me out in the garden when it started raining. We were caught in it and we were soaked. We ran inside where Mrs. Kitchner took our wet clothes and dried us off. I can remember sitting with them in front of the fire. She made us some hot chocolate, the expensive Belgian stuff mom always hid in the top cupboard for when company came round, but we all promised not to tell." She remembered the day. "We were sitting there in the sitting room, trying to come up with something to do until the rain passed. It was then that I found myself suggesting something. I...I'd never seen a boy naked before. I had seen Freddy when his mom took his clothes off to get him dry. I was a little embarrassed. Of course knew that boys and girls were different, but I hadn't actually seen it. Julie said we should show each other."
"So you played doctors and nurses?" Dr. Young asked her. She nodded.
"I was just curious. He opened his dressing gown and I opened mine. We just looked at each other." She explained. "I felt something for him; we had a little moment there. Once we got dressed again, I asked him to kiss me. Dad came in and found us kissing each other."
"He didn't approve." Dr. Young concluded.
"He went completely ballistic; I'd never seen him so angry. I don't think I've ever seen him so angry." She explained. "He grabbed Freddy and Julie and dragged them into the kitchen where Mrs. Kitchner was washing the dishes. He screamed so loud I was terrified. He accused Freddy of corrupting me, he said she had betrayed the trust he put in her and he told her she was fired."
"You said you tried to stop him..."
"I tried to explain that I kissed Freddy." Summer informed him. "I begged him not to send them away. I told him it was my fault, but he wouldn't listen. If anything that made him angrier. After he'd gotten Andrews to throw them out, he dragged me into my bedroom. He screamed at me for hours about how Landsdowns were expected to act and told me I'd brought shame on the family. He pulled off his belt and started hitting me with it. I begged him to stop, he was so angry I thought he would never stop hitting me. He'd never hit me before in my life, it was the only time he ever raised a hand to me. Eventually he calmed down enough to tell me that I'd never see Mrs. Kitchner and her kids again. He locked me in my bedroom for days afterwards. I couldn't stop crying for hours."
"Your father had no right to do that to you." Dr. Young assured her, taking a seat next to her and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You did nothing wrong. You were a child and you were curious. It's a natural part of growing up."
"Dad didn't think so." Summer commented. "He was paranoid that his arranged marriage would be ruined if anything happened to me. He didn't want me to be 'devalued' as far as the Winchesters were concerned. He cared more about what they thought than he did about me."
"It may have seemed that way, but your father was raised that way. He might not have known any better." Dr. Young explained. "In his own way he probably thought he was doing what was best. He probably thought having you married to Chas would ensure you were looked after and got scared when something looked like it might disrupt that plan."
"Please, I want to stop." Summer told him. "It's too hard, please, I want to stop."
"It's alright Summer, we won't go any further today." He said reassuringly, starting the metronome again. "Just follow my voice. By the time the metronome stops, you will be back in the present. You're safe here, there's nothing to be scared of. Just follow my voice and start to wake up."
Summer's eyes fluttered open, and she found herself once again back in the familiar and comforting surroundings of Dr. Young's office. He smiled at her as she sat upright, offering her a tissue, which she accepted, beginning to dry her eyes.
"We covered a lot of ground today, you should be proud of yourself." He complimented her. "Take your time. I can see you're upset."
"I had almost forgotten all about that." Summer commented. "It's like someone had locked a door that I couldn't open."
"Often our mind prevents us remembering what is painful or that we don't understand." Dr. Young explained. "You told me you were only 10 when your housekeeper was fired. Of course you weren't able to understand why your dad was so angry. You did nothing wrong."
"But when I remembered, I felt like..."
"In some ways you probably did blame yourself." Dr. Young interrupted her. "You weren't to blame. It was your dad's decision to fire her, his and no one else's."
"I can't believe I was so weak as to go along with the wedding to Chas." Summer commented. "I remember for long enough, wanting to marry him."
"It was a difficult thing to cope with. You probably convinced yourself you wanted it to make it easier to deal with." He suggested. "Anyway, it's about time to end the session here. Is there someone who can take you home?"
"Dillon asked me to call him when I was finished here." She replied. "Should I make another appointment?"
"Just talk to Maxie while you're waiting. I'm sure I'll have an appointment free next week." He assured her. "I'll see you next time."
Summer made her way back into the reception area, finding Maxie sorting through a few files.
"How are you feeling?" She asked her.
"You know, I'll never get over how good I can feel after crying so much." Summer told her. "It's bizarre."
"Everyone always finds that a little unusual, but we all need to let it out once in a while." Maxie told her. "Anyway, would you like me to pencil you in for another appointment?"
"Sure, when do you have available?" Summer asked her.
"Dr. Young has an opening in three days." She replied. "The appointment's at midday. Is that good for you?"
"That sounds ideal." Summer replied, pulling on her jacket. "I just need to call Dillon and arrange my ride home."
"Would you like to use the phone?" Maxie asked her, gesturing to the phone on the desk.
"Dillon doesn't have a cell phone." Summer replied, pulling out her morpher and gesturing to it. "Dillon? It's me, would you mind coming to pick me up?...Thanks."
"Oh, Summer, would you mind doing me one favour when you come next time?" Maxie asked her.
"What would that be Maxie?" Summer asked her, a slight smile coming to her lips as she kind of saw where this was going.
"Have that Black Ranger of yours drop you off again." She replied cheekily.
"I'll try, but just remember, you only get to look." Summer reminded her. "No touching."
"I'm not going to promise anything." Maxie stated. "You just take care of yourself."
"Thanks Maxie." Summer replied as she headed out the door, fixing her hair. "I will."