Once in her room, Kelly started to cry. She was so confused. Did she love Ryan, or just love who she wanted him to be? The doctor practically said that that wasn't love, it was idolization. She had never for the past five years stopped to think about a world without Ryan, and so at the moment she was as terrified as he was. What did all of this mean? Did she ever really love him, or just really love who she wanted him to be?

So he was lazy at work. So were lots of people. So he was a criminal. Lots of people had pasts. So he wasn't as funny as she thought he was. Maybe he was serious when she thought he was joking. If he wasn't the hard working, funny, cute amazing guy that she thought he was, who was he? And the million dollar question, was not did she love him, but did she like him?

She was beginning to realize that she didn't like all of him. She didn't like or appreciate how he treated her most of the time. She wanted to tell him that in one of their sessions, but she wasn't there yet. Kelly was still terrified that Ryan would leave her if she told him the truth. She was holding back, something which her therapist noted. If Ryan wasn't being completely honest with his feelings, was she?

Admitting to herself that she hadn't been completely honest with Ryan was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. If she told him she loved him a hundred times then maybe that hundreth time would be the time he told her he loved her back. And for once, Kelly was starting to think that maybe that wasn't the way love was supposed to work. If you loved someone, you loved someone because of who they were, not what they said or did. And apparently she didn't know Ryan Bailey Howard at all. And she hated herself for it.

She had come to see that they were stuck in a pattern- she loved him, he pulled away. The more she loved him the more he resisted. That truth took several individual sessions with Dr. Riggs to see. It was like pulling out her hair. It might have felt good temporarily but in the long run what would she be left with? No hair, and no love. So something in her relationship was obviously broken. For a long time she had blamed Ryan, but now she was starting to see things about herself that she didn't like.

She tried too hard, that was obvious. Love wasn't supposed to be this much work, or at least that's what it seemed like in her favorite movies. There were supposed to be obstacles, but love conqured all, didn't it? At least that's the way it always played out. But what if love wasn't supposed to have obstacles? What if you just loved someone for who they were and not who you wanted them to be? That was the question Dr. Riggs had posed for her that night, and she had hours to reflect upon it.

Could it be that she really didn't love Ryan after all? After all, she was hurting, he was hurting, there were no clear winners in this crazy game they were playing. She cared about him, but even Ryan said he cared about her. But had he ever said he loved her? The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like he went out of his way not to say it. And the thought pissed her off.

She was pissed, all right. She was mad at herself, mad at Ryan, mad at the Office for knowing what Ryan's game was and not telling her. She was the new Andy. She'd been made a fool of, with everyone dismissing her as "just Kelly being Kelly." Well, there was a news flash, she wasn't "just Kelly". She was a person with feelings and opinions and a heart, and even she was starting to think she deserved better than how Ryan had treated her. At least Michael had confronted Andy with the truth. No one bothered to tell her that Ryan was just using her, not until she met Dr. Riggs. How could she have been so blind? And to think she tried to kill herself over a guy who never said those three little words that she had longed to hear for so long?

At one point during the day she became thankful. She was thankful she hadn't died, because obviously Ryan wasn't worth it. He was no better than she was. She was using him to feel better and live out her fantasy, and he was using her for sex. That wasn't love. It hurt her to realize it but really, what she and Ryan had was not love.

The first time she admitted it to herself, then in an individual session with Dr. Riggs she admitted out loud what she had been scared to say for years.

"I don't think that Ryan and I are in love," she said sadly.

"What makes you think that?"

"Apparently I am hurting him as much as he is hurting me. I feel empty without him but I feel empty with him too. I am no expert like you but I don't think that's love."

Dr. Riggs smiled. "What do you think love is?"

"Love is when you want the best for the other person, and not just for yourself. I haven't wanted what was best for Ryan. If I did I never would have pressured him with all the talk about marriage and babies when clearly that was not what he wanted."

"Good job Kelly. But what about Ryan? Does he love you or not?"

"No, because he won't say it!"

"Sometimes a person can love another person without saying those words."

Kelly looked at her strangely. "First you want me to say Ryan doesn't love me, now you want me to say that he does?"

"I'm not telling you what to say. It's what you think, what you feel that matters. How do you feel about Ryan now that you supspect that he never loved you?"

"I hate him. I hate his guts. I don't care if I ever see him again."

"That's how children talk when they don't get their way. The truth is, Ryan is your coworker, and you're going to have to face him sooner or later. In fact he's supposed to be here in an hour. Do you want me to cancel your session with him for today?"

Kelly nodded. For the first time in her life she was glad not to see Ryan Howard.

00000

Ryan was confused when he got the call. He gave up two weeks of his life to help Kelly only to be told that for one day Kelly did not want to see him? What was up with that? She'd been begging for years for his time, and when he offered it freely she did not want it. He wasn't sure he liked that Dr. Riggs.

0000

"How do you feel about not seeing Ryan today?" Dr. Riggs asked during the time that had been allotted for her and Ryan,

"You know what? I really don't care."

"You must care, otherwise you wouldn't have such a strong opinion about him."

"Why shouldn't I have a strong opinion about him? I've been fucking him for five years, and apparently that's all it ever was."

"Now, Kelly, remember he said he did care about you. I believe him. Do you?"

She shook her head no. "No, I don't, because if he ever cared about me he would never have treated me the way he did to begin with. He would have told me he loved me. He wouldn't have screwed those other girls. He wouldn't have used me for my money. He would have shown me that he loved me, not just used and abused me."

"So now you're mad at Ryan instead of yourself?"

"You're saying I should be mad at myself?"

"I might be a little mad at myself for allowing myself to be used, for wasting five years of my life," Dr. Riggs pointed out.

"I wouldn't say they were all a waste," Kelly smiled softly.

"What do you mean?"

"We had some good times. He did make me laugh, even if he says he's not funny. We got away with a lot at work. Sometimes when he looked at me I swear he loved me, but apparently I was wrong. I wouldn't know love if it hit me on the head."

"Kelly, what's your definition of love?"

"I don't know. Marriage, babies, being together all the time."

"And you think that's realistic?"

"That's how it works for the movie stars."

"And how long do those marriages last?"

"Paul Newman was married for practically fifty years," Kelly said proudly.

"Try a more recent example. How long were Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston married?"

"Just a few years."

"How long were Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman married?"

"Just under ten."

"So you see, Paul Newman was the rarity, not the certainty. You talk about movie stars a lot. Do you watch a lot of movies?"

"Not really. I just read all the trash magazines. They're fun to read."

Dr. Riggs sighed. "No wonder you don't know what love is. You're basing your idea of love on modern day fairy tales. That's all those celebrity marriages are. What do you believe love should be?"

"Someone that doesn't use you for sex for five years," Kelly said pointedly.

"It sounds like you have a lot of anger for Ryan. Let's talk about that for a minute."

"Do we have to?"

"Ordinarily you're more than happy to talk about Ryan. Why don't you want to talk about him now?"

"Because I hate him! I hate him for using me and for hurting me. I hate him for not loving me, the way I did him."

Dr. Riggs frowned. "Do you ever think that maybe you never loved Ryan, that you were using him the way he used you?"

Kelly was shocked. "What the hell, man? I'm not a player."

"You thought he could offer you marriage and babies and all your dreams to come true. If he had told you on your first date that he just wanted to fuck you and not have babies with you, would you have wasted your time?"

"Of course not!"

The doctor looked at Kelly, gauzing for a reaction. "Oh my God. I was using Ryan. I was hoping that if I tricked him into loving me we could have the family I always wanted. I'm just as bad as he is!"

"You're not bad, Kelly. You're just human. Could it be possible that Ryan is just human as well?"

The thought obviously hadn't crossed her mind that she was more like Ryan than she had thought she was. "I used him. Oh my god I need to apologize to him. I can make this right!"

"There you go again, slipping back into old habits. Why don't you try making things right by yourself?"

"What are you talking about? I'm not in a relationship with myself, only with Ryan."

"There is your problem. You have no real relationship with yourself. You only know what you read, what you watch. Do you even know what you don't want from a boyfriend?"

"I don't want Ryan Howard."

"Are you sure about that?"

Kelly placed her head into her hands, sobbing, She thought that she had once loved Ryan, but now she wasn't so sure. This was all so confusing. When would things ever get better?