Surprise crossed Crystal's face, followed quickly by a frown. "Not really. I don't know why I bothered writing about it. It's no big deal."

"This is the first time you've ever mentioned having an erotic dream," the therapist pointed out. "The fact you woke up during the foreplay aside, I do think it is significant. Have you had these dreams before?"

"I'm not gonna talk about my sex life, or lack of it, with you," Crystal said firmly, setting her jaw and crossing her arms over her chest. "Let's talk about something else."

"You want to move onto a safer topic, hmm? All right. Did you go to the meeting Tuesday night?" Crystal's frown and refusal to respond gave Jenny her answer. "I see. These sessions are a tool designed to help you, Crystal. I wouldn't recommend them if I didn't think they'd be helpful to you." "I don't need to sit around and listen to someone else's sad story," the blonde grumbled. "Besides, I was busy with Laura and that nut aunt of hers."

Jenny let the comment pass, refusing to take the bait and return to the taboo topic. "You're never too busy to take care of yourself and that's what the women's group meetings are. I can't force you to go but I strongly suggest you do."

"Yes Mother," came the acerbic reply, followed by a snort. "Actually if you were my mother you'd be too drunk to notice if I did something or not." There was a long silence before Crystal continued. "Not that she'd notice anything Patty did more than me or anything but it was like we'd show her something we did at school and she'd just ignore us."

"She didn't find the same things important that you did," Jenny said. "And how did that make you feel?"

"Patty and me hated it of course."

"No. Not how did Patty feel. How did it make you feel when you came home with something you wanted your mother to praise you for and it didn't happen?"

Crystal thought about it for a moment, opening her mouth to say something then closing it without making a sound. A small smile curled the e.g.of her lip. "I was going to say pissed off but I guess I really felt hurt." Her hands returned to their previous position behind her head. "It hurt that everyone else went home to moms who loved them and paid attention to them and mine didn't." Crystal took a deep breath. "I don't know why." Words long kept inside came out with a wavering voice, her eyes refusing to move from their inspection of the ceiling. "I came home with first place in art and she threw it out. I got a ninety five on one of the pretests and Laura hung it up on the refrigerator." Crystal's eyes blinked rapidly, trying hard to stave off the moisture welling up within them. "You know how they say you don't know what you've got until it's gone?"

"Yes?"

Crystal sniffed. "Well, I guess it's true then that you don't know what you're missing until it shows up."

"Meaning?" Jenny pushed.

"Meaning" Sitting up, Crystal brought her knees up and rested her forearms on them. "Since Patty, there hasn't ever been anyone until now that I felt cared about me." Emotions flickered over Crystal's face as she tried to make sense of her jumbled thoughts. "I've had friends but never anyone close, not like Laura has been." The young woman gave a short laugh and looked over at Jenny. "I've forgotten what it's like for someone to actually give a damn about me. To pay attention to what's going on in my life. To"

"To have someone put your test up on the refrigerator," Jenny finished.

"How stupid is that?" Crystal asked. "I let myself get all mushy over something like Laura putting that test up." She wiped her eyes although no tears managed to fall.

"It's been a long time since someone gave notice to your abilities and accomplishments." Jenny set the notebook aside and leaned forward. "It's been a long time since you've let anyone get close enough to you to care for you. You hide in that turtle shell thinking trying to keep everyone on the outside but you know deep inside that shell it's a lonely place."

"But I don't get hurt in my shell," Crystal countered without much enthusiasm.

"If you don't let yourself open up to being hurt, you can't enjoy the pleasures of being loved. It's a risk you take when you decide to live instead of just existing."

"How the hell did you get me on this topic anyway," Crystal grumbled. "We started out talking about what a pain in the ass Laura's aunt is." "And you were angry when you came in the door. Now you're calm. Amazing what happens when you open up to someone, isn't it?" Jenny smiled, ignoring the harmless glare being directed at her. "So you want to talk about your temporary houseguest."

"Houseguest from hell," Crystal clarified, reminded of the fact that Laura used to call her the roommate from hell when they first started living together. "You know how Laura's a neat freak. Helen makes me look like Laura. I swear she can't enter a room without making it look like a hurricane came through. At least with Laura I know where something is. You know she used my mug?"

"Who used your mug?"

"Helen." Crystal sat up and looked at Jenny. "No one uses that mug but me."

"Did she know it was your mug?"

"How could she not?" came the reply. Crystal took the use of her mug by someone else as a personal affront and Jenny's calm manner about it was earning the therapist the evil eye. "It was the only mug in there with my name on it."

"I don't remember seeing that there," Jenny remarked.

"Laura bought it for me last week," Crystal said. "Didn't she tell you?"

"I haven't talked to her much since her mother became ill." Thinking about where they were, Jenny straightened and cleared her throat. "Gotta watch that line, Crystal."

"Yeah well it's kinda hard when I can't talk about the person I spend the most time with," the blonde complained. Deciding that her point was made, Crystal returned to the real topic. "So she has no respect for my mug or even for things that Laura likes. She used those rose shaped soaps because she said she didn't like the scent of the bar soap." She shook her head. "She's loud and doesn't give a shit what she says about anything."

"You know." This time the therapist could not contain her smirk. "It seems to me that just two weeks ago you were bitching about those very soaps and how much of a let me the quote right here pain in the ass Laura was about them."

Crystal flushed slightly and lowered her head in acknowledgment. "Yeah well that was before Laura told me about where she got them and how it made her feel to go in there and smell the scents."

Now Jenny was smiling in the smug way she always did when she finally had Crystal steered down the path she wanted. "Tolerance and understanding made the difference. You couldn't stand certain things about living with another person but as time goes by not only do you learn to accept the differences but now you even appreciate some of them."

Crystal made no objection to the statement, merely shrugging her shoulders noncommittally. "She's not so bad. Once you get past the neat freak part, that is. You just gotta know her, that's all."

"I suspect many people you meet will fall into the same category," Jenny said. "There are some very good people out there if you care to open your eyes."

Crystal's face took on a faraway look and Jenny let a few moments go by before clearing her throat politely. "Oh, sorry," the blonde said. "I was just thinking about something."

"Do share," Jenny encouraged, moving from the couch to the unattended beanbag and assuming the same comfortable position Crystal was in, legs and hips on the floor, back supported by the beanbag. "It certainly wasn't a bad thought from the look on your face."

"I was just remembering once about three years ago when I went out for a ride on some back country road. I stopped at a garage sale that looked like every single thing there should have been thrown in the dumpster long ago." Crystal's face grew animated and she sat up while telling her story. "They had windows with broken glass, lamps that didn't work, you name it. If it was junk, they had it. So I'm just looking around. I don't know why, I never go to those kinda things."

"I like garage sales," Jenny said. "You never know what you're going to find."

"Exactly," Crystal said enthusiastically. "Well behind all that junk I found a box and inside that was a watch, a knife and some tools. Well the whole box was marked for five bucks and I just had this feeling so I bought it. I took the stuff one by one to the antique stores around and all totaled I got over a hundred bucks for everything and I still had some wooden knickknacks from that box up until the fire."

"And the lesson to the story is?" Jenny asked in a teasing tone.

"That even if it looks like it's just junk take another look."

"You'll never know where you might find that treasure," the therapist finished. Looking at her watch, Jenny frowned. "Well, we've spent enough time talking about every subject under the sun. I think it's time we do a little more role playing, what do you say?"

"I say what I said last time," Crystal replied, her mood quickly turning defiant. Pushing her way back on top of the beanbag, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I think it's stupid to pretend about something that'll never happen."

"That's what pretend is all about," Jenny said calmly. "There's a safety in being able to yell at the person you're angry with without worrying about any physical repercussions." This was an on going battle with Jenny to get Crystal to feel safe enough to open up and let out some of the rage and hurt that were bottled up inside. Despite the attitude being shown at the moment, Jenny felt it was still the best time to try.

"I still think this is stupid." Grumbling to herself but loudly enough that Jenny could hear her, Crystal walked over to the mat taking up the corner of the room behind the beanbags. "All right, so which parent do you want me to be pissed off with this time."

"Which one do you feel like yelling at?" the therapist countered, standing just a few feet away from her patient.

"I don't feel like yelling at either one of them," Crystal said in a bored tone. "They're not worth my energy."

"Neither of them?"

Crystal nodded. "I don't give a shit about either of them. They can both go to hell."

"Why?"

"You know why. Because of what they did to me." Crystal became more agitated, tapping her foot on the mat and clenching her jaw. "And she was useless."

"Why was your mother useless to you? How did she fail you?" Jenny kept her distance but moved until she was facing the very angry woman. "Tell her, Crystal."

"She didn't care."

"How. Tell her how," Jenny urged, keeping her voice gentle. "I'm your mother, Crystal. Tell me what I did that was so bad to you."

Crystal's respiration increased as did her movements, pacing back and forth in a small line. "She didn't wait for us at the bus stop like the other moms did. She didn't make us lunches and we had to get the free lunch at school which everyone knows is for the poor kids." "What else?"

A strangled cry broke from Crystal's lips. "What else? You really wanna know?" She pushed right in front of Jenny's face, noting the involuntary flinch. "How about not making sure the rips in my pants were fixed before I wore them to school. How about having dinner that didn't come in a metal tray? I hated those!" she said before turned and storming deliberately to where the punching bag stood, her back to Jenny. "Would it have killed you to make one fucking dinner once in a while?" Crystal's right fist connected solidly with the bag. "Would it have been so difficult for you to show up to just one of the open houses at school?" A sharp thwack reverberated through the room as the angry woman's fist connected again. "Why couldn't you have cared enough about us to leave him?"

Jenny sat cross legged down on the mat, letting Crystal release her frustrations and rants to the punching bag. She winced at one particularly loud punch and knew next time she would have to insist on her patient wearing the boxing gloves. The child whose right to be heard had been so long denied roared with a vengeance, crying out to whoever would listen of the injustices she had suffered. Crystal's raging display lasted for long minutes until the young woman slumped to her knees and hung her head. Jenny grabbed some tissues and crossed the mat quickly, arriving just Crystal's shoulders began to shake.

"Why?" Crystal sobbed, helplessly clutching herself. "I just don't understand why."

Jenny put her hands on the young woman's shoulders, squeezing gently. "You may never know why your mother did the things she did, Crystal but at some point you have to accept that you can't change what happened."