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"All is well at work?"
"Hm-hm."
"It has been a week now, right?"
"A week and a half."
"That's really good." Mussed Dr. Caroline Adams. "Have you been taking all your medication?"
"Yes... Mostly..." She replied, the therapist sighing.
"Rosalie."
"All except for zaleplon."
"We switched from" She searched for the prescriptions in her agenda, "Temazepam- "
"I know..."
"-so you could wake up if you were having a disturbing dream."
Rose flinched, Caroline catching it immediately.
"Are the nightmares back?" She questioned carefully.
The chair Rosalie sat on squeaked under her strive to hide her discomfort. "They are not that common."
"But they have resurfaced."
She looked from the book her therapist wrote on, to her lap. "I suppose..."
"We've covered this." Her palms were on the desk, back moving from its leaned stance on the very expensive rotating chair. "A dream is our subconscious talking to us. What do you think it meant?"
She had spoken of her nightmares. They used to happen almost every night, finding her trapped in medicated slumber. It was one reason she stopped her sleeping pills. Better awake in reality than asleep, imprisoned in a makeshift hellish wonderland. But it was different this time.
Why are you still here?
That was the part of playing over in Rosalie's head. That phrase, uttered in a tone of coldness, emptiness.
"What did you dream of?" She changed the question when she was met with vacant eyes.
"It was more of a memory." Rose paused, intertwining her fingers. "I had an encounter that day, and it brought back some... feelings."
The doctor wrote something down and addressed her again. "Was it of Michael?"
She nodded. "They still end the same way. That part has not changed at all." Drops of salty water wetted her jeans as she looked down.
God, I always cry when I come here.
Caroline removed her glasses and opened the top drawer, pulling a tissue box.
"Is it ok to ask what triggered it?"
Rosalie wiped her tears. A futile attempt to clear her cheeks as more vicious ones replaced them.
No verbalized answer.
Dr. Adams got up and came to sit next to her in the second patient chair. She reached over and took her hands in hers, not minding the dirty tissue paper. "When we go through a traumatic experience, the brain is the last one to heal. It takes years to sort through pain and sorrow. Great courage."
