"Does it seem funny to you that I stopped dreaming two weeks ago?" He lied, trying to get off the fiasco at NBC. He hadn't been asked to leave… They'd had security remove him from the screening room when he'd threatened Marty Lanier's life, promising to beat the shit out of the quivering head of drama development while three of Marty's loyal Jedi made no move to save him.

"You dream, Ryan. Everybody dreams. You're just not remembering your dreams."

"Why is that?"

His right eye began to twitch, a nervous tic that had been coming and going for almost a week now.

"Are you asking me why people dream or why you aren't remembering your dreams?"

"I guess why people dream…" Filling up more of the hour with bullshit, hoping he could skate through, the Brian Boitano of session therapy.

"Mental images are produced by the subconscious during sleep. Your dreams are the day's residue being reprocessed by the mind. Dreams offer us a look at the subconscious."

"I see." But he didn't. He hadn't told her about the terrible nightmares. Twisted and frightening dreams. Always he was in the water, always a dark shadow chased him. Sometimes he would be swimming, trying to get away, and then, suddenly, he would become the monster. Last night he'd been after Matt… chasing his dead son, mouth open, trying to devour him while the boy screamed. His own screams woke him up, drenched with sweat.

If it weren't for him, Matt would still be alive.

"I know you think this is all wrapped up with Matthew's dying"-his eyelid doing a machine-gun chatter-"but I've done my grieving. I've dealt with his death." A triple-Lutz lie.

"You don't dream. You don't think about Matthew or your divorce. You're afraid to leave your house. You have your secretary drive you. You're being asked to leave the few appointments your agent can set up. Ryan, I think you'd better start taking our work more seriously. You can spend your money here, dodging me, trying not to deal with what's bothering you, but it's not going to lead you to any solutions."