AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sighed, laying her palm flat over my chart. “Yes, there are a multitude of side effects that come with your condition. You could experience blurred vision, dizziness, the inability to remember common words, even seizures in some cases.”
Icy fear crackled down my spine at the thought of losing total control of my body for moments at a time.
“Anything else?” I asked, unable to say the word aloud.
She tilted her head. “Is there something specific you’re concerned about?”
“Sort of,” I said, and nearly choked on the lie I was about to tell. “Like I said, I can’t remember everything about my mother and what she experienced, but I think I remember her having hallucinations?”
Doctor Watson nodded. “That is a possibility, yes. But it’s rare.”
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.
Ajax wasn’t real.
I’d had a suspicion all along because he’d been too perfect, his appearance in my life too perfect. Sexy, strong, and protective. Kind and mysterious and a fantastic listener. Funny and surprising and incredibly perceptive. All the qualities I found attractive in a partner, and I’d put them in a brain mixer and blended him up.
The certainty made me feel like the floor was disintegrating beneath my feet.
“If you have experienced hallucinations or start to, it’s imperative that you get here straight away. We’d need to hospitalize you for your own safety,” she said, drawing me back to reality.
I shook my head, feigning a smile. “I haven’t,” I said, and maybe it wasn’t a total lie. Yeah, Ajax was most likely something I created in my mind, but I didn’t have proof one way or another. And besides, I hadn’t hurt myself or anyone else while hallucinating him. That had to count for something.
“That’s good to hear, Grace,” she said, rising from her seat. “Your meds are downstairs and ready for you at the pharmacy.” She held the door open for me, and I stepped into the hallway.
“Thank you,” I said. “Again, for everything.”
She smiled softly at me. “I’m always here,” she said. “If you change your mind or need anything else.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, then turned down the hallway.
I hit the pharmacy, shoved my pills in my purse, and headed outside. Appointments with Doctor Watson were always in the evening because she worked the graveyard shift, but I didn’t mind. I loved inhaling the night air as I stepped outside on the hospital grounds. The red brick buildings sat among large green trees, the moon shining high above, making the place seem more welcoming than it likely should, seeing that it was a place surrounded by death.
I pulled out my cell, clicking on the Lyft app. I’d already given my car to Maria when we’d chatted last week. One of the teenagers under her care had just gotten his first job and needed the transportation, and I could easily Lyft anywhere I needed to go. It made my heart feel a tad lighter just to know it was going to someone who really needed it.
I paused a few steps down the pathway, a shiver of apprehension bursting on the back of my neck. I glanced around, unable to shake the feeling of being watched. There were a few other patients going in and out of the building, or doctors and nurses and interns, but none of them were paying any attention to me.
Weird. I shook of the sensation, telling myself it was likely just another symptom of the tumor, and kept walking.
Grace.
I gasped as the sound of Ajax’s voice filled my head, the sound so jarring I nearly dropped my phone. I looked up from it, instinctively following the warm sensation I felt pulsing around his voice in my mind, and turned around.
Ajax was sitting on one of the little wooden benches that decorated the hospital grounds several feet away, his arms stretched over the back, his massive frame dominating the small furniture. I swallowed hard, unable to stop the reaction my body had to seeing him.
One look, and I could almost feel his lips against mine, felt the tingle there as if he’d just kissed me. One glance, and I ached for him to hold me, to speak in that deep tenor of his and make the real world fall away.
The real world.
But he wasn’t part of the real world, was he? He showed up when I needed him most, as most common coping mechanisms would. I’d met him outside this very hospital, for fuck’s sake. So why did my fingers tremble when his eyes locked on mine?
“Hi,” I said, because honestly it felt rude to just stand there staring at him.
He grinned at me, and I took a step toward the bench, but he…
Disappeared.
The breath turned icy in my lungs.
