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I sighed. “Because today I thought I saw something, and I thought about taking some sleeping tablets.”
“You thought about taking some sleeping tablets?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
She waited for me to say something else. When I didn’t, she prompted, “So you threw all the tablets onto the kitchen floor.”
I laughed, a hollow empty laugh, and her careful neutral gaze slipped as she narrowed her eyes.
“Yes,” I lied. How could I tell her it was my psyche or some… some spirit.
Spirit? Spirit!
Shit! I felt giddy.
Spirit?
Tristan is a… No. They don’t exist.
“Why did you think about taking the sleeping tablets?”
It was hard to concentrate as my scalp prickled and a frisson traveled through my body, raising every hair follicle.
A ghost. Tristan was a ghost.
Dylan’s house was haunted.
“Are you feeling all right, Emily? You’re very pale.”
“Sorry? What was your question?” I needed to think about this new theory later, when I was alone.
It did mean that I wasn’t crazy though.
Yes.
Dr. Mills tapped her pen against her lips in deep thought as she watched me. “I was asking why you thought about taking the sleeping tablets.”
I swallowed. I decided that honesty was the best policy and would help to bring this interview to a speedy close.
“I wanted the pain to go away.”
“The pain?”
“Yes.”
She waited for me to elaborate. I didn’t.
“Did you want to kill yourself, Emily?” she asked.
“I just wanted the pain to go away. I didn’t think beyond that.”
“Is the pain that unbearable?”
I nodded and stared down at my hands as my loss rippled around my chest. It was such a physical reaction, as if my heart had been ripped from my body and there was nothing in its place but loss. I hated the pain more than anything. My chest tightened, reminding me that my anguish was still there and had not receded in spite of my post-family-dream equilibrium.
