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“I don’t believe in you. Give me back my pills, so I can make you go away,” he said, reaching for them. His hand went right through her, but the bottle of pills she pulled away from him.
“Ayyy…” he yelled, realizing he’d “touched” her. She really was a ghost.
“Well, I believe in you, and this little bottle of pills only makes you groggy and tired. I can’t have you walking around like some ghosts I know. Dead.”
He couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. In the morning, he would call the VA. He’d gone off the deep end. Having sex with Emily had driven him right over the edge into LaLa Land. Only he wasn’t singing and dancing. He was staring at an old woman in a dress that he’d only seen in museums.
No, she wasn’t real. Squeezing his eyes shut, he prayed that she’d be gone when he opened them.
Nope, she was still hovering right in front of him.
“Give me my pills,” he said quietly, his voice low, his breathing heavy. “And then go away.”
The woman shook her head. “We have much to discuss and plan. There is a certain new arrival that I heard you know. How do you know her, Tanner?”
Turning his back on the apparition, he tried to force her from his mind.
“I think she’s the one for you. When she arrived, I saw how at first you were excited and then you grew worried. You tried to run her off, but she stood up to you. That’s the kind of woman you need. One to not be bullied by you.”
Maybe he should just check himself into a hospital. Right now, he was certain he was certifiable crazy. That the war, the PTSD, and the hallucinations were returning and it must have all been driven by the sex he’d experienced this weekend. And then seeing Emily walking among his family.
So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Everything from the best sex of his life to his aunt reprimanding him, and now this apparition taking over his mind.
“You are not real. It’s all in my mind,” he said and he walked away from the smell of lavender.
Before, when he hallucinated, it was battle scenes. Places where he thought he was going to die. Places he returned to with the war raging around him, his buddies fighting beside him as they tried to stay alive. And so many of them perished. It was reliving the people he cared about dying and him fearing his own death.
Was this hallucination to let him know he would soon be dying?
Like a good soldier, he marched through the house, his feet in rhythm as he went to the door. Maybe the hot summer air would shake him out of this episode. But normally, he didn’t know when he was in a hallucination.
Normally, he was in the episode, fighting. It wasn’t until later that he realized he was here at home and that everything had been a lie.
“You can run out the door, but I’ll follow you. You’re next, Tanner,” the voice said. “And I’m not going away. We should talk about how you are going to court Emily,” she said.
“What? I can’t go near her, and right now, she’s very angry with me. I doubt she would ever want me back.”
“We’ll make it happen.”
The woman was in his head, talking to him like they were friends. This was the strangest hallucination he’d ever experienced.
Opening the door, he glanced back and saw the woman hovering above his couch. “You’re not real. Now put down my pills, so that when I return I can find them. They will make you go away.”
She threw the bottle at him, and when they hit him on the chest, they fell to the floor, the lid came off and the precious anti-depressants scattered across the floor.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss how you’re going to court her,” she said and suddenly disappeared.
Court her? His hallucination thought he was going to pursue Emily. Now he knew for certain that none of this was real. Because he knew he could never have a relationship with any woman. But especially not Emily.
Suddenly he realized it was silent in his cabin and he glanced around. The hallucination was over. Leaning down, he picked up the pills and put them back in the bottle. No, he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Picking up a pill, he popped it in his mouth. He needed the soothing effects so he wouldn’t experience any more crazy shit tonight. The PTSD hallucinations were bad, but this had been over the top.
If ghosts were real, he would have seen a lot of them in Iraq. Dead soldiers. Men he fought beside.
All of this happened because of Emily. They had that incredible night of experiencing pleasure and now his PTSD was off the charts. Just seeing her again this afternoon had caused it to act up once again.
This was all her fault.
Tomorrow, he would find her. Tomorrow, he would offer her a large sum of money to move on. He would help her pack her bags and leave.
Tomorrow afternoon, her little yellow bug would be sputtering up the drive and she would be gone. And he would stand there in the drive and wave bye-bye because he was a damaged man who could not ever have a long-lasting relationship with a woman. Even someone as beautiful and tempting as Emily.
