Doctor Rachel tilted her head. “Well, I can’t guarantee that. I mean, I can try to be understanding, but if you tell me you’re going to hurt yourself—”
I held up my hands emphatically. “Oh no, nothing like that. It’s just…if somebody was to hear the voice of their dead friend in their head, does that make them crazy?”
“This is my real voice!” Katie said, indignant. “I’m right here, in front of you. Why are you being so stubborn, Banana!”
“I’m being stubborn because you’re not real,” I mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Doctor Rachel asked.
“Nothing.”
Doctor Rachel furrowed her brow. “Were you speaking to Katie, just now?”
“M—maybe…?” I said, hesitantly. “That makes me crazy, right? I mean, that has to make me crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Doctor Rachel said. Her voice was even-toned. “I think you’ve gone through a great trauma, and your mind can do a lot to get you to reconcile a loss like you’ve had. Tell me, how are you sleeping?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I mean, not well, at least.”
“Well, lack of sleep can bring on hallucinations.”
“I’m not a hallucination!” Katie groaned, throwing up her hands. “Please, Anna, listen to me.”
But I didn’t listen to her. I couldn’t. It was bad enough that I was hearing Katie’s voice in my head. It was much worse to listen to it, and act on it.
“So, you’re saying I need a good night’s sleep? That seems kind of cheap, don’t you think? You don’t think I need to be pumped full of pills, or taken to the looney bin?”
“No, I don’t, and I didn’t say that. I do think you need a good night’s sleep, but I also think you need time. Katie just died, and you have to deal with that pain. Grief is a process that takes time. This is going to sound trite, but do you know the five stages of grief?”
“Denial, depression, binge eating, sitting alone in the dark, and then acceptance. They told me about it when my father died.”
I was a wreck after my father’s death, but even in the worst throes of my grief, I never heard the man in my head, or saw the ghost of him around me.
“That’s because I’m not a hallucination,” Katie said. “I’m real. I mean, I’m a ghost, but I’m real.”
“Stop it,” I grumbled. “Go away.”
Katie hovered toward me. “Is that what you want, Banana? Really? Do you really want me to go away?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s just…” I stopped myself. I couldn’t keep talking to an imaginary ghost. Even for a sleep deprived girl, I could tell by Doctor Rachel’s eyes that it wasn’t normal. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Doctor Rachel said. “Grief is a process.”
I wasn’t apologizing to her. I was apologizing to Katie, but I couldn’t tell the doctor that, so I just smiled. “Thanks for understanding.”
Chapter 10
I didn’t talk the whole way home from therapy, which made Mom think that I was mad at her. I had to stay silent though, because the minute I spoke, Katie was in my ear trying to talk to me, and I couldn’t have my mother thinking I was crazy. It was one thing to talk openly about my hallucinations with Doctor Rachel. Her office was a safe space.
That didn’t make us friends, of course, because if we became friends then I would be opening her up for the curse of Anna. The one that left everybody I loved dead or wounded.
“You’re not cursed,” Katie said from the back seat. “You’ve just been unlucky up ‘til now, but maybe that means you’re going to be super lucky in the future. Did you ever think of that?”
I hadn’t thought of that, but I wasn’t about to start now. After all, Katie was just a figment of my imagination trying to make me feel better. Keeping everybody at a distance allowed me to live with myself. It allowed me to know that nobody else would be hurt because of me.
“I have tomorrow off, you know,” Mom said as she pulled into the driveway. “I was thinking that maybe we could go to the zoo. I know you and Katie liked that. What do you think, hija?”
We did like that, especially the bat enclosure. It was a weird thing to like, and more than a little creepy, but Katie liked being scared. You wouldn’t think that about her, with how nice and sweet she was, but she loved being scared. We would stay up all night sometimes watching movies like Friday the 13th and Hereditary.
“Maybe,” I said. “Probably not though. I kind of just want to veg.”
I didn’t like being scared, which made being friends with Katie very hard, especially at night. I would do anything for just one day where I could watch scary movies with her again.
“Would that make you happy?” Katie asked as I got out of the car. “I will watch all the scary movies with you if you just listen to me.”
I didn’t say anything until I got into my room, but the minute I closed the door I threw down my coat and wheeled on her.
“What?” I asked. “What kind of crazy thing do you want me to do, Katie? Oh wait, it doesn’t matter, because you’re not real.”
“I am real,” Katie said.
“Then why can nobody else see you?”
“I don’t know,” Katie replied coolly. “It’s not like I want anybody to see me except for you, so I didn’t ask any questions about it. I figured if anybody would understand that, it would be you.”
“Well, I don’t understand,” I said, plopping down on the bed. “Or I guess, I do understand. I understand that I’m crazy. Maybe if I just sleep this will all be over. Maybe I’m just delusional from lack of sleep.”
Katie hovered into my line of sight. “That won’t make me go away, Anna. I need your help.”
“Go find somebody else to bother then.”
“I don’t want to find somebody
