Retail Therapy

‘Honey, it’s me! It’s me!’ Kieran locked both arms around my waist, more to prevent me from hurting myself than him. ‘It’s me!’ He didn’t let go of me until I’d calmed down. ‘What’s going on?’ He let me lean on him. ‘You were screaming.’ ‘It’s Sarah. I saw her.’ Shaking, I told Kieran about the multiple times I saw and heard Sarah. ‘Could it be a—’ ‘No, it’s not a dream,’ I cut him off. ‘I saw her standing there. It was real, just like I’m seeing you now.’ ‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Let’s go talk to the doctor.’ Kieran drove me to a hospital, not the one owned by Fitz. I was led into a doctor’s office. The white-haired man took me to do a brain CT scan. While we waited for the result, he asked me questions about the past month—how I slept, what I saw, what I heard. The CT scan revealed nothing wrong with my brain. The doctor, working for the Department of Psychiatry, diagnosed me with severe insomnia and anxiety. He attributed my hallucinations to a lack of sleep and prescribed sleep aids. I