November, 2018

"Olivia? Olivia! Honey, please talk to me," he pleaded from the passenger seat as I tried to keep both hands on the wheel with eyes straight on the road while I headed home after uni.

Though focussing on the asphalt whizzing past and the green, red, and amber lights was easier said than done when I had voices seemingly screaming at me from all directions.

He's not really there, Olivia... you're losing it, I continued to chant internally, determined to not look. I was absolutely sure that, if I pretended my mind hadn't dipped into a new level of insanity, everything would go back to how it was.

A very small part in the back of my head was whispering stupid hopes though, making it impossible to fully ignore this... new reality. No... Not a reality. A delusion for sure.

Unless, the desperation breathed in my ear, This is real and it's a delay from Marli's spell yesterday.

Why would her spell have a delay? That makes no—

"Olivia! Why aren't you talking to me? I know you can hear me based on the expressions on your face when I speak. Please don't shut me out now that we can properly talk. Please," the apparition of Ben tried again, cutting off my internal debate just before I could reason with the stupid optimisim that insisted I was somehow in my right mind.

But again, I shook my head and tried to focus my attention... which lasted almost a minute until the intrusive thoughts came back in and 'Ben' continued to shout at me.

Unable to withstand it anymore and knowing I'd be alone with this nonsense for at least the next few hours until mum finished work, I took a detour ten minutes from the house.

"Where are you going?" he asked, but, once again, I ignored him. He didn't need answers.

Besides... he was in my head; he should know where I was going already.

As the bottle-o came into sight, I watched him stiffen in my peripherals. "Don't tell me you're getting alcohol. Why?" he implored.

But I merely tensed my jaw and did my best to not fully give into the crazy.

Crazy... I'm going crazy, crazy, crazy.

"Why are you drinking, Olivia?" he continued to demand as I navigated through the drive-through, winding down my window in the process. "You don't have a party or anything tonight."

I bit my tongue until the taste of rust enveloped me, holding back my desperate retort of, 'The only reason you know what I'm doing tonight is because you're a figment of my imagination!' But I stood steadfast in my will to pretend he wasn't there... and the shop assistant was approaching, so I needed to act like I was still sane.

"Do you have ID?" was the first thing the guy asked me as his gaze flickered around my face.

With a slight roll of my eyes, I pulled out my licence and handed it to him. The guy—who looked no older than me—glanced me over, a slight upwards turn of his lips as he passed it back.

"What can I get you, love?" he then purred as he realised I was suddenly no longer jailbait.

"Ugh, if I had a physical body, I'd snap his neck for looking at you with those filthy eyes," Ben mumbled quietly—as though his volume mattered when he was only in my head.

"Just a bottle of vodka," I uttered back, trying to force a smile in return when all I wanted to do was cringe away. Responses like this from humans had become more frequent since I had transformed. And now that I no longer had people around me to ward them off...

"Smirnoff okay?" he asked.

"Whatever's cheap," I said, wishing he'd leave as Ben continued to mutter all sorts of deadly threats he was plotting as the man continued to undress me with his eyes.

And, finally, the shop assistant retreated into the recesses of liquor, fetching me mine.

"Who the fuck does he think he is looking at my girl like that? Let alone any woman like that. I swear I will find a body and I will come back and—"

"I'm not your girl anymore," I couldn't help but whisper, my heart throbbing as I forced the words out of my mouth.

While I was still refusing to accept he was real and there... I couldn't let my mind take me there. I couldn't go back to a place where I denied he even died and he had just... gone somewhere for a while. He wouldn't come back. He couldn't come back. And I was alone and single again... just as I hoped for it to forever stay now.

'Ben' heaved a small, sorrowful sigh as he hung his head. "I know," he then breathed. "Slip of the tongue... You're Lukas's now."

My head whipped up at that comment, ready to correct him—to reassure him—but before I could even ponder the stupidity of playing into my delusion, the guy had returned with my bottle.

"That will be forty bucks," he said, a sleazy smile taking hold of his face.

Glancing to the 700ml bottle in his hand before throwing one look at my passenger seat, I turned back to the shop assistant once more. "Got anything bigger?" I asked.

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" he asked for the millionth time as I poured another drink.

But, just like every other instance he had spoken to me, I tried my best to ignore him. Tried so desperately to tell myself he wasn't there.

Until the time was ticking closer for mum to get home... and no matter how much alcohol I ingested, he just continued to... exist. In front of me.

As a last-ditch attempt, I fished out my phone and dialled the one person left who could potentially bring me back to reality. Crossing my fingers as hard as I could as the rings sounded in my ear, hand shaking as I gripped onto the plastic rectangular device, I pleaded with the heavens to help me just this once by making sure she hadn't gone to work yet.

Then finally, "Hey, what's up?"

"Marli..." I said urgently. "I need you to come here."

But she replied, "You need me to what?"

"Please, come here. I'm losing my mind," I almost sobbed.

"You're what?" she said louder, as though she couldn't even hear me.

About to ask her if she had reception, her next statement stopped me in my tracks as I realised what the problem really was.

"Are you drunk? You're slurring all over the place," she said.

Ben shook his brown locks at me, a disappointed sheen glossing over his blue gaze.

"Oh, stop fucking judging me!" I snapped at him.

As he raised his hands defensively, Marli retorted in my ear, "I never said I was judging you... At least, I didn't intend to come off that way. I'm just trying to understand why your enunciation is so terrible."

But as Marli continued to prattle useless words I never even processed into my ear, I couldn't take my eyes off him. Sitting across the table from me, he rested his head in his hands, gaze tearing through me—a cacophony of emotions whirling in him and over him. In that moment, I wanted to reach for him to make whatever was hurting go away.

Then I remembered... "I'm losing it," I said again. "No matter how much I drink, he doesn't go away."

"Who doesn't?" she asked, clearly making me out this time.

Though a lump had formed in my throat as a familiar sting clouded my eyes. I hadn't cried in months... surely not now. Surely not... "Why am I seeing him, Marli? Is it really him? Did your spell work or have I fallen that hard into the darkness?"

A sigh sounded in my ear before she replied, "I'll be there in ten."