My face was bright red, my hands trembling.
“You think the house you’re living in is haunted?”
“Uh huh.”
My therapist thought about it for a few moments.
“You know sometimes when people are isolated, don’t have much interaction, they begin to invent characters in their head. It’s how a lonely child before they attend school with other children might invent an imaginary friend. Our brains crave other characters in the little play taking place in our head.”
“It’s not an imaginary friend. This is what why I didn’t want to bring up my true problems.”
I watched her jot down something on her notepad.
“And I know what you’re thinking. I’m not crazy.”
“Look, I’m only trying to help, but if you aren’t willing to work with me, there isn’t really anything I can do.”
“Well, okay.”
I got up out of my seat.
“I’ll be on my way then.”
I nodded at my therapist before I headed out the door.
A walk on the soggy beach sounded like a good way to calm my nerves. I shouldn’t have brought up the ghost. The therapist was probably going to report to my parents I was going schizo or some shit and I was going to get shipped off to some kind of crazy house with a bunch of weirdos.
The light rain thankfully mostly cleared the beach and I was left alone with my own troubles as I traversed the thick sand until I reached the boardwalk and ran into an old friend. The scent of freshly-burned marijuana.
My eyes instinctively followed the scent to a smoke trail which trickled below the boardwalk.
Clustered under the cover of the boardwalk was a group of about six or seven vaguely-familiar flunkies all clad in dark sweatshirts and jackets.
“Don’t be staring unless you want to hit this,” a bearded-member of the group interrupted my starring.
