“Jordan? How come you’re calling?”

“Hey, mum,” I said. “I miss you.”

“Where’s this coming from?” she said.

“They just let me out of the hospital,” I said. “Apparently, they’re pretty sure Aaron is my hallucination, and I wanted to talk to someone whom I know to be real.”

“Well, that’s sweet of you,” she said. “Are you coming up for the weekend?”

“I’m really sorry, but I can barely walk three steps,” I said. “But if you two want to come down, that’s alright with me.”

“No, we can’t,” she said. “Your dad’s busy for the weekend.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I really wanted to see you two. Oh well.”

“Yes,” she said. “But you’re coming up for Christmas, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that –“  I started, but didn’t want to let her know I wasn’t really thinking about it, despite Christmas only being two weeks away. “Yeah, I’m coming up.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “I miss you too.”

Even though she was half a country away, I still smiled into the abyss. “I’m going to go now, get back in my bed after all these weeks and so on,” I said. “Love you.”

“Be safe, love. Bye,” she said, hanging up.

 Using some of my spending money to get a taxi, I finally opened my apartment door to be met with a cold and unwelcoming place, but it didn’t matter. It was my place, and having turned the heating back on, I got myself under a mountain of blankets and fell into sweet, unmonitored, dreamless sleep.

The week passed in relative normalcy as I listened to the doctors’ recommendation to use every available opportunity to exercise my body. Walking everywhere, my steps got longer every day, and I almost felt like I had a purpose again. Almost. During the nights, I still dreamed of him, exactly as he’d been before, with every dream looking more or less the same.

Every night, we’d be sat on a grassy hill I didn’t recognise and continue our conversation, exactly where we’d left it the previous night. I didn’t remember where we’d left it, but he did. If he wasn’t real, my subconscious had some damn good memory. But I would remember a sentence he would tell me, every single night: “I am what you’re missing.”

That sentence would resonate in my mind every morning, and throughout every day, and only fade when I’d distract myself with something. As soon as my brain had time to idle, it would be back. He is what I’m missing. They say a lie repeated enough times becomes truth, but he had to stay a lie. Life had to go on.

But he was still there, and sitting in Alexander’s office a week after being released, I told him everything I wanted him to know. About him, about the dreams I’m having, about the sentence. He was again walled off, as if he didn’t want anything to slip from him, but he was listening intently. He didn’t need to tell me – I knew.

Having finished my ramble, he got a piece of paper out, and started scribbling. A good while later, he passed it to me, and between the illegible scribbles, I managed to read the core message: “Everything’s recorded, talk to me like this. I have an idea, but it’s at your own responsbility.”

I nodded, and passed him the piece of paper back. “I can nick some of the anaesthetic,” he wrote. “My wife was an anaesthesiologist, so she’ll know to administer it.”

I raised my eyebrows in suspicion, and asked for the paper and pen. “Will she agree?” I scribbled. “It’s a dangerous thing to do, might cost her her licence.”

Taking the paper back and reading my note, he scribbled again. “She’s retired. I’ve told her of the situation. She’s the one to suggest this.”

 Having read that, I just nodded. He turned the paper around, and wrote two more things. His address, and the time. Tonight, 11pm. Only half a day from now. Half a day before I’d be with Aaron’s mind.

“Take the paper,” he wrote. “Burn it.”

I took the scribbled piece of paper, and tucked it into my bra. They wouldn’t look there, after all. Having left the hospital, I waited. Burning the paper on my balcony, as instructed, I waited anxiously, listening to the clock tick, and reason leaving me moment by moment. An hour before the scheduled time, I left my place, and embarked upon the long ride to his place.

With every hissing sound of the doors opening and closing, I mulled over the idea in my head. What was going to happen? The fact that I’d felt him both times when I was under was suspicious, and he was right to question his existence. But he had to be real. He just had to. I didn’t want the final answer to be negative. I didn’t want that world to exist.

Arriving at his place, I scanned the surroundings for anything suspicious. Not a gaudy house, but the man owns a house in Greater London, as one would expect an established doctor to do. Still, to someone like me, who was far from moneyed-up, it was something to behold.

Just as the church bell rang eleven, I knocked on the door, and the doctor opened it. “Hi, come in,” he whispered, ushering me in and quickly closing it.

“Evening,” an old, grey-haired woman said. “You must be Jordan.”

“I am, pleased to meet you,” I said and extended my hand to shake hers.

“Laura Alexander, much obliged,” she said. “I don’t know who this Aaron fella is, but Colin’s told me everything. You deserve to find him. Science deserves to find him.”

“What she said,” Colin said. “I don’t have an operation table, but our dining table should do you just fine. So, make yourself at home, and we’ll get started.”

“How will you know when to pull me out?” I said.

“I won’t,” he said. “Your procedures have all lasted an hour, so it’s safe to be out for that long. You have an hour to find him. Of course, if you try to die on me, I have an AED handy. Useful to have for any old couple.”

An hour. One hour to decide the course of my life.

“Alright, then,” I said. Stripping myself into my underwear, they fitted me out with a stethoscope, and put a pillow under my head.

“Good luck, girl. For all our sakes,” he said, and Laura released the anaesthetic.