When Mrs. Shawn heard the news from Tyson, she immediately referred him to a doctor. Ty got an appointment right after the next day. He was more than happy to remove this ghost fantasy woman from his life again and he swore he would do whatever it took. He told himself over and over again that the woman was not real and she never would be. When Elinor tried communicating with him, he went through her or slapped her like people would slap flies between their palms. When that wasn’t working, Ty pretended to faint or fall asleep right in front of her. He also tried running away a few times. A little exercise, he usually thought. He hung out with friends or girls or just went to public places. To completely shut her up, he visited a couple of concerts or put on headphones with loud music on and started reading a science-fiction book. It wasn’t too long before Elinor became fed up with him and had to resort to desperate measures.

At first, she tried a few natural phenomena: thunderstorms and strong winds. Both were usual during the summer, so Ty thought these weren’t happening because of the redhead. At some point, Tyson was hoping for an earthquake, yet at the same time, the thought of it scared him, because it would mean more lives lost. However, if that happened, then he would know for sure that he was sane and Elinor was real.

To his surprise, the redhead seemed to find another way to prove her legibility. For a couple of days, the ghost seemed to accept her fate of being ignored and never spoken to and remained in the shadows. When Ty got his fourth appointment with the psychologist and was just describing how the redhead looked like, Elinor opened the door without knocking and appeared in all of her glory. She seemed to be beyond doubt being out of her breath and in a hurry, not only to him but to everyone else around them in the private clinic. Everyone was looking at her.

“Excuse me miss but we are in the middle of a session. May I ask you to sit and wait outside, please?” asked the young African-American psychologist lady. She was in her late twenties. She had her hair up in a tight bun and wore an ochre silk blazer which matched her ochre skirt.

Ty`s jaw dropped as he realized everyone else saw the ghost beside him. Somehow she made herself visible and that bothered him. He knew it from experience from their encounter during his birthday: when she made herself visible to others, that usually meant bad news. Even a natural disaster might follow this occurrence.

Elinor was wearing casual clothes: a loose white T-shirt, which reached above her skinny tummy; and thin, navy blue jeans. She carried an A4 sized black and white handbag in her right hand and wore matching high heels. Her wavy red hair was fixed in a ponytail, a few locks pulled out in order to neatly frame her face. All in all, she looked normal and not someone in a camisole as he first got to know her. Maybe she even looked a bit better than normal, like a model.

“Excuse me, madam, but I was just worried about Ty,” she huffed. She pretended to have a caring expression. “You see, he left me in the café without saying a word. I followed him here because I was worried and I can’t believe my own eyes now that I found him,” then she theatrically turned to Ty, grabbing his face with her long stylish fingernails. “Ty, are you alright? Why didn’t you say anything? Is there something the matter?”

The boy wanted to murder her. It was clear to him that Elinor was just putting up a show just to be able to interact with him. He had to admit it was a good tactic. He would not be able to refuse to talk to her when other people were also involved, even only as spectators. For some reason, he could now also feel her skin touch, as if she became real. That was a bad omen to him. He braced himself for another natural disaster and did not reply to her.

The psychologist observed the intruder for a moment, looked back at her notes, then Ty’s expression. Eventually, she gave an all-knowing nod.

“Elinor, I assume? Please wait outside, until we’ve finished talking. It won’t take too long” she said. She saw how Ty was fuming. Elinor did not seem to be having anything against the boy, just pure caring love.

“Oh, so you know me? Of course, um, Dr...”

“Jabari. Dr. Asha Jabari. T’ is a pleasure to meet you, Elinor Sonel,” smiled she while offering her hand and slightly standing up to greet the young woman.

They exchanged a friendly smile.

“Then I shall go outside. Ty, I am waiting for you,” said Elinor and gently closed the door.

After that Dr. Jabari turned to Tyson, wonder in her eyes, who was at that moment standing and staring indignantly at the door with his mouth open. The poor boy seemed more than outraged.

“It seems to me that you have met the woman of your childhood dreams. Literally,” she concluded.

“You don’t even know how literal that is,” he turned around facing the doctor as he tried explaining himself, pointing at the door where Elinor had left. “Look, she is not what you think she is!”

“Then tell me what You think she is” she placed herself comfortably in the opposite chair, and grabbed her notes. “Tyson, sit down, please. Don’t worry, I am not here to judge you. It seems to me that her presence is bothering you greatly.”

Ty sat down. He breathed in and out slowly for a few seconds.

“Look, what you saw now is her corporeal form,” he tried explaining it again. “She is not real. She has never been. She is just doing this to annoy me. Believe me!” he knew from the expression of the therapist, that she was not going to believe him. Instead, she was saying what most doctors would say. Which was asking more about the situation and trying to figure out what the actual problem was in the patient’s mind.

“What exactly is she doing to you, that you perceive as annoying?”

Ty sat back. He knew where this was going. The doctor now believed that the girl in question was an actual person. That changed everything. Because right now he must have looked like as if he had developed some kind of social phobia, because of his schizophrenia that turned into a post-traumatic stress disorder after the tsunami, and so on.

Ty thought for a second and realized if he wanted to get rid of the redhead efficiently, he must do it himself. The doctor would be the easiest to get rid of first because as soon as he stopped paying, she would be no longer able to help him.

“It seems to me that you may be planning something,” the therapist interrupted his flow of thoughts.

Bullseye. No wonder she is one of the best, Ty thought.

“Perhaps, a solution that might fit you? Would you mind sharing it with me?” she insisted.

Ty did not think lying to this woman would help. So he had to think about a more believable lie.

“I am going to take matters into my own hands. I will see what she wants and try helping her out. Since we already made a contract.”

“Listening to her and helping her out is indeed an excellent decision. One last question before we wrap this session up: Are you sure it was the real Miss Sonel who made the contract with you?”

Now she is testing me to see if I am mixing up reality with my fantasies, Ty read between the lines. Let’s just say I do.

“Hm,” Ty pretended to be thinking very hard. “Well, I do think I saw her at the tsunami when the waves were coming but it might not be entirely her whom I made the contract with. You see, everything was kind of… blurry.”

“That’s an improvement, Mr. Shawn!” Dr. Jabari said cheerfully. “Would you mind telling me more about her in the next session?”

“But I was talking about her all this time,” Ty again, pretended not to understand, and played along as a patient, starting to doubt his own beliefs.

“It seems to me, that you only see Miss Sonel physically when you are with other people. That is, you said, your friend, Zeno has seen her. Although it might have also been that you dressed up as her and both of you were just drunk.”

“Please, don’t remind me about embarrassing experiences,” now Ty blushed. He did not like what happened, and he was certainly not going to accept that it was his own decision to dress up as a woman.

“We all have embarrassing experiences or stories that we would like to erase from our lives. It’s all part of being a human,” again, the generic humans make mistakes and it is all natural speech, he had heard so many times. “So my point is, try interacting with her in the presence of your friends, who might also regard and notice her. Then tell me about how you perceive her and how you think others saw her. You said, when the ghost was with you, she did not interact with other human beings. But the other young lady that I’ve just met, seems pretty alive to me. Pay attention only when she is interacting with other people. That will help you to determine which one is the physical Elinor and which one derives from your imagination. What do you think about that?”

“Hm, I couldn’t think of a better solution, Dr. Jabari, thanks, ” Ty clapped his hands. Did he overdo the enthusiasm? He certainly felt theatrical about it. He just wanted to punch somebody. Anybody. But that didn’t seem to get through the therapist’s amazing senses, as she stood up the next moment and handed her hand over to him for a goodbye handshake. He left the room.

Now he had to go and arrange the next appointment with the secretary outside. A young man behind the counter was enjoying the company of Elinor.

“Great” Ty murmured. “Now you are picking up guys?” both Elinor and the man seemed equally surprised. One could see a little guilt on the secretary’s expression.