#spooking-not-treating

“John, let’s talk about him.”

My eyes snapped up to Eric as soon as he finished his sentence. We didn’t use his name. I couldn’t. It hurt too badly. Saying anything hurt too badly. So I hadn’t said anything in months. That’s why I was here. Eric watched me, trying to read my expressionless face. I was good at keeping it expressionless though. When you see so many friends die, you get good at it.

“Tell me what happened that day. What did you see? What did he say? Why did he do it? Do you know? Have you read what the papers said? John, I know you want to talk about it.”

No, I don’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to forget it. For it to not be real. I want it to be a nightmare I’ll wake up from soon and he’ll walk in talking about another case for us to solve. But it’s not. It’s not a nightmare. It’s real and it’s painful and it hurts. I don’t want to talk or think about it, but it’s all I can think about. He is all I can think about.

“No? Alright. What about Molly Hooper? Would you like to talk about her?”

I stayed silent, just looking between him, the cup of tea, and my cane. The whole session passed by like that and then I left, leaving the cup of tea cold and untouched. Arriving home, I unlocked the door to the flat and looked around. Slowly, I made my way over to his couch underneath the yellow spray painted smiley face. Lying down, my eyes closed and I took a deep breath. It smelled of him. Blood, aftershave, and nicotine patches. Something else as well, an underlying smell he had about him. Tea and sterile things and his shampoo. It still sat in the bathroom. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, in case he happened to come back somehow and this was just a dream. I knew it was silly and wouldn’t happen but I had hope.

Getting up, I walked to my computer and slowly opened the lid. Scrolling down my blog page, I read about all of our previous cases before it happened. Tears started to flood my eyes but I forced them away as I took a deep breath. After a few hours of reading and rereading the blog posts, picturing it all as it happened in my head like it had just happened yesterday. Suddenly, my laptop was closed and I turned to see Mrs. Hudson standing behind me with a cup of tea.

“You need to eat something, dear.”

Slowly, I got up and grabbed some crackers from the cabinet and sat down, nibbling on them. Mrs. Hudson shook her head as she sat across from me and handed me the cup. We sat in silence for a little while, until Mrs. Hudson decided to say something again in an attempt to cheer me up.

“The Christmas party is coming up in a few weeks. It’ll be such fun, dear.”