Ghosts

Chapter One

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Jim Morrison

I still feel like I'm dreaming when I wake up every morning and look around to see my own big beautiful apartment. All of my belongs set the way I want them, everything bought with my own hard-earned money from the job that I loved doing. My life was really starting to look exactly how I had always dreamed. How did I manage to get here after everything that's happened? Did I really make it out alive?

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1998

"It's dark in here! I don't want to make this fort anymore!"

"It's just like the other forts but with cushions this time! Don't be such a baby, Ivory."

I frowned at my older brother, Rob. We always made blanket forts in the playroom downstairs, but today he decided to make one in the upstairs family room – it was a bit small and cramped, and much darker than 4 year old me was okay with. But I didn't like being called a baby so I stuck it out instead of running away crying like I usually did when things didn't go my way.

I wish I had run that day. More than anything. Maybe if I had stopped it all there, my life would have gone differently.

After setting up the finishing touches of the new fort, Rob crawled back inside and sat cross-legged in front of me. "Want to play a new game?"

"Okay!"

"It's going to be like 'Simon Says'. You do whatever I say okay, Ivory?"

I agreed and waited patiently for my first task.

"Okay take off your shirt" At first I didn't move. "You won't win if you don't do what I say! You'll be the loser." I always wanted to win games. My parents have always said I was very competitive as a child, and so I did as I was told and awkwardly struggled out of my shirt.

"This is weird" I whined, looking down at myself. He didn't react to my complaint and moved on to voice my next order.

"Now your pants!" I thought about saying no, but the fear of being a loser had me by the throat, and again, I did as I was told. Repeating my earlier complaint as I removed my pants.

"IVORY! ROB! IT'S LUNCH TIME!" Our mothers voice bellowed out from the kitchen down the hall, and my brother quickly crawled out of the fort and ran to have lunch, leaving me behind. It was like a dark, poisonous haze had lifted then, and I suddenly felt twenty times more uncomfortable sitting there in just my underwear, so I redressed and also made my way to the kitchen.

My mother had set our places at the table for us and as we sat down she gave me a funny look and asked "Ivory, how did you get your shirt inside out and backwards at the same time, silly goose?"

 I glanced at Rob who, with a mouth full of peanut butter sandwich, said "We were playing dress up in our new fort!" I said nothing and ate in silence. My mother didn't make any further mention of my shirt. It wasn't uncommon for me to dress myself wrong. I was only 4, after all.