As Long As I Have You

~ Chapter Eleven ~

Dear God. Jason.

Just thinking his name left her feeling like his ghost passed through her. She touched her lips distractedly, but didn't dare mouth his name aloud, not when doing so could very well summon his presence here and now.

Truly though, when was the last time she said his name or thought of his charming eyes and deceptive smile? Surely it hadn't been more than a day or two, a week at most. But as she sifted through her catalog of memories, she realized with exceeding guilt — and something else, relief? — she'd barely given Jason more than a passing thought in nearly three months.

Could it be possible?

The painful reminder of him was always there, so much so that Kirsten long resigned herself to being with him as a matter of fact. She simply took his ghost with her wherever she went, whether it was somewhere as benign as the grocery store, or to a place far more intimate and vulnerable as her dreams. And just as she was reconciled to his presence in the darkest corners of her mind, she had also given up fighting the nightmares, finally conceding they would come as they pleased and that she had no discernible power over them otherwise.

Jason was a devious ghost, too, and his stealth was rivalled only by his violence. Sometimes he came to her quietly and other times he would attack viciously. His quiet interludes racked her with guilt while his attacks triggered midnight terrors that left her feeling shaken and assaulted come morning. Thankfully, the only witnesses to his crimes were a tangle of bed sheets and her pyjamas soaked through with sweat. His parting gifts weren't much nicer but also became customary, and it usually took her days to recover from the searing migraine and hoarse throat her unconscious screams caused.

Her only defence from the nightmares seemed to be avoiding sleep altogether, and that meant turning her schedule upside down and painting through the night and well into the dusky hours of morning until she dropped from physical exhaustion and into a dreamless daytime sleep. But as of late her sleep routine was as close to normal as she had ever known. It was only since her father's diagnosis and sudden passing that sleepless nights and the terrors linked to them returned as the norm.

Her father's death may have launched the dreams back into being, but Kirsten realized with a cold shock that a very different catalyst brought the night terrors to a halt some two months prior.

Everything changed the day she met Evan Beaumont.

Heaven help her, what kind of wife was she?

You're a widow, not a wife.

The words of a long-ago therapist sounded reassuringly in her head, but it was hollow at best. Jason's ghost didn't give a damn about her therapist, and he certainly wasn't put off by his mantra either.

A light rapping on the door a moment later made her jump in her seat. She looked at the clock on her desk and belatedly realized she was daydreaming the morning away; a second glance at the time followed by another knock told her the sound was meant to announce the follow-up meeting she'd set with Evan.

The desire to bolt from the room was as hilarious as it was impossible, and after a third and more determined knock she forcibly relaxed her features and managed a polite, "Come in," before fixing a serene expression on her face.

"Evan Beaumont is here to see you," Marlena said as she poked her head around the door. "Would you like me to send him in?"

She nodded stiffly. "Yes, please. Thank you, Marlena."

A moment later the door widened and in walked the man she had been sorely dreading all morning. He was impeccably dressed, and to her great annoyance she felt her stomach do a quick flip as she noted how particularly dashing he looked in his dark navy suit with blue patterned dress shirt and tangerine tie.