40

“Khalil? Khalil!”

Khalil woke up after hearing the counsellor’s panicked voice that was calling out his name. He immediately got up but his head felt heavy.

“Where are we?” Khalil was the one panicked now. He looked round.

“Your room. Eh… I mean Jeremy’s room.

Khalil immediately sent his gaze towards the door. It’s there!

Khalil pulled the counsellor’s hand while standing up. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

“Eh… Khalil! What’s wrong?”

“I’ll explain later. What’s important right now is that we have to get out of this room,” Khalil insisted while pulling the counsellor’s hand and went out of the room.

As they arrived in the counsellor’s room, Khalil immediately threw his body onto a chair and placed his head atop a table. He was tired. It was as if he had just run a 20 kilometres marathon.

The counsellor sat opposite him and observed. She was quite panicked earlier when suddenly seeing Khalil dropping down like that. But she let him take his time to tell her what happened.

“Your room should have a sofa.” That was Khalil’s comment the first moment he raised his head.

“This is a school counsellor’s room. Not a psychiatrist’s.”

“Yeah, well… This school should have a psychiatrist.”

The counsellor nodded. His words were really true.

Khalil looked like he was about to talk but his tiredness had beaten the desire to open his mouth. The counsellor remembered something.

“Wait a bit,” she said while moving to a cupboard. She pulled a chair and took a set of bedding that was kept atop the cupboard.

“You don’t have a sofa but you have a bedding?” Khalil teased.

“Do you want it or not?”

Khalil gave up. He was actually embarrassed lying in the middle of the counsellor’s room. It’s too suspicious. If someone were to enter – maybe the principal, this woman would definitely be fired.

After the counsellor spread the bedding, Khalil immediately landed on it. His shame and the nonsense he thought of immediately disappeared. A tired body equals a tired mind. Khalil sighed while lying down on the floor while the counsellor sat on a nearby chair.

“I told you. That ‘thing’ can destroy your sanity. You’re just stubborn,” nagged the counsellor.

“I never thought it would be this bad.”

“What actually happened?”

But Khalil was already ‘sailing’. It looked like he was too tired.

The counsellor let him sleep, but was a bit worried about what he would dream of.

Khalil woke up in a panic. The counsellor was doing her work at her table. Khalil struggled in getting up and then looked around. The counsellor rushed towards him.

“Khalil?”

“Where is this?”

“My room.”

Khalil tried recognising the room properly before releasing a sigh of relief.

“Okay, you’ve been leaving me in suspense for a while now. You gotta tell me what happened,” said the counsellor.

“Can we talk outside?”

“Outside where?”

Khalil was quiet. He can’t tell her that he just obtained a fear of confined places. Claustrophobia? Not really. What name should be given for fear of a room suddenly have its door disappear?

Khalil kept the bedding back to its place, above the cupboard. Suddenly, his heart started beating intensely. His head started imagining what could be above the cupboard. A person’s head perhaps?

“Khalil…”

Khalil started. He almost fell from the chair he stood on. Get a grip, Khalil!

Khalil insisted in going outside. The counsellor agreed and they went to the hipster café near the lake with Khalil’s car. Khalil was silent on the way. The counsellor didn’t dare ask what happened until Khalil was prepared to tell it himself.

After each ordered their drinks, Khalil began telling about what happened from the beginning until the end about what happened last night.

“Shit, Khalil. Something like that never happened before.”

“Wow, I feel so special.”

The counsellor was silent. “The other ghost really doesn’t want you to be involved.”

“It’s playing dirty. I know it liked to joke around, but even so…”

“It’s fine even if you don’t stay you know? Jeremy will stage your script. Let him see it for himself and I can explain it to him…”

Khalil shook his head in disagreement. “No can do. He’s started feeling normal again. I see him feeling happy going through senior year. At the very least, let him be satisfied before revealing everything to him. Only then would he move on. Wasn’t that the plan?”

“Right. But what’s happening to you… can you bear it?”

There’ no way I could! I’ve been trying to forget this thing for 10 years!

But Khalil just nodded. “It won’t take long. It won’t take long…”

Gibbs went back that evening greeted by KJ who was reading a magazine filled with Asian beauties. Gibbs smiled. It really felt like everything had turned normal again.

When KJ saw Gibbs, he raised his head a bit. Gibbs sat on his bed and KJ sat facing him.

“You’re not on a date?” asked KJ.

“Fara is busy.”

“The SL girlfriend of yours sure is busy all the time, eh?”

“She is an SL.”

“Have you realised that every time she’s gone… even Ray isn’t here?”

Gibbs laughed a bit. “What are you bullshitting about now?”

“Try checking. Is Ray in his room?”

“He’s practising for his theatre,” replied Gibbs, confident.

“I’m really fortunate to have a friend like you. Having a pure heart. There’s not an ounce of suspicion towards your friends. What more your girlfriend, right?”

His sentences were full. Filled with satire.

“Before you tell me that Fara has a scandal with Ray, you better tell me what you smoke at noon earlier,” Gibbs joked.

KJ smiled – easy to entertain. After that, he turned serious. “I’m not saying that they have a scandal. But don’t you feel that it’s suspicious?”

“Ah, you/ What’s not suspicious in your eyes? I feel that you’ve been pranking people too much. Now you’re paranoid that people would prank you back.

KJ was silent, thinking. “Logical. I won’t deny that possibility.”

Lately, KJ seemed rational. Gibbs didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

“But you too can’t deny the possibility of Fara and Ray working together to get at us,” added KJ.

It was now Gibbs who was silent.

“I’m just saying. Investigate it if you want. If not, that’s fine too. But if anything happened, don’t regret it,: reminded KJ.

Gibbs sighed. Whether he wanted it or not, KJ’s theory was plausible. It’s true that Ray coincidentally went missing every time Fara became busy.

What’s going on with Ray and Fara?