I had just lost her, too.

Aislynn stood up, walking over to me and crouching to my level as I rocked in the corner. "It's okay, baby. I'm still here."

"Fuck off!" I shouted, trying to smack her away. My hand went right through her slightly faded form, making me gasp again.

"Shh, it's okay." Kate's sudden embrace envelloped my emotions, keeping them neatly packed between our bubble of a hug. I started to calm down for a moment, until I smelled the same rose scent that belonged to Aislynn.

"She's gone too?" I whispered, my throat raw with emotion.

"She was never here, honey." Kate whispered to me. It was not reassuring at all, but it made something click. How ignored she was, the weird looks we- I got in public, how I'd never seen Thea interact with her, how she wasn't questioned or arrested. It all added up. And I hated that it did.

I couldn't remember when we met because we never did meet. She just appeared one day and never left. Or maybe she was always faintly in the background and just came further into focus when I needed her. If Aislynn wasn't real it meant that I'd been completely alone for a long time.

"Am I insane or something?" I asked Kate, to which I got no response.

"This is really unprofessional but you need somewhere to stay for the time being and my wife and I have a spare room. She's the counsellor I was telling you about." She offered me, and I stuttered a response.

"I- I don't know you."

She nodded understandingly, loosening her grip tightly to which I was relieved. "You seem to trust me, though."

I went home with her that night. It was better than being completely alone.

"Lily?" Kate called out as soon as we got home. A gorgeous, brunette woman looked up from the book she was reading at dining table, her brown eyes meeting mine. "This is Mayson. I told you about them."

I was tacken aback by that. "You told her?"

"Well she is my wife." Kate said, shrugging. I understood that, I just felt a bit like my privacy had been invaded.

"Hi! I'm Lily." She said, a kind smile plastered onto her face. "Kate can we talk somewhere? Alone?"

Message received.

I sat down as they went to talk, and I heard Kate speaking with a slightly harsher tone than usual, before they both came back seemingly calm and happy to have me there. "I can leave if-"

My offer was interrupted by Lily. "No chance. You're staying right here." She seemed more sincere this time, and she sat back down across from me. She just went about as she was before, picking up her book. I tilted my head to read the title, and couldn't stop my smile as I was delighted to see my favourite book.

"You've read this before?" She asked, noticing my staring.

"Yeah, sorry to be a distraction."

"Don't worry! I just need to finish this page and then I'm up to talking."

Despite first impressions, I had decided I quite liked her. She was a little bit intimidating at first, and I was worried that she wanted me gone, but now even looking at Kate, I could tell that I'd been approved by her. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Assuming you'll eat lasagne?" Lily asked me as she grabbed a glass dish from one of the neatly organised cupboards. I stared at how she instantly knew where to look in their spotless, clean kitchen as she started at me expectantly. Once I finally nodded, she opened the fridge and pulled out a tub of leftover beef mince. She placed some pasta sheets down, and both the red and white sauces, then the meat, and kept layering it. She added a few handfuls of cheese, like, a lot of cheese, and I already knew I was going to love this meal. The last lasagne I'd had was a long time ago because I decided that I didn't like it and spat it out, earning me a yelling from Shane.

By the time it came out of the oven and the cheese was golden and crispy, I was practically drooling onto the marble counter. "Kate, I fear you've brought home a dog." Lily teased, making me turn around expecting to see a dog as I didn't understand the joke.

"She means you, Mayson. Practically drooling over a lasagne." Kate confirmed, making me giggle.

"Did you not get lasagne a lot as a kid, or..?"

I shook my head at Lily's question, almost sadly though I tried to hide that part. That obviously didn't get past Lily with her PhD in psychology, but I tried. Instead of sympathising, she grabbed a plate and slapped a massive slice of the gooey lasagne onto it, passing me it straight away and telling me to sit at the dining table. I wasn't sure where to sit, but something about the way that two coasters next to eachother were stained with wine let me know where the occupied seats where. I sat down across from one of them, not daring to start eating until I was joined by them.

A little meow startled me, and I looked down to see an adorable hairless cat rubbing herself on my leg. "Oh my God!" I bent down, completely ignoring the lasagne as I began to stroke her head.

"I see you've met King." Kate said, sitting down across from me.

"Why is she called King if she's a girl?" I asked, picking up the cat and setting her on my lap as she purred away and rubbed herself all over my top.

"I'll let Lily explain this." She pulled out the other seat for Lily, smiling as her wife sat next to her. "This is quite the story, so dig in. Just don't drink anything yet, I don't want you spitting it out on the food."

I nodded with a smile, my eyes widening around my first bite of lasagne. It was the best thing I'd ever tasted. It melted straight into my tongue, all of the flavours and gooey cheese blending together perfectly. I almost didn't hear the start of the story as I was so focused on wolfing down my food.

"So, the Bible. Not a fan of it, me. Seen too many clients with religious trauma, usually ex-Christians." She started and I nodded along. "But there is one verse that I love."

I raised an eyebrow, slowing down the pace of my eating as I listened curiously as she started to recite the verse.

"And he went up from thence unto Bethel. And as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him and said unto him, 'Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head!'"

"And then God curses them for bullying or some shit." Kate added, taking a piece of the garlic bread that I'd only just noticed.

I started to giggle. "What the fuck?"

"Anyway, this cat," she gestured to the cat who was now sat on the spare seat next to us, looking hopefully at the grating of cheese on the table. "She's bald. And that verse is 2 Kings 2:23. It was the only solution to the naming problem." She shrugged, rolling her eyes as if I should have known that it was the reasoning behind her name.

Almost crying with laughter, I patted King on the head. "It's okay, King. We won't bully you for being a baldy."

Kate scoffed. "We do."

I gasped, feining an appalled expression. "You poor thing. I won't bully you." I corrected, shaking my head at the two supposed adults in front of me.

"Should we get into it?" Lily said, stacking our plates as we all finished eating and moving then over to the side to clear up space.

"Into what?" I asked, oblivious to what was about to happen.

"I think Kate already mentioned this, but I'd like to offer you counselling. Out of my usual hours, free of charge." She spoke, reminding me of the previous offer Kate made but making it more official as she was actually who was going to give me it.

"I feel too bad taking up your time." I started, but was hushed by her.

"You're worth my time."

My eyes filled with unwanted tears as I tried to contemplate my decision. "What can I give you in return?" I asked them, desperately searching for a way to give me what I wanted and needed without it being entirely selfish.

"We want you to visit." My heart dropped, and the tears I was trying to contain disappeared, soaked up with shock that filled me. "Whenever it's convenient. You need more than just your flatmate and Aislynn."

"I don't see her anymore." I felt the need to defend us. It was so stupid of me to see her, so now I refused to carry her any longer.

"Just like that? Gone?" Lily questioned, clearly skeptical and concerned as I nodded decisively.

"Mayson we want to offer you a friendship." Kate continued, noticing my rising irritation. They held hands on top of the table, and I saw how Lily brushed her thumb over Kate's knuckle, silently thanking her.

"You've lost too much recently. You need this." Lily reassured, her expression genuine. My heart broke at their offer, and I accepted it gratefully, pulling them both into a tight hug as I couldn't thank them with words.

Somewhere in the night, we moved over to their soft leather couch, and sat bundled up each with our own blankets, mine one they had gifted me. A mug of hot chocolate warmed my hands, and the other two had their own mugs of coffee. The smell of it was comforting, even though I knew I despised the taste, it reminded me of my dad. He made coffee all the time, so the house was constantly smelling of it back when it was still a home and the violence was limited to between him, my mum and my old ignorant, innocent self.

Lily caught me blankly staring at her coffee, and offered me some, rubbing my back gently to comfort me and pull me out of my trance. I declined her offer, pulling away from the contact before changing my mind and letting myself sink into it. This is what felt best right now. I let myself feel that for as long as I could.

I bolted upright in my new bed, clawing at my hair to calm myself down. The duvet was suffocating. It reminded me of when Dad was on top of me, forcing himself onto me. And when the life left him, and he was forced to fall onto me as I tried to scramble away. I tried to kick the duvet off, but found that I couldn't as a little figure was curled up at the bottom. Seeing King grounded me a bit, but the duvet was still too much, so I slid my legs out gently. The darkness was also trapping me, but when I reached for my phone it was dead, despite me having plugged it in. I started to hyperventilate, which woke up King who padded over to me, looking as concerned as a cat can.

Her little head rubbing against my arm pulled me back in enough to reach for the lamp, but when that didn't work too, I realised the whole socket was off, so I just sat there crying with King until the sun rose and lit the room naturally. Eighteen seemed a bit old to develop a fear of the dark, but I could work on that with Lily. We had our first session that day.

She helped me a lot. With her, I slowly started to move on. We focused on Aislynn first, I needed to move on and face my loneliness so that I could accept the help I was now getting from my new loved ones.

I learned to live without her. She was never gone completely and I didn't think that she ever would be, but she went from being the most prominent person in my life to being a shadow in the distance. It was hard at first accepting that loss but a conversation with her, that Lily supervised, helped a lot.

"Was she real to you?" Lily asked me that day.

"Very much so." I nodded, fidgeting with my hands.

"And she helped you?" I hummed a response. I honestly wasn't sure. She did at the time but moving on from her was destroying me. It was so hard to let go of something that had been such a massive part in my survival in the time that she was fully here.

"That, to me, is the very definition of real. You're healing now, Mayson. You don't need her anymore. You know that."

"I don't know how to- I don't... I feel like im losing her."

"You are. You're losing how you've coped, and it's scary. But your mind has proven what it's capable of. It created a whole person to protect you."

That was the most powerful thing I'd heard in a long time, and it was the thing I'd needed to hear the most. Lily had that affect on people; she put an optimistic spin on everything and that changed my entire outlook on a lot of things. My parents deaths, losing Aislynn, even just moving forward now.

But I still missed her. Nothing could ever replace the ache that I felt not having her with me. Breaking the silence, I told Lily this. "I don't know how to move on from her without her help."

"You might not feel like you do, but a huge part of you does. You already have been." She comforted. "I'm here to help you, but your mind is extraordinary. Trust it."

A faint smile snuck onto my lips. Her words were striking, and I guessed she was right. My mind, without my knowledge, created it's own confidant. That was terrifying, but I was amazed.

"She's still here, in a way. I know it sounds crazy, but I still see her at times. Faintly in the background. Flickering in and out of existance."

"That will slow down over time. I think. It seems to me like that's your mind preparing itself to remove her. Not from your memories, but from the memories you're supposed to create."

I nodded, my breath catching in my throat as I thought about our time together. It's not something that I ever wanted to forget. And because she was in my memories, I could carry her with me. Always.