Phantom [h.s]

Thirty Seven

I must have fallen asleep after I got back from the soccer scrimmage. My heart continues to pound loudly as I mull over the dream.

So many things happened. I put my head in my hands as my mind reels, analyzing and overthinking the details of my nightmare:

The blood on my hands would imply I killed Harry. However, the way I was dressed like Ava could mean that my subconscious sees Ava as the killer, but it being me with the blood on my hands could symbolize how I've possibly replaced Ava as Harry's lover.

Then again, the blood on my hands could show that by helping him find his killer, I'm aiding Harry in entering into the other realm of death-the afterlife.

Or maybe it was simply a dream?

The dull pain of a headache pounds at the back of my skull and I get up to get an aspirin out of the bathroom.

Ava's breakdown in the ladies' room at the game could have been about anything. A pet that she had to put down? Perhaps. But something about the way Estella stared at me after she walked out of the restroom and the way Ava's words crumbled around her sobs makes me think otherwise.

She did mention having fought with Harry many times in the time around his death. But she claimed to have loved him, so why would she be the killer?

Then again, Ian also comes into play. Did Ian and Ava have something going on? Did Ava make Ian take in the mirror to be fixed? Were they alliances or...something more?

I swallow the aspirin pill. Nothing is making sense.

I walk back into my room and pick up the box that was left in my closet when I first moved in, sitting down on my bed and opening it. Inside are the photograph and the necklace. I look at the photo. Harry is dressed in his white sweater-which means this too could have been taken the night he died.

I toss the photo to the side. There are too many variables. Anything could have happened that night, and if only Harry remembered anything-he would be the best one to ask.

But he doesn't.

I stare at the bottom of the box and catch sight of a slip of paper wedged in the corner. I pick it up and recognize it as the paper I took from Max's room, the note that reads "PPD."

My curiosity about what the acronym could mean ends now.

I boot up my laptop, my mind racing. PPD, PPD, PPD...

My Google search is a bust, at first. 'PPD' seems to be a fairly common acronym, and I doubt Max would keep a note about Pharmaceutical Product Development or Protopanaxadiol, an active molecule. Nothing seems to make sense as I scroll through my search, looking for anything that might remotely tie in.

And then something catches my eye.

Paranoid Personality Disorder.

I can't decide what makes me click the link, maybe some kind of gut instinct. But as I read what the website says, the gut instinct grows and grows:

Paranoid personality disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of distrust and suspicion of others, but does not have a full-blown psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia.

I scroll down to a list of symptoms.

Individuals diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder will be more likely to bear grudges, have excessive distrust and suspiciousness, and suspect without sufficient basis that others are exploiting, harming or deceiving them. They also may be preoccupied with unjustified doubts about loyalty or trustworthiness of people around them.