I woke with a start; sweat soaked my skin. Outside my window, I could see the sun beginning to come over the treetops. I’d had another horrible nightmare about an incident that I thought I’d gotten over a while ago. The night when my world had tumbled down around me. Apparently I was wrong.

Niko, my faithful two year old Golden Retriever, stood in the doorway and wagged his tail. I could practically hear him saying, “I’ve gotta go! Let me out!” At least, that’s what I imagined he’d say if he could talk.

I pushed the blanket off, as I’d been dying to do since my eyelids had fluttered open a minute beforehand, and opened up the sliding glass door so that Niko could go out into the fenced in yard. While he was outside, I ate a bowl of Life Cereal. I was absolutely addicted to the stuff.

Once I was finished with that, I got Niko a bowl of food ready before letting him in. He gobbled it down as if he’d been deprived for weeks. Dogs were so funny. As he ate his food, I washed my bowl and spoon quickly and placed them on a towel to dry. Then I ran back to my room, grabbed a white blouse, jean shorts, socks, undies, and my sneakers before heading off to take a shower. The water was scalding, but I didn’t care. It allowed my mind to be occupied with the pain and not with the past. After I was all clean, I got out, towel dried my hair, and got dressed. My red hair was short enough that it didn’t take long at all to dry. My green eyes glinted mischievously, and I thought about what a classic redhead I was – a faceful of freckles and everything.

I grabbed my toothbrush from the cup it was held in, stuck some toothpaste on, and began to attack my teeth with it. I didn’t ever drink pop because I didn’t want to stain my teeth. After lacing up my shoes, I headed back into the kitchen.

Niko looked at me expectantly, and I grabbed his leash off of the hook and snapped it to his collar. I also grabbed a few doggy bags, incase he decided to relive himself on the walk. Our walks through the city usually lasted a few hours at least. Which reminded me – I needed to grab a water bottle out of the fridge. With the water bottle in hand and the doggy bags in my pocket, I led Niko to the door. I locked it, but before I closed it all the way, I pressed my hand against my pocket to make sure it was there. I felt the familiar key-shaped bulge, and then, satisfied that I was not locked out of the house, proceeded to pull the door shut.

The weather in Miami wasn’t too stifling this early in the morning, but it would get hotter as the day progressed. As I walked, I focused on my patients. The one who worried me the most was a man with agoraphobia; it was extremely hard to get him to come to his sessions. I didn’t like going to his home, as it only encouraged his problem, but I had gone a few times because his daughter begged me to. She was only a teenager, and had to try and push and prod her father out of the house to get him to see me.

There was also a woman with a severe case of arachnophobia. It was so bad that she couldn’t function if someone so much as mentioned a spider. It’s not hard to imagine what those sessions are like, since we have to talk about spiders in order to exploit the issue. I did most of the talking in those cases.

The most interesting case was a woman with Androphobia, or fear of men. She couldn’t talk to men, couldn’t look at men, and couldn’t talk about men – basically anything to do with men was out. And, of course, since we here homosapiens, or mankind, she didn’t want to be a human. She was constantly talking of things like elves, fairies, dwarves, and the like. I asked her once what she would do if she ever met a male elf, dwarf, or fairy.

“Why, talk to them of course.”

Because that made so much sense. Apparently it was just our species that freaked her out. It was hard not to laugh at her when she came for her sessions and began babbling on and on. Her favorite book was Eragon, by a man named Christopher Paolini. She had just finished the third book in the series, Brisingr, last week. That was all she talked about.

I’d never read the series, but listening to her talk about it three days a week gave me all I needed to know and more. The main character, Eragon, had a blue stone that hatched into a dragon, which he then named Saphira. Some creatures called the Ra something or other were chasing him and an old storyteller around because they wanted to capture him. He had to go to some Varden place, and eventually he made it to the elves. Let’s not forget her favorite part – the Eragon and Arya thing. Eragon loves Arya, Arya doesn’t love him back, blah blah blah. I had no real desire to read the books personally. She wanted to become a part of the book.

“Isn’t Eragon a man?” I asked her one day, exasperated after listening to her talk about him and the elf for an hour and a half.

“Well yes, but he’s fictional.”

I had gritted my teeth, but held my tongue. I decided that at the next session, I was going to try and convince her that the world we lived in was actually fictional too. There were a people called Atlantians that found our lives quite interesting to read about. The best part – I hoped she bought it – was that she was the main character. I was inserted to help her realize her importance, and to help her accept men. In fact, there was no such thing as Androphobia. It was all just a part of the story, to get her to where she was now. I was eagerly awaiting Monday. That was a first for me.

My last patient (I only had four who kept coming back; the rest were pretty much cured after the first couple of sessions) had Decidophobia, the fear of making decisions. It had taken all of his willpower to make the decision that he needed some serious counseling help. When he was in my office, I asked him what his plans were. He never knew.

“Well, make a plan now,” I’d tell him.

He was constantly changing his mind. He always, always said, “I don’t know what to do.” I’d make small suggestions now and again. He hated all of them. If I suggested he go swimming, he claimed that he couldn’t swim.

“How about a walk?”

“I don’t know…it’s awfully dangerous on the street…there might be a dog…” Did I mention that he had a fear of dogs (Cynophobia)?

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I’d asked him one day.

That was a huge mistake. He didn’t like talking to women – he had to decide what to say, if he should compliment her shirt or her hair, and what about her shoes? Were they new, or did she just keep them in good condition? And what about their intentions; did they just want to be friends? What happened if they wanted to go out on a date? Then he had to figure out if he wanted to do a movie, go out to eat, or do something else. After that, there was the ‘what do we do after the date phase’ in which he would have to collaborate with said woman about whether they were going to her house, his house, or not doing anything at all.

“Why not let her make all the decisions then? Women like to be in charge.”

“But I’m the man! I’m supposed to make the decisions…I hate making decisions. I’m not cut out for this…” It was never-ending.

The fact that he was sexist made it even worse. I was never going to get rid of him. I'd thought about having my receptionist tell him that I was permanently canceling all the Wednesday sessions, and that he’d have to pick a new day. He’d never be able to handle it, so he just wouldn’t come back. However, that would be selfish and wrong, so I didn’t.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when Niko began to bark; softly at first, but steadily growing louder. I was on the verge of getting ready to tell him to stop being a nuisance when he just took off. The leash flew out of my hand, and without thinking I rushed after him.

“Niko!”

I hadn’t thought I’d needed to hold very tightly to the leash. After all, he’d never acted like this before. I wondered, very briefly, what could have caused his behavior to shift so suddenly.

It was very hard to chase him, not only because he was a dog plowing through people, but because he came precariously close to being creamed by a car more than once during the pursuit. Also, I wasn’t in the best shape when it came to running. Sure, I walked all the time, but that was more for Niko’s benefit than mine. He didn’t have any dogs to play with, so why would he want to run around by himself in the backyard? He did once in a while, as dogs tend to do, but that wasn’t nearly often enough to be considered good exercise for him.

Suddenly, he turned down an alley way, and I saw a man up ahead that was running a few feet in front of Niko. Why in the world was Niko chasing this man?

The man was wearing a white shirt that glinted in the sun, and he panicked as he hit a dead end. I tried to get there in time, to stop Niko from whatever it was he was planning to do. All my years in the psychiatric career, and I’d never suspected my dog would suddenly become vicious. I guess there was a first for everything.

I was shocked when, instead of mauling the man, he leaped up on his hind legs and placed his paws on the man’s chest so he could lick his face.

“Niko, get off,” the man said. I was stunned; his voice sounded just like…NO! I had to have been hearing things. Dead fiancées don’t just come back from the dead. And he couldn’t have said, “Niko,” either. It was just a trick of the wind. Too bad there wasn’t any wind.

The man looked up at me, and I connected with a pair of bright blue eyes. Riley’s eyes. Impossible. Riley was dead. I’d attended his funeral six months ago. I’d comforted his mother! The woman who should’ve become my mother-in-law that weekend. Then tragedy struck – Riley was killed in a car crash. So who was this man?

“Felicity, it’s me.”

I shook my head. It was absolutely impossible! But what other explanation was there?

“You…you died! I went to your funeral. The car accident-”

“It was all set up,” he told me, voice tortured. “I didn’t want to do it, honest, but there was no other option!”

He told me that he had witnessed a murder, and that they had had to place him in the witness protection program, for his own safety. The car accident had been a ruse so that no one would come looking for him.

“I’m not even supposed to be in Miami, but I figured it would be safe since the guy was in jail.” He sighed, “But then Niko caught onto my scent and took off after me.”

Niko had just recently given up on waiting for Riley to come home a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a big surprise that he would track him down once he caught a hold of his scent. After all, it was a game they’d used to play – Riley had me hold Niko on the leash while he went off somewhere, and Niko had to find him. It didn’t matter where we were, at home or out and about, Niko always found him without a problem. And yet, he’d taken us to the tree where his car was crashed, right up to the driver’s side of the car…they must’ve waved something around with his scent on it so the dogs would go. That was it.

“Let’s go home and talk.”

It was silent on the way home. I didn’t say anything to Riley, Riley didn’t say anything to me. Neither of us noticed that Niko wasn’t being walked on the leash; he walked between us, looking smug.

When we arrived, I made some tea. Riley sat at the table with his hands folded, as he’d done thousands of times before, to gather his thoughts. Niko settled on the floor by his feet. I put the tea packets in the mugs when they were finished heating and handed him his; neither of us drank any.

“After I saw the murder, I knew I’d been spotted. He was wanted by the Feds, and I was taken into protective custody. I testified against him, and he was put in jail. After that , I began my new life. It was weird, reading my obituary in the paper. My new name was Nicholas Burnheart.”

I smiled a little; they’d let him have my last name. As soon as everything was sorted out, I was going to take his old last name. His mother would be so happy that he was alive.

“It was hard, at first, starting over. I kept thinking about you and Niko, my mom, who was totally alone now that I was gone – except for you, of course. I figured you’d take care of her though, since you’d been so close.”

And we were close. She was like the mother I’d never had. We went shopping together, she watched Niko when I was called out of town to deal with some government officials’ problem, or a soldier home from the war effort for the first time and was suffering from the trauma of it. She’d told me once, about a month after Riley’s funeral, that I should just move to DC. It would be easier on me. I’d refused, telling her that I was fine living here without Riley. But now I didn’t have that problem anymore, because Riley was back.

We talked for hours and hours. The sun was just beginning to set when Niko stood up, tail wagging. It was time for him to go outside. I gazed into Riley’s eyes, not wanting to move away from him, but Niko was waiting. I reluctantly broke away from his gaze and moved to the sliding glass door to let him outside. When I turned back, Riley was gone.

“Riley!” I screamed.

I heard a shuffling of feet, and was surprised to see Muriel, the old woman who lived next door to me, standing in the doorway.

“Have you seen Riley?” I asked her.

Her aged face looked infinitely sad.

“The ghosts always leave at sunset.”

Outside, Niko howled forlornly at the sky.