JR was trying to ignore the image of Marissa that now haunted him, a ghost that had followed him from the hospital and was now leaning on the dresser in his bedroom glaring at him. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck as he unpacked the boxes in his room. The room his once more now that Brooke had bought the mansion back. It didn't help that even though he knew she wasn't real he could still hear her sighs of disapproval.
"You know you are going to have to talk to me, 'your guilty conscious', at some point." said Marissa.
JR's anger was barely under control. His son had run away from him and then there she was, the reason his life had gone to hell, smirking at him. How dare she suggest he had a guilty conscious? He had nothing to feel guilty about, nothing – except perhaps missing. He was JR Chandler and Chandlers didn't do guilt… No sir, they were all about revenge, so that's how he had played it. That's how he would always play it. If someone hurts you, you make them pay, simple. Well Marissa had hurt him and now she was paying for it. The fact that she was haunting him now, the fact he had been unable to rid himself of the look in her eyes the moment he pulled the trigger, the fact he wasn't sleeping, that was a weakness on his part but it wasn't guilt… it couldn't be guilt… No this was him getting his life back and no one and nothing was going to stop him!
"Just leave me alone!" snapped JR, unable to take it anymore.
"I can't, I'm in your head remember." said Marissa flatly,
"Well then I command you to go back to wherever the hell you came from." replied JR angrily. "And just leave me alone."
"Who are you talking to JR?"
JR looked up startled as Adam walked into the room.
"This reporter won't leave me alone!" said JR quickly covering his outburst, making a show of putting down a phone that wasn't in his hands and praying his father wouldn't notice.
"Well you're a hero, my boy." said Adam proudly, patting his son on the back. "Press comes with the territory."
JR tried to ignore Marissa's snort of indignation.
"Why are you here dad?" JR asked.
Adam paused as if for a moment he himself had forgotten, and then his eyes lit up.
"I have news son, excellent news! I've spoken to the executives at Chandler Enterprises and I've had you reinstated as an executive manager. You will have a seat on the board, but you will no longer be chairman."
JR grinned, with his father getting him a seat on the board he knew in no time flat he would have those wimps at Chandler back under his thumb. That was one part of his life he would have no trouble with getting back on track.
"With your job all sorted our next focus, obviously, is quashing this ridiculous restraining order and getting my grandson back where he belongs. His mother, poor woman, is a vegetable for god sake and you're a national hero, what judge in his right mind would keep this farcical injustice up for a moment longer!"
"I guess this is the point you tell your dad you messed up so badly that your son wants nothing to do with you!" said Marissa matter-of-factly. JR scowled at her, the hate once more flaring in his gut.
"You're right dad, we need to bring AJ home." said JR, glaring pointedly at the ghost of Marissa. "I couldn't agree more!"
Marissa just shook her head in disbelief.
"You really don't care about anyone but yourself, do you!" she muttered in disgust.
...