I was in a hotel in LA. I was with my exboyfriend back then and I just tagged along with him because he had a conference to go to and I was in the US anyway finishing my post grad. So when he mentioned that he's flying from UK to LA, I booked a flight as well and decided that I'd bug him for a few days.
The day was crazy and since we were both knackered, we decided right after the conference to just go back straight to our hotel and sleep the night away.
In front of our bed was a coffee table with two chairs. I went to bed earlier than he did, right after taking my shower. He said that 30 mins after, he also went to sleep beside me. It was almost midnight that time when I went to bed.
A few hours later, I woke up because I smelled smoke. I saw a middle-aged woman, wearing very conservative clothes (mourning clothes so it's black and lacy all over) sitting on one of the chairs right in front of my bed. The only thing that's separating her from the foot of my bed is the coffee table. So she was that near. I thought I was just dreaming because she looked hazy. All I knew was I didn't know her and I was trying to figure out if she was hazy because there was something wrong with my eyes or because of the smoke from her fag because she was smoking.
I stared at her, still trying to make sense of everything, when she suddenly disappeared. Since maybe because I was too tired that night, I went back to sleep and made the assumption that I was just dreaming.
The following morning, my ex went barmy on me because he thought that I was smoking fags. We made a deal that we both would stop smoking and the last time we fought was because he was smoking so he thought that I was trying to make excuse. He assumed that because there were cigarette ashes on the coffee table where the girl was smoking.
So long story short, we made up, went to his conference that day again, and went back to the hotel at around midnight again.
This time, we moved the coffee table to the far end of the suite because he didn't want the hassle of moving our stuff around since we were busy and we had a tight schedule. He dismissed the middle-aged woman as a figment of my imagination even if he saw the ashes because he's an atheist and he doesn't really believe me when I told him that I have a third eye since science can't properly corroborate that sort of thing.
So we slept. When we sleep, he's usually the little spoon so I wasn't used to getting hugs from behind from him. At around 2-3 in the morning, I felt arms around my waist and I snuggled closer, thinking that it was him. A few moments of that, I started thinking that it was odd because it smelled like smoke.