WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD.
This is part 5 of 9. As always, one should start reading a story at the beginning. So use the links to read the first parts...
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


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He got back to the apartment. There was a note on the table from the girl, she’d gone out to run some errands and pick up food. He got a tall glass out of the cabinet, filled it with ice and water, and dropped one of the pills into his mouth. All while he was doing this, they were screaming at him. It was like Custer’s last stand, or something.

The girl came home. She didn’t seem to be in a very good mood, though. She didn’t say much all night. Damn women and their mood swings, he thought. At least the screaming in his head had lessened somewhat. He hadn’t really expected it to completely go away instantly, but this was better than nothing. You’ll miss us when we’re gone.

The next several days were kind of blurry. He was adjusting to the medicine, which tended to make him pretty drowsy. Fine by him. Drugged sleep was better than no sleep at all, which was usually what happened with them yelling at him all the time. We’re not the only ones you’ll miss.

The days passed, and after a week or so he began to tolerate the medicine more, and wasn’t constantly sleepy because of it. All during this time, the girl had taken care of him, and brought him everything he needed. She’d called his work and told them why he couldn’t come in. But because of the drowsiness, he hadn’t noticed until just now how sad she looked. Had she been crying?

And then a couple days later, she didn’t come home after work. She didn’t come home that night at all. He slept alone for the first time in several months, and it made him sad.

She came home the next night though, and he was glad to see her. She’d stayed over at a friend’s house the night before, and had just forgotten to leave a note. She had to gripe at him, though, because he’d forgotten to take his pill today. Poor girl, no wonder she had wanted a night off. She’d taken care of him for a week, and here he was forgetting to take the pill that was going to make him normal again. He resolved to do better in the future. The last thing he wanted was to lose her over something as trivial as this. He was still wary because of how sad she seemed lately, but he didn’t bring it up. It was always hard to tell with girls whether it was best to talk, or best to leave well enough alone. And in this case, he decided to leave things as they were.

As it turned out, that was probably a bad idea. She spent the night at her friend’s house several times over the next couple weeks. A month to the day after he’d started his pills, he came home and all that was left was a note on the table.

---Jamin