WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD.
This is part 7 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
Part 5
Part 6


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This was a harsh blow. In the month since he began the pills, they had finally gone away. But in getting rid of them, he seemed to have lost the only thing that he’d ever loved. He forgot to take his pill that day. They had figured out what he was doing to them, and since he’d forgotten the medicine, they took the opportunity to jump back into the limelight and yell at him. He’d lost her, though, and this time he didn’t care. Let them yell. Their constant banter would help him block out the pain of his loss.

He walked to work the next day. He couldn’t stand the thought of riding the subway, being so close to where he’d met her. A few times on the way, he thought he felt her. Just a quick glimpse of the back of her head, or a whiff of her perfume as he crossed the street. He supposed that was normal, though; breakups were hard, and he was probably just missing her too much.

On his next visit to the doctor, he talked about the girl leaving him. He told the doctor about all the signs he’d noticed and should have done something about. The doctor seemed not at all surprised by this. In fact, for the first time ever, he actually got a readable emotion out of the doctor’s eyes: pity. The doctor hate him kept scribbling stuff on his little yellow legal pad, but his eyes kept darting back up over the top of the pad, glancing at the man, as if trying to make sure the man couldn’t read what he was writing somehow.

When he got home, things looked different somehow, but he couldn’t really put his finger on exactly what the difference was. It wasn’t until he went looking for a spoon did he realize it: someone had been here and tidied things up. Since breaking up with the girl, he’d become terribly lax about the general cleanliness of his apartment. Dishes and silverware had been left dirty and strewn about the counter, clothes hung over chairs or just lay on the floor where they’d fallen when he took them off at night. But tonight things looked fairly clean. The spoon he’d been looking for was actually in the drawer where it was supposed to be, instead of somewhere under a pile of dishes. And it must have been the girl damn can’t we get rid of her. She always had insisted on keeping things mostly clean and tidy. And for all he knew, she probably did still have a key to his apartment. She must have come by to talk to him, and decided to clean the place up when she found he wasn’t at home.

That night, he had a dream. In it, he and the girl were back together. They were lying in bed one morning, awake but not wanting to leave the warmth and comfort of the blankets. They were talking about life in general, and how he’d been doing since she’d left. Except, like most dreams, the conversation really didn’t make much sense when he remembered it later after he woke up. He was sure it’d made perfect sense at the time, but it sure didn’t now. Something about the how the time she had shown up had been… had been what? He couldn’t remember, now, it was fading too fast.

---Jamin