Delirium

Maybe he was only a figment of my imagination. Maybe they were right. The man on my desktop background, the ring on my finger, the names on the bronze plate on the door, the pictures on the wall, none of those were real. The taste of cigarette on my lips, rose petals in my hair, the thumping of my heart, the murmur of his name, they were all make-belief. They were all cruel games that the trillions of neurones in my brain played with me.
He smelled like smoke and wild flowers, mixed with a certain type of D&G perfume. Do you have any idea how good that is? Imagine 3 AM, and you can't sleep, and your head aches like it had been bashed with a cricket bat, so you grab his shirt and bury yourself in his arms and take in that intoxicating smell and everything else starts to fade. It's when you hold on to him for dear life and everything is... okay.
They said it was sheer boredom. Or the pinnacle of depression. Or something like that. They said he was just an escape, an imaginary source of solace. A source that made me laugh and cry, and crash and burn, but most importantly, a source that kept me alive. It was like I was using him. Or maybe he was using me.
I could not tolerate his voice sometimes. His nails-on-chalkboard voice when he would read me poetry made  the veins in my eyes swell and throb, made my insides revolt, made me want to smash his head against the bedside table till he couldn't even whimper anymore. He would go on and on for hours, pushing me to a point where I thought my head would burst. Sometimes I would kiss him to stop the torture. That was nice, though.
He was not really paying attention to me these days. I had to be his 24/7. I had to be every breath he breathed, every thought he thought, every dream he dreamt. I had to be every beat that his heart ever dared to beat. But things were changing. His eyes were vacant, his lips sour and dry, his hands were rough and his words were like a million swords. They said it was the drugs, that the effect was wearing off. They said soon it would be all sunshine and rainbows. But I did not want all sunshine and rainbows.
I guessed it was his ex-wife. Maybe the old hag was prying into our lives again. Or that kid. I knew he had a thing for that kid. “You can't ignore blood,” he'd said. But I had left my family too. Although mother visited us last summer and father bought me a new sweater on my birthday, but that was nothing. Wasn't it?
This morning, he made me breakfast. He said I was beautiful. He said I was the most amazing thing that ever happened to him. He kissed my forehead, and told me I reminded him of youth and life, something he had missed the last couple of years. On his way out of the door, he told me that we were going to solve all our problems and everything would be nice and peaceful.
I didn't know we were facing any problems. We were perfectly fine! Everything seemed brighter and more colourful. They said it was a good sign, although it made me feel nauseous. It was getting late, and I had a headache. And he was still not home.