I touch the side of his face to make sure he’s really there. I pray that he’s not just a figment of my imagination, another delusion. I fear that nothing is real anymore, but he grounds me. He’s my anchor in this seemingly pointless existence. He makes me feel as if I’m not crazy, as if there’s nothing wrong with me. He tells me I’m perfect, and for some reason I believe him even when everyone else says my condition is getting worse. Those words that escape his lips, those sentences that seem to caress my inner being and soothe my broken mind are like heroin. He speaks as if every word, every syllable, is a secret for my ears only; whispering sweet, twisted lullabies in the night until I lose consciousness. I fear I will lose him, this perfect being that calms me so. I should feel rage, I should feel resentment for having to depend so solely on one lone creature, but I can’t feel any of those. I could never occupy such negative thoughts, not toward him, not ever. He tells me stories, describes to me worlds that I’ve never known. He told me that he was once an angel, a beautiful angel with wings as soft as clouds and color as white as freshly fallen snow. His face is always so wistful when he tells me these things, as if he longs or yearns for what he once was. I tell him he’s beautiful as he is, and that he needs no wings to make my heart soar. He always laughs at me when I say this, which I suppose I should be upset by, but I’m not, because his laugh is like elegant strings plucked from an old harp. He tells me we can be together forever, but there is one thing I must do first. He whispers corrupted schemes to me like they’re sweet nothings as I lie with my head on his chest. At first I’m fearful, but then I remember that he would never do anything to hurt me so I concede and do as he says. Doubt never enters my mind as I grab the knife and slice long rivers of crimson into my flesh. “We’ll be together forever,” he whispers again, and I feel the truth in his words. As I fall down deep into the dark abyss he catches me, and I know then that I am truly and forever his.