Page 39 of Teddy Bear

-Lizzie…

I'm opening the door.

-We'll talk tomorrow.

I tell him in one breath. Tomorrow never.

- Wait! Can you walk up the stairs by yourself?

I already got out of the car and slammed the door.

-Yes, I'll take the elevator.

Danny follows me with a fixed gaze until my skinny, pale figure is lost behind the building's door.

Tomorrow never.

I take the elevator up to the apartment. It's quiet; everyone is in their room. Again, how appropriate.

The mother is sleeping; the pills are neatly arranged on her bedside table. I take one bottle with me to bed.

I pour out the entire contents of the bottle, a handful of pink pills, and then swallow them with a glass of water. I need more glasses to swallow everything. I swallow every damn pill.

Then I lie down in bed and comfortably cover myself with a duvet.

Tomorrow never.

It's a pity that Teddy is not next to me now so I could hug his soft, big, plush body, as I slowly sink into the darkness of a peaceful, cold, and beautiful death.

7.

I observed the almost starched, almost perfectly ironed pleats on my formal black dress. My hair is pulled back into a neat bun, and bubbles of mineral water sting my tongue as I hold a thin, crystal glass in my sweaty palm.

Although the atmosphere is relaxed and cheerful - or at least the hostess of the party, Olivia, the fiancée of my current guardian Danny, the psychiatrist and savior who pulled me out of the bottom, from the horror and tragedy that befell me, tried to make it so- everything is suffocating, tight.

The carefree laughter of the people is too loud, unnatural. The smell of tobacco and cinnamon is too strong and sweet; gray smoke hovers around the make-up heads of distinguished guests, seeping into my nostrils like a potion, carbon, tightening my head with an invisible ring, causing severe nausea and slight fainting.

Or is it all one of those powerful drugs that Danny carefully gives me every night, as "protection", too caring and diligent, a respectable and renowned doctor, he must not allow his fragile, problematic and traumatized ward to stumble again, he must not allow my personality to "disintegrate" or "separate", and that is why he carefully treats me with antipsychotics that do a more than excellent job.

Now, I am his submissive zombie, brainwashed, drawn into his sticky, silken, black spider web, where only I know the real truth, but who would believe me anyway - I am crazy, right?

Only I know the depth and weight of Danny's obsession, and the unhealthy and heavy, toxic love he feels for me. Only I know how desperately he needs to keep me this broken, submissive, and his own, mercilessly dependent on his calculated touches, perfectly fitted into his made-up, perfect world.

A world that is nothing but an illusion, a simple mask of the exterior - an illusion that Danny is a successful, perfect psychiatrist, and not a patient, deeply deviant, and irreversibly obsessed with the daughter of his dead friend, whom he keeps on a gold chain, calm and obedient like a pet.

The light jazz is probably the only pleasant and beautiful thing about tonight's party, although it also sounds slightly distorted and deviant in combination with too loud and terribly shrill human voices - quite incongruous in combination with the chirping voice of the hostess of the evening - Olivia, who flies from guest to guest like a real caring and lovely fairy, in her pink, innocently seductive, flowing dress with fringes and a rainbow of golden hair - she is the embodiment of a good angel and a fairy herself.

Too bad her husband-to-be is Satan in white, and the eternal enigma to me is whether she is even aware of his hidden true face, or if they are the ultimate team in this twisted game of pretending to be the perfect, benevolent family.

The fact that I became Danny's ward, and that he and Olivia generously accepted me into their warm home, elevated them to the very heavens.

For the whole world, Danny was now not only a successful psychiatrist, but also a miraculous benefactor with a giant heart who saved, with his vast knowledge, expertise, superior methods, and unquestionable kindness, the traumatized and damaged daughter of a once great business giant, and now just a burned, poor corpse in the ashes of nothingness - Tyler Dawson.

The news about the tragic death of my parents successfully graced the front pages for a while with that mixture of pompous, shocking, and agonizing intrigue.

I didn't worry too much about the headlines; everything was already over, finished.

The most I managed to find out was that my dad allegedly drove drunk and under the influence of psychoactive drugs, and that this caused the accident.