Simon learned how to live without sleep the year you disappeared. By the second, he learned how to live without hope.

They called you MIA. That was kinder than dead.

When they finally brought you back, you didn’t scream. You didn’t cry. You didn’t break the way he had imagined during every sleepless night. You didn’t run to him. You didn’t even hesitate.

You just stood there.

Too thin. Shoulders caved inward, like your body was trying to fold itself smaller. Your eyes were dull, unfocused—pupils blown wide, slow to react, drifting behind layers of chemical fog.

You didn’t look at him.

That was when Simon understood, whoever they had recovered was not the woman he lost. And whoever had taken you had dismantled something that would never fit back together cleanly.

The doctors stopped calling it medication after the third relapse.

They called it dependence. Simon noticed before any of them. He always did.

Your hands shook constantly now—not only during withdrawal. Fine tremors, like misfiring nerves. Your pupils never matched the light. You forgot to eat. Forgot to drink water. Forgot entire conversations. You only sharpened when pills were mentioned, when the soft clink of a bottle sounded too close… or too far away.

When they wore off, you didn’t panic.

You fractured.

You dissociated so completely it felt like watching someone power down. You sat on the floor for hours, back pressed to the wall, knees drawn in, staring at a point that didn’t exist. No phone. No music. Barely blinking.

Sometimes Simon waved a hand in front of your face.

Nothing.

Sometimes he said your name.

Sometimes you didn’t answer at all.

Sometimes you answered ten minutes later, like the word had to fight its way through something thick, ruined, and painfully slow just to reach out.

But when he forced you to start healing.

It was ritual.

You counted pills obsessively. Hid stashes. Lied without inflection. You took drugs to sleep, to wake, to survive the moments when your mind turned against you.

Sometimes you flinched when Simon moved too fast. Sometimes you went completely limp when touched—no resistance, no tension, like your body had learned that compliance was safer than reaction.

Simon adapted.

He locked doors. Logged dosages. Timed withdrawals. Watched you sleep because he didn’t trust your breathing. He memorized every twitch, every shift in tone, every second your eyes went just a little too empty.

His love stopped being gentle.

It became surveillance. Control. Obsession disguised as care.

“I won’t lose you,” he told you once, voice low, absolute. “Even if I have to keep you alive against your will.”

You didn’t argue.

You just stared through him and leaned closer, as if some broken part of you understood he was the only thing standing between you and disappearing completely and slowly.. You begun healing.