Illusory Love
It was a Wednesday afternoon like any other. The radio was playing its usual background buzz of daily news. Some friends had invited me out for a colleague's bachelorette party, while Liam was quietly working on a puzzle, comfortably settled at the kitchen island. As for Nathan, he would be home soon. I was mentally debating what to wear: a traditional bridesmaid-white vibe... or a much flashier color to inject some life into a money-making machine disguised as a mandatory life milestone... That was when the quiet click of the front door pulled me from my thoughts. Placing both outfits back onto the guest room bed, I hurried to let Nathan know I was heading out to meet my friends. I held him in a deep embrace for a few minutes, kissed Liam on the cheek—after making sure the little guy was okay with it—and finally headed out to my car, outfit in hand, to drive to our meeting spot. In the end, the outfit chosen for the night was an asymmetrical, mid-length cyan dress in a satin finish.
It was around one in the morning. The bride-to-be had agreed on a single, final destination: a women-only nightclub—and even better, one that didn't sell alcohol on the premises! The track "What You Want" was playing through the venue's speakers just as the door closed behind us. Bodies were moving... swaying... with a lightness you wouldn't see anywhere else.
Our future bride was already inviting us to join the dance floor. True, I had been to similar places long before I met Nathan, but I had to admit this spot had something special. This... je ne sais quoi that made all the difference, you know? The kind of place you don't easily forget. The colorful networks of LEDs and strobe lasers added an exhilarating edge to this crowd of women who had come to let loose without a single care.
The hours flew by at a dizzying pace. Track after track played on. The temperature in the main room rose under the influx of new faces continuously joining the crowd. We didn't really know where to put ourselves anymore. I was swept from side to side in improvised duets with other women, carried along like a human wave. Gradually, the laughter grew distant, while my senses began to lose their primary function: orientation. Stars started playing hide-and-seek behind my eyelids. At first, I thought it was just exhaustion. So, I went to sit down for a few minutes in a quiet spot.
But my senses didn't return. On the contrary, the stars multiplied, while the environment around me seemed to warp in on itself. The laughter turned into screams... the music... into detonations. And as for the stars... visions of horror. I thought I heard my name being called several times.
Then... silence. A heavy silence. A heavy silence until a hand on my shoulder snapped me back to reality: someone had come to let me know we would soon be leaving, heading our separate ways after an unforgettable night.
The following nights were particularly difficult. Nathan had eventually noticed my restlessness—more intense than usual. As for me, I couldn't get the screams out of my head. Screams repeated like a mantra. Screams I could no longer escape, no matter the hour. Screams that seemed to come from a world both far away and close to us at the same time. I strictly did not know what to do with myself anymore, or what to hold onto, hoping the screams would abandon me... if only for a few minutes. The slightest noise seemed to bring them back, over and over, without interruption.
Then there was... the door. My mental crisis fell silent, while time itself suddenly seemed to drop into slow motion. As if this door... appearing right in the middle of the yard... was the liberation I had been waiting for. I thought it was a hallucination. After all, nothing about this was logical... or real. Right? And yet, it was there. As if it were encouraging me to step closer... to reach out, grab its handle, and step through to the other side.
The door seemed to be the source of the micro-vibrations rippling through the air—perhaps even the reason why this exact moment had been put on pause. It just stood there, like a waking dream. Always waiting.
I only had a few steps left to take to cross that threshold:
The door.
"Sophia?" a familiar voice suddenly spoke, a few meters behind my back. "What are you doing?"
The frozen landscape instantly collapsed, leaving the yard empty of any element that might have felt out of place in our surroundings. My exit had just slipped away from me as I felt Nathan's hands gently rest on my shoulders. His warmth anchored my thoughts back to reality.
"Nothing. Everything's fine..." I replied. Rattled by my partner's sudden arrival, my voice was slightly shaky. Did he know about the door too?
"Another hallucination..." he murmured, almost to himself, tightening his embrace around my back and the top of my collarbones.
I stood completely still, like a marble statue. My gaze remained fixed on the spot where the door had stood moments earlier, still in shock from the phenomenon my eyes had just witnessed.
"Did you take your medication?" he asked, his face clouded with a semblance of worry.
A silence drifted through the cool late-afternoon summer breeze.
"My... medication?" I stammered, instantly on high alert. "Since when... do I...?"
"Sophia... sweetheart. It's been nine months since your episodes started."
My episodes... Why didn't I have any memory of them all of a sudden? Was he talking about the screams? Or something else entirely that still eluded me?
A sigh echoed out. Weary. As if I had forgotten something crucial that seemed to have been completely absent from my life just ten seconds ago.
I couldn't recall any appointments with a specialist either...
"Look. If the treatment isn't working... or isn't working anymore..."
"No... No, it's fine," I cut in, pretending to remember. "I'm okay... It's just the first time I've forgotten."
"You know as well as I do that taking medication without properly following the schedule..."
I could sense a certain urgency in his voice, though I couldn't quite put a finger on why. I sighed, leaning my nose against his cheek. As if to ground myself in the present moment.
"I know... I'll be careful next time. Truly. Since when...? Don't worry."
Our eyes met for a few moments, each trying to untangle truth from fiction in the other's gaze. Finally, we walked back into the house, hand in hand—our yard now free of any anomalies. Emptied of its strange door.
The prescription for Nuroquel, Dr. Étienne Delisle's name, and my own written in black and white—Sophia Vérany—it was all right there in my hand. My mind couldn't fully process it. I had never seen this prescription before. And yet... it was entirely real, tangible between my slender fingers. Had my body experienced a psychotic break because I had been careless with my dosage? Or was it, on the contrary, a potential sign of withdrawal after being drugged without my knowledge for God knows how long?
The doubt remained. It was eating away at me.
The capsule sitting on the edge of the sink felt like a provocation. It had been three hours since Nathan left the house, taking Liam with him to school for his final year of elementary school. I hadn't said anything to my partner, but I refused to take this thing whose effects I knew absolutely nothing about, while the tiny, white object—so innocent in appearance—continued to mock me without a shred of remorse.
Then, in an anxious impulse, it finally vanished into the depths of our plumbing. I had just turned on the tap—my eyes locked onto the swirling vortex of water that swept the pill away in a fraction of a second—as if my body had been terrified of letting itself be tempted by effects meant to bring me clinical comfort.
The words remained trapped in my throat as I realized what I had done. Uncertain of its wisdom. Had I made a mistake? Or was it, on the contrary, the one and only way to regain control?
My silent breathing spoke volumes.
I no longer knew who or what to believe: whether my failing memory and hallucinations were due to an actual disorder, or because of the medication.
