The hit settles deeper. The room tilts gently.
Mary’s gone. Thank God.
“Now tell me,” Valeria starts. “Where did you meet Sophia.”
I press my mouth together, but the room is already spinning in that sick, dreamy way. The drugs are sinking deeper, making the edges of everything soft and blurry, like the world is melting.
"Nazareth." Her voice drops to the frequency she reserves for the end of things. "Where did you meet Sophia?"
The memory surfaces—slow, slippery, fighting me. October. A pink lollipop extended in a small hand. Monsters deserve love too.
And then?—
And then?—
The image frays at the edges. Colors bleed. The crowd is there, the polka-dot dress, the lollipop… but her face?—
Her face.
I reach for it desperately, but the harder I try, the more it blurs, like trying to hold smoke. My head feels heavy, stuffed with cotton, the drugs pulling everything apart. Time stretches and compresses. Seconds feel like minutes. Minutes feel like nothing.
"She—" I stop, my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth. The words won’t line up right. “She was… there was a?—”
"What, Nazareth?"
The room spins slowly. I blink hard, trying to focus, but everything feels distant, like I’m watching myself fromunderwater. The memory keeps slipping away no matter how hard I grab for it.
“I was watching her building, and she came outside and she?—”
"You were watching her building." Valeria’s voice is careful. Surgical. "A woman you’d never met."
"I—yes, no." I shake my head, but the motion makes the room lurch sickeningly. “She gave me a heart-shaped lollipop, and I… fuck." I press my palm hard against my eye, trying to force the image to stay, but it’s dissolving faster now, colors running together. “Why can’t I… why is everything?—”
The panic spikes, sharp and nauseating, cutting through the drug haze. My breathing turns ragged. I can feel myself unraveling, the last solid thing I had—the memory of her—crumbling between my fingers.
“Why can’t I remember?”
"Nazareth." Her voice softens to almost nothing. "You’re having trouble remembering because she doesn’t exist."
“No!” My gaze snaps to her, but the movement is sluggish, my head too heavy. Fury detonates somewhere far away, muffled by the drugs. “I don’t remember because of you! You did this, you fucking?—”
“I know how you like to blame me for everything, sweet boy?—”
“Don’t fucking call me that.” The words come out slurred, thick. “And she’s real." My voice cracks, breaking apart completely. “She’s real, I know she’s?—”
"You’ve been in this room for so long, Nazareth. Alone. Unwell. The things the mind builds when it’s trying to survive?—"
"She's real." I’m panting now, sweat mixing with the blood on my skin, the room spinning faster. The drugs are pulling me under, making everything feel unreal, dreamlike, terrifying.
"Then tell me her last name."
I open my mouth. Reach for it with everything I have left.
The name is there—ithasto be there. I’ve said it. I know I’ve said it. I said it when I was inside her, when I was whispering it against her skin like a prayer. Sophia?—
Sophia—
Sophia…who?
