Page 3 of Teddy Bear

I need, I need, I need...

I turn that word over and over in my brain, finishing the sentence in a thousand ways.

I need to be loved. I need to be seen. I need to succeed. I need them to help me. I need to be protected. I need to be fed. I need them to beg me. I need them to command me. I need them to control me, to teach me order. I need to let go; I need air.

I swallow the dumpling, suddenly feeling as if the air has become shallow, insufficient. I don't want to fucking suffocate in here.

I need them to punish me, to make me beg.

I need pain, to feel alive.

I need his skin, every bone on his body pressed against mine. I need darkness, darkness to hide my ugly face from the world. I need shackles, so I can never escape from him. I need infinity, to put all the love I feel there.

For a moment, I feel my eyes fill with tears.

I need a ring, a promise to be his forever.

Before my eyes, I see a flash of a fragmented image. Olivia Greens smiling on the doorstep of the wooden, peaceful, and quiet lake house, light and sweet in his embrace.

I see her light, dark blonde hair, natural and shiny, falling down her slightly rounded back to her fleshy, round butt. I see her future wedding dress - an apricot, flowing dress that reveals her plump thighs and round ankles.

She's so fucking ugly, I think to myself.

I see her snuggling closer against his fine, muscular shoulders; I see her eyes shining blankly. She's fake; everything about her is fake. That fake bitch is stealing the man I love.

The fragment of the image here goes completely black, and an uncontrollable scream escapes from my mouth. I hear my own voice, an unfiltered, primal, pure, high-pitched, and sickening scream tearing up my throat as it bounces off the deaf walls.

Of course, there's a reason these rooms are soundproof.

It's still dark in front of my eyes when I hear his voice speaking to me through the small microphones in the wall.

- We seem to be in a bad mood today?

It's a sneer; he’s laughing at my misery, laughing at the fact that I love him hopelessly, laughing at my bleeding heart, my gaping wounds, and the metallic, iron smell now in every pore of my body, that son of a bitch, laughing as I am dying for him.

I get up from my chair and rush frantically towards him, towards the glass wall, towards the silent barrier that clearly separates us, towards the harsh border that divides our worlds - towards the reminder that I am just a hopeless lunatic and he is a renowned doctor, towards the reminder that I am the one who prays and he is the one who decides.

I run with all my strength and hit with my hands hard, harder, uncontrolled.

I love that here I can be exactly that - uncontrolled, pure, and I love that he enjoys seeing me like that, wild, unbridled, unfiltered, pure.

I hit with my hands, aware that I cannot break the glass or reach him; I hit and shout only because the act gives me pleasure, only because this is a small, sick performance that I would always play for him.

-Lizzie, you're acting like a complete savage. Are you aware of that?

The almighty voice, my god, my satan, my tormentor and my cure, speaks calmly. I hear it clearly as he patiently speaks every word, while the slow music begins to break from the speakers.

Danny, my hell and my heaven, my chaos and my order.

Danny, the man I love.

Danny, my doctor and my hypnotist.

I feel like I'm sinking, sinking from the very sweet thought of this long, wondrous journey that I'm about to cross together with him, each time deeper and deeper into the very dark, pinkish-pale window of my cracked consciousness.

- You didn't deserve anything with this kind of behavior.

In defiance, I smile at him and stare coldly at the empty glass in front of me, imagining his eyes carefully studying every wrinkle and twitch of my face.