"Nope," said Blossom, not so much answering the question from the stranger on the couch as just surmising her feelings about the entire situation. She slid off the cushions and backed away shaking until her butt bumped against the wall. "Nope. Na-uh."
Blossom watched him spread his hands (beautiful, perfectly proportioned hands) in a non-threatening gesture. "Fair enough. We haven't really met yet. I'm your boyfriend - I'm here to help you. My name is Matthew."
Indignation rose out of the flood of information, overtaking her fear. "No, you can't be Matthew, that's my number one baby-"
"Your number one baby name, I know." He smiled, and it was alarming how much it put her at ease. "Because of Matthew from Downton Abbey, and that Dan Stevens guy who played him that you've always thought was adorable. But lately you've been worried that you might never have the chance to use the name because who knows if you'll ever have a baby? And you've even considered using it for a dog name, but it's obviously a person name, and you don't want to look tragic naming a dog after the baby you never had, so you've just tucked the whole thing away in the back of your mind. Me being called Matthew is much better, don't you think?"
A desperate laugh burst from her lips. "Right. A dog called Matthew would be ridiculous. Much better idea, subconscious brain, to name my imaginary boyfriend Matthew. So much more sensible."
He shrugged, unfazed. "I'm your perfect partner, Blossom. I'm here to love you."
"Stop talking, right now." It was too much; she needed space from his handsome features and winsome words so she could work this mess out. She fell silent, observing him, waiting for him for fade or give some indication that he was just an illusion. But dammit, he looked real. There were indents on the couch where he sat, and she could see he had no fuzzy edges or missing details. He was a whole, perfect, gorgeous man.
But no matter how real he looked, he wasn't. Even if a stranger who happened to match the exact mental image of the guy she'd been building inside her head broke into her house and pulled up a chair beside her, there was no way he could have known about all that Matthew/baby name stuff.
Just like Mr Mistoffelees. Her brain, her sad, sad, depressed brain, had created her a boyfriend. It was impressive, but it couldn't keep going. Blossom closed her eyes again and whispered, "Not there. Definitely not there."
She stayed that way for several minutes, repeating the phrase occasionally, willing the illusion to disappear. Eventually, she took a deep breath, counted backwards from ten, and opened her eyes.
The couch was empty. "Oh." Two emotions rose within her: gladness that he was gone, and a bizarre but undeniable emptiness.
"Hey, Bloss?" She spun to face the greeting, seeing Matthew at the doorway to the kitchen. "You okay? You looked like you were having a moment, so I gave you some space."
"What are you still doing here?" she hissed, more frustrated than scared now. "I just told my brain to get rid of you!"
"Your conscious brain, sure." He learned against the door frame, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, which hung artfully on his slender hips, showing just a sliver of his toned belly. "But apparently, your sub-conscious brain wants me here even if your conscious brain wants me gone – and the sub-conscious always wins. Do you want another glass of wine?"
"No," she said, her fingers shaking harder as she lifted them to her temples. "I'm clearly losing my mind, I don't think more alcohol is going to help that."
"Well, how about-"
"Stop talking!" she yelled, the sound magnified as it bounced against the walls of her small lounge room. "Shut up! You're not real!"
A series of thumps echoed against the wall that adjoined with her next-door neighbours, a sweet retired couple who were surprisingly sound-sensitive. "Great, I'm going to have Mr and Mrs Miller call the cops on me because I'm having a screaming match with myself."
She glared at Matthew, who was annoyingly unruffled by her histrionics. He approached her with a subdued smile on his handsome face and slid his leg on the armrest of the couch, half-sitting and staring at her.
"You think this is funny?" she asked, savagely. "I'm mentally ill – healthy people don't have conversations with imaginary people. This is literally the last thing I need in my life right now."
In a soft voice, Matthew said, "Maybe it is."
"No, it isn't. I don't need another psychological breakdown. Been there, done that, got the really crappy postcard. The last time this happened with Mr Mistoffelees ..."
She shuddered to a halt, and Matthew spoke quietly. "I know. I remember."
Tears spilled before she had a chance to control them. She'd worked so hard to put those days of therapy and feeling like a mental case behind her, and this was the second time today she'd found herself reliving them. "So, if you remember, then you know I can't go through all of this again. Please, can you just go away?"
She dissolved, sobs heaving through her.
"Blossom, please don't cry. It's not that bad."
"It is, though. I've got no best friend, no real career, nothing exciting on the horizon, the guy I like has a girlfriend, and the best I can manage is a conversation with a freaking hallucination. I'm a mess."
As she curled into herself, more tears flowing, she heard Matthew say softly, "Bloss... Can I hold you?"
A hiccough-laugh hybrid burbled out of her. "You're the reason I'm crying. Also, you're imaginary. You can't hold me, and you can't make it better."
As she wept, she felt a strong arm curl over her shoulders. Too defeated to fight anymore, she twisted into him, her face pressing to his warm chest. With her eyes closed, she could feel the cotton fabric of his shirt against her cheek, the touch of each of his fingers on her arm. His scent rose into her nostrils, her favourite aftershave that smelled of the ocean and adventure, and she breathed it in hungrily.
"How can I feel you?" she murmured.
"How can you feel anything?" His hand stroked her arm, and goose bumps rose from her fingers to her collarbones. He said, "Every sensation in your body is just signals interpreted by the brain. Your brain has made me real, so you can feel me."
"I can smell you." A sinful thought tripped unbidden into her head. I wonder if I could taste you too...
Matthew spoke, a smile in his voice. "I don't know. Do you want to find out?"
Something snapped inside her. Blossom pulled back, seething with rage and embarrassment. "I don't know what I did as a kid to deserve being messed up like this, but I'm done. Stay out of my head, do you hear me?"
"That's where I am already," he said simply. "Look, I'm sorry if I've scared you or made you angry, but I'm literally here because you created me. On some level, you want me. You need me."
"The only thing I need is a new prescription for anti-psychotics," she said, standing and grabbing her wallet and phone. "And lucky for me, there's a hospital within walking distance."
"I'll come." Matthew rose and followed her to the door. "You might need the company. Emergency rooms have long waits – remember that time you broke your toe and it took six hours to get an x-ray?"
"I swear to god, if you say another word, I'll lobotomise myself with a fondue fork."
He was blessedly silent as they stepped out into the warm night air, but radiated waves of smugness as the events of the night continued to disintegrate around her. First, there was indeed an hours-long wait to be seen by the admission nurse. Blossom had to sit in a filthy, crowded holding room while Matthew sat across from her and smiled in an infuriating way.
People coughed and moaned and spluttered all around her, babies wailed, and two people clearly struggling with meth addictions screamed at each other, the walls, the vending machine – none of which did anything to calm her nerves. I'm almost as crazy as they are, she shuddered. After all, she'd been shouting at nothing in her lounge room very recently; perhaps these people had their own imaginary bf's to berate.
Then when she was finally taken through and sat on a bed, Matthew pulling up a chair beside her, she found it hard to explain to the young intern exactly what the problem was.
"So, no headaches?"
"No, but I'm seeing things that aren't there."
"Are you suicidal?"
"What? No, I just need to see a psychiatrist and get a prescription for-"
"I'm sorry, miss, but there's only one psychiatrist on rotation this evening, and you can only see him if you're admitted, and you can only be admitted if you're suicidal or you're presenting with severe head pain. I can give you a referral for a local psychologist, who will refer you back to your GP if they believe the problem can be managed with regular medication. It should only take a few weeks to get everything sorted."
"Weeks?" Scalding, furious tears poured from her eyes. "I need the drugs tonight! Now, goddamn it, not weeks from now!"
The young doctor's eyes widened fearfully. "Miss, please keep your voice down, otherwise I'll have to alert security and have you escorted off hospital property."
"Are you kidding me? You'd kick out a mentally ill woman begging for help? What is wrong with the health care system in this country? What is wrong with you, you heartless quack?" She flailed her arms, imploring an imaginary audience for their support in her indignation, and instead her wrist connected with a glass of water that went flying and smashed violently at the intern's feet, causing the small woman to leap backwards in fear.
And that was how Blossom found herself being very nicely led to the sliding glass exit doors by a hulking security man with an impressive beard who told her in no uncertain terms not to come back.
Matthew trailed her silently home. Blossom didn't look at him, but she could see him out the corner of her eye, strolling along like everything was hunky-dory, and her life wasn't completely out of control.
It was almost four am by the time she let herself back into her unit. Exhausted, she sent a message to Mack claiming tummy troubles and letting him know she'd work from home tomorrow. Then she turned to Matthew, who stood leaning against her kitchen counter.
It wasn't fair; he really was gorgeous. Weariness and sorrow overtook her in equal parts as she addressed him. "I'm taking some sleeping pills and going to bed. Do not follow me. If I find you sleeping beside me in the morning, I'll smash your imaginary face in with a giant imaginary pot plant, do you understand?"
"I know you don't want to hear it, Blossom," he said gently, dark blue eyes intense in the low light, "but I'm here to look after you, to help you."
"You're not my fairy god-boyfriend," she spat back. "You're a symptom of a diseased mind. The best way you can help me is disappearing."
He nodded at the lounge room, jutting his square jaw in the direction of her couch. "I'll sleep there. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"
There was so much about that sentence that wasn't okay: the idea that a hallucination needed sleep, the implication that he wasn't going anywhere. Too fatigued to deal with any of it, she plodded zombie-like out of the room and into her own, sealing the door shut before swallowing two tablets and crashing onto her bed.
But as she lay and waited for the drugs to drag her down to sleep, her mind drifted back to how it had felt to be held by Matthew, how real he'd seemed to her senses, how much she'd needed comfort in that exact moment, and he was there to provide it. How often had she lain in bed and wished for someone to sleep beside her? She'd pictured it a thousand times, a warm, sleepy man next to her, a solid mass she could reach for in the middle of the night, wrap her arms and legs around, kiss gently as she drifted off...
And never before had a hallucination appeared to fill that need. She'd imagined plenty of crazy things over the years – winning the lottery, all her leg hairs permanently falling out, getting a phone call from Obama - that hadn't materialised.
So why was it happening now? As she waited for answers that weren't coming, she surrendered down to an uneasy slumber, only the vaguest flicker of hope in the back of her brain that tomorrow would be an improvement on the weeping pustule that was the last twenty-four hours.
I live in Australia - we're really fortunate to have a universal health care system here, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. If you have a comment to leave about how people in your country can access mental health care, leave it below, whether it's good, bad or ugly - and please remember to vote!