Figment

Was I truly as crazy as they said I was?

Could nobody else see him?

Had I invented him like they suggested I had?

“Emily, this David is a figment of your imagination,” Dr. Schuler stressed, glancing at me from behind her glasses (I often wondered about those – did she need them, or just use them as a barrier that seperated her from her delusional charges?). “You have created him.”

I nodded patiently. On the surface I was serene but my body felt like it had caught fire.

Were they really suggesting that I had ‘built’ David myself; that the love I felt was a lie I told myself?

Had I imagined our first meeting? The dark and smoky bar; his body pressed against mine; the words he’d whispered in my ear? Had I engineered that husky voice caressing my ear? And the almost blinding face that he could lay claim to?

Surely I wasn’t creative enough to model such an Adonis?

But then, none of the girls I was with at the time had seen him, and David’s beauty would not be something easily missed.

Had I truly imagined giving him my phone number? I had written it on a napkin and handed that napkin to him… If they were right, and I was imagining things, then what had happened to those digits?

Had they dropped to the street? Blown away?

Had I imagined writing my number?

I had found a blank napkin in my pocket the next day, but did that mean anything?

“I think that some time-out would be the best thing for you, Emily.” A placid smile is offered but it never reaches her eyes; she shifts uncomfortably. “University must be very stressful… A holiday might do you some good.”

“Of course.”

“I can recommend an excellent travel agent…”

She busies herself finding the business card and I consider my brief but turbulent relationship with what was my first (and probably last) love.

How many times had I questioned it? Running the same monologue continuously in my head?

“He’s beautiful, and you’re not. You’re not, Emily – so why is he still here? For the sex? Yeah, right.”

Oh God, the sex…

Had I imagined that, too? Could I have imagined such a natural high?

“… Of course, you won’t want to be totally alone. Perhaps a friend?”

I was alone. Always, always alone. Why else would I have invented a companion; an imaginary friend?

Grimacing, I take the proffered card from her hand. “Of course… I’ll figure something out, I’m sure. I can’t thank you enough for this, Dr. Schuler.”

My cheque might, though.

I stand and reach forward to hug her but she steps back as if I’m contaminated. Twenty years of working with the mentally ill… You’d think she’d develop immunity.

“I’m sorry, Emily. There are strict boundaries to which I must adhere. You understand.”

I don’t, but I nod nonetheless.

Three months later, I travel to Europe. It is my self-inflicted solitary confinement.

“Australian girls are very beautiful,” I am told in an Italian club. I smile placidly and my companion grins back goofishly, taking this as encouragement. “That is, if they’re all as lovely as you.”

“Thank you.”

In Austria and France I am treated much the same. I smile and express thanks, but all the compliments mean nothing.

They will mean nothing until I can hear them in that rough drawl again - until a gentle friction of hips and a smoky bar and the sounds of the rugby in the distance accompany them.

“We missed you, Emily,” my classmates tell me. I smile for them, too.

How can such an unhappy soul smile so frequently?

“How was Italy?”

“Forget that – how were the European men?”

I giggle along with the other girls but say nothing in reply to the question. Why bother? They’ll misconstrue everything I say.

‘They called me beautiful’ will be read as ‘I think I’m beautiful’.

‘They were sleazy’ will translate to ‘They didn’t like me’.

I have decided I hate humanity; it has crafted a life filled with no-no situations.

I walk home that day. Late autumn is hanging in the air so the walk is pleasant and enjoyable more than exhausting.

I expect my mobile phone to be filled with messages when I arrive home but I can’t even check it because the battery is flat. I plug it into its charger and retreat to my bathroom to wash a day’s worth of false cheer away.

I won’t lie: a part of me is hoping that there will be upwards of ten messages from David declaring his love; proving he’s real.

A part of me comes to realise that there will be none.

Another part knows that the only messages on the phone will be from my parents – the only people in this world I can trust to be real.

A smaller, considerably more significant part of me is dying – cliché as that may be.

“Emily, it’s your parents! Hope Europe was lovely! Call us when you get in… Are you feeling better?”

I was no longer in love with my own creation; that was the answer she was looking for.

But I wasn’t better – not yet.