Chemical Love

The first time she comes in the bathtub, it sounds like drowning.

Steam rises. Artificial peach and something acrid, maybe guilt, maybe just the candle she bought to "cleanse the energy." Her breath catches, stutters, stops. Porcelain squeaks under her palm. The lavender candle bleeds wax down the rim while her other hand works between her legs with the desperation of someone trying to remember how to feel anything at all.

After, she cries. Not the pretty kind.

Morning ritual: she massacres eggs in cast iron. No eye contact. No small talk. Just the scrape of metal on metal, that particular frequency that makes molars ache. She doesn't mention the dream where I held her underwater and she didn't fight back. Doesn't ask why she woke up clawing at her own throat, sheets twisted into a tourniquet.

"You left your jacket," she says to the window.

The leather hangs on my chair like shed skin.

She hasn't laughed since she started setting five alarms. Since the meditation app. Since the CBT workbooks stacked on her nightstand like self-help tombstones. Since breathing became a conscious decision.

Her hands shake when she pours coffee. Just enough to notice.

"I'm getting better," she tells the mug.

3:47 AM. Her body curls toward the indent I left. Even unconscious, she's searching.

That's when I apply them.

First patch: behind her left shoulder blade, where she can't reach. The skin there stays warm, blood vessels close. Perfect absorption. Second: inner thigh, high up where her femoral artery drums against tissue paper skin. Maximum efficiency. The third—that's mine. Base of her skull, hidden under hair. My brand in medical-grade adhesive.

Seven milligrams. Time-release.

She'll wake up steady. Wake up needing something she can't name.

"I feel better when you're here," she says, not understanding why her hands stop shaking when I walk through the door. Not recognizing the way her pupils dilate. "Everything gets quiet."

I make her coffee. Watch her drink it. Count the minutes until her shoulders drop.

Twenty-three. Like clockwork.

"Did you sleep?" I ask.

"Like the dead."

The breakups. Three of them. Each one a controlled burn.

First: "I can't breathe around you." This, while hyperventilating in my apartment, her fingernails leaving crescents in her palms. I held her until she stopped shaking. Held her until the patch behind her shoulder blade had time to work.

Second: "You're inside my head." Screaming it at 2 AM, throwing my clothes off the balcony. Each shirt floating down like a surrender flag. I waited. She called six hours later. "I can't stop thinking about you" sounded like an accusation. Like a diagnosis.

Third: Mid-fuck. She stopped moving, looked down at me with eyes like bullet holes. "What are you doing to me?"

I pulled her back down. Pressed my thumb against her pulse. Rabbit-quick, desperate. "Loving you."

Each return: more frantic. More hungry.

"I tried to quit you," she says, and I taste the failure in her mouth. "But my body won't let me."

Her therapist prescribes SSRIs. Thinks it's anxiety. Depression. Attachment disorder.

The pills make her nauseous. Make her feel "flat," she says. "Like I'm watching my life through frosted glass."

She stops taking them after a week.

"I just need to get my shit together," she says, yoga mat under one arm, green juice in the other. "Natural healing."

I nod. Supportive. Understanding.

That night, I increase the dose. Eight milligrams.

Her body adjusts. Her body always adjusts.

She finds one once. Peeling at the corner, the adhesive failing in shower steam.

"What's this?" Holding it up like evidence.

"Vitamin patch. B12. You look tired."

She studies it. Studies me. That moment where the truth flickers... almost, almost—

"You take care of me," she says finally. Puts it in the trash. "Too much, sometimes."

That night she fucks me like she's trying to crawl inside. Like she's trying to find where I end and she begins. There isn't a line anymore. I made sure of that.

Tuesday. 4 PM. She calls from work.

"I feel sick. Dizzy. Like my skin's too tight."

"Come over."

"I have that thing—"

"Come over."

She does. She always does.

I press my fingers to her throat. Feel the hummingbird pulse. "When did you eat?"

"I don't... morning?"

"You need to take better care of yourself."

She nods. Lets me lead her to bed. Lets me undress her like a child. I apply a fresh patch while she's face-down, breathing into my pillow. She doesn't feel it. Too focused on the way her nerves are screaming, on the way her body's declaring emergency.

Within an hour, she's herself again. Whatever that means now.

"I don't know what I'd do without you," she says.

I know exactly what she'd do. I've seen it. Day three is always the worst. That's when the shaking gets violent. When the dreams turn into waking nightmares. When the body starts eating itself looking for what's missing.

Sunday. She tries to leave again.

Packs while I watch. Each folded shirt a small betrayal. Her hands tremor-steady until she has to sit down, has to put her head between her knees.

"I feel like I'm dying," she whispers to the carpet.

"You're having a panic attack."

"No. This is different. This is..." She looks up. Mascara streaking. "This is you."

So close.

I sit beside her. Pull her against me. She resists for exactly four seconds before collapsing. Before her body recognizes home.

"We're not good for each other," she says into my chest.

"I know."

"I can't keep doing this."

"I know."

"Help me."

I stroke her hair. Feel the patch at the base of her skull. Still fresh. Six more hours of slow release. Six more hours of her needing me more than oxygen.

"I'm trying," I tell her.

It's the only honest thing I've said.

Wednesday. 11 PM.

She's in my bed again. Always ends up here. The apartment she pays for sits empty except for dying plants and unopened mail.

"I had a revelation in therapy," she says to the ceiling. "I'm addicted to chaos."

I trace her spine. Feel each vertebra. Count them like rosary beads.

"You're not chaos," she continues. "You're the opposite. You're... stillness. But wrong. Like the eye of a hurricane. Quiet, but surrounded by destruction."

"That's poetic."

"That's fucked up."

She turns. Studies my face in the dark. "What are you addicted to?"

"Control."

She laughs. Bitter as burnt coffee. "At least you're honest."

No. I'm really not.

The thing about nicotine: it's perfect. Crosses the blood-brain barrier in seven seconds. Binds to receptors. Floods the system with dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine. Makes everything sharper. Makes everything necessary.

The thing about withdrawal: it's hell. Anxiety. Insomnia. Tremors. Depression. Confusion. Rage. The body screaming for what it's learned to need.

The thing about her: she doesn't know what she's fighting.

Thinks it's love. Thinks it's trauma bonding. Thinks it's her "addictive personality." That's what her therapist calls it. Doesn't know it's chemistry. Doesn't know I've been slowly increasing the dose for six months. Doesn't know her receptors have been hijacked, reprogrammed, owned.

Friday. 3 AM.

She's unconscious. Xanax and wine, her new Friday ritual. Says it's the only way she can sleep without the dreams.

I work quickly. Efficiently.

Remove the old patches. Apply fresh ones. Higher dose now. Ten milligrams.

She stirs. Mumbles something that might be my name. Might be "please."

I photograph her like this sometimes. Not for anything sick. Just... evidence. Proof that she exists this way.

Her phone buzzes. Text from someone named Matthew. "you okay? haven't heard from you in weeks."

I delete it. Like all the others.

She doesn't need them. Doesn't need anyone but me.

Morning.

She wakes different. Eyes too bright. Movements too quick.

"I feel amazing," she says. "Like I could run through walls."

"That's good."

"No. It's not. It's not normal. Nothing about this is normal."

She's pacing now. Naked. Skin flushed. "I can feel my blood moving. Can hear my cells dividing. Is that crazy? Am I going crazy?"

"You're fine."

"Stop saying that. Stop..." She freezes. Stares at me. "You're doing something to me."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Drugs. Or... psychology. Some manipulation I read about. Gaslighting. Love bombing. Something."

She's so close. So fucking close to the truth.

"You want me to be the villain," I say carefully. "Makes it easier than admitting you choose this."

She slaps me. Hard enough to taste copper.

Then kisses me. Harder.

"I hate you," she says against my mouth. "I hate how much I need you."

"I know."

"Make it stop."

"I can't."

Another lie. I could. Cold turkey would be hell, but she'd survive. Eventually. Maybe.

But I won't.

Because this? This is love. The only kind I know how to give. The kind that burrows under skin. That rewrites DNA. That turns need into worship and worship into decay.

Saturday. 4 PM.

We're in her car. She's driving. Badly. Hands shaking on the wheel.

"I need to tell you something," she says.

"Okay."

"I've been having these... episodes. At work. Confusion. Can't focus. My boss thinks I'm on something."

"Are you?"

She laughs. Sharp as broken glass. "Just you."

If only you knew.

"Maybe see a doctor."

"I did. They ran tests. Everything's normal. Except—" She pauses at a red light. Won't look at me. "My brain chemistry is off. Neurotransmitters all fucked. Doctor asked if I was in recovery."

"From what?"

"That's what I said. He showed me the labs. Said it looks exactly like nicotine withdrawal. But that's impossible."

My pulse stays steady.

"Why impossible?"

She finally looks at me. Eyes like accusations.

"Because I don't smoke. I've never smoked. Not once in my entire fucking life."