Those two white pills were his new best friend. Abilify, Abi for short, was the uppermost rival for the attention Merrill felt she so richly deserved. But Abi came with baggage, a price to be paid for her eternal devotion. Abi sent him running to pay homage to the porcelain gods every morning, while Merrill clawed and cajoled the darkest demons from the deepest reaches of his subconscious, begging for another moment in the spotlight with a vulnerability that was a seduction in and of itself.

But Abi, reliable, constant Abi was there at every step. She enclosed him in a shroud of blurry cotton wool. Stuffing his ears and eyes against the vibrant light that Merrill offered so easily.

And yet, sometimes he longed, in his most secret heart, to relent. To visit that mistress he had so totally repudiated when he dove headfirst into Abi’s sterile arms. He wished for another moment of the seductive darkness where he could lose his self for a while.