[ WP ] You are a schizophrenic maddeningly in love with the man/woman of your dreams . But you 're becoming increasingly unsure if she 's real , or just another hallucination .

Ian dozed as he waited in the psychiatrists's office, occasionally glancing around at the other patients. One of them was patently staring at him, a mixed look between fear and anguish. He ignored her. She'd been coming to this counselor for the past 30 years, just as he had, but she'd been a child when she started. He remembered her then, ribbons in her pigtails, sad smile and a withdrawn demeanor. Abused by her drunken father, struggling with a life of depression and drugs and booze, and here he sat across from her, as immortal and unaging as the day they'd first met. His mere presence was fingernails on the chalkboard of her occasionally fragile psyche. He did n't speak while he sat there, and she did n't dare, for fear he might be real. 
 
 He could certainly empathize. There were times in his thousand-plus year span that he'd struggled with his own sanity. Decades spent alone, wandering without human contact. He'd settled here in Los Angeles some years back, a despondent mess of strangled hope and loneliness. He'd sat, three days unmoving, on an oceanside bench overlooking La Jolla, contemplating the waves in his characteristic manner, as stoic as any other philosopher, alone in his mind. A jogger, young, fresh out of college, had passed him each morning, and on the third day, stopped to ask if he was alright. He'd shrugged, and she'd seen it in his face: the hopelessness he felt, his utter disappointment in man and his failure to find meaningful, lasting love. 
 
 On the fourth day, she stopped again, and handed him her card, touting her fledgling psychiatry practice. Dr. Samantha Knowles. Her hubris was engaging, he agreed to stop by. He went for a bit, passing himself off as a history teacher and writer, to plausibly account for his in-depth knowledge of history and abundance of free time in the summer. Time would pass, he'd stop back in, catch up, decompress, but ultimately, she did him a service, as advertised. He pulled himself together and settled into some semblance of a normal life. A job in academia, teaching sociology, a small circle of friends. 
 
 Some years later, Ian even started to see someone, Iris, romantically even, and it had gone great for a while. He should have seen it coming, in retrospect. Romantic dinner of asparagus, braised short rib, and mac and cheese. An interesting conversation about current events. Nothing out of the ordinary. For some reason, he'd placed the pepper out of reach when he set the table. Not generally the kind of thing you'd wind up ending your relationship and questioning your sanity over. 
 
 Until he asked Iris to pass it. 
 
 `` No, you'll just ruin your mac and cheese with it.'' 
 
 `` Really, pepper will just blunt the creamy flavor.'' 
 
 `` I do n't think you need it.'' 
 
 `` You always set the table, if you wanted the pepper so bad you'd have set it near you.'' 
 
 
 It got testy after ten minutes, and hostile after fifteen. He finally stood up to get the pepper, and she also stood up, tears in her eyes and scorn on her face. She slapped him, set his ear to ringing, and started down the hallway in a huff. His temper frayed, he grabbed the generic pepper container, and slung it underhanded at her retreating back. 
 
 It clattered to the floor at the end of the hallway beyond her. She winked out of existence and that's when the crying jag started.
