Secret Lover

By Jessie Birke

“You’re pretty crazy, Belle.”

“Why, because I’m with you? There’s always been something special between us. And actually, it’s you who’s with me. I’m glad. I don’t have many friends these days.”

“You know that this isn’t true love, don’t you?”

“My feelings are real. And so are yours, I know it. That’s all that matters.”

“If you say so.”

He fell silent when the door opened and one of the nurses appeared. Hallucinations. Annabelle didn’t like that word. She called him her secret lover. That’s what he’d always be to her, she thought later, flushing the pills down the toilet.