I had an entire list of instructions written out for you; schedules and timetables, keys and procedures. You have indulged me so much, and it’s only now, at the end, that I see how it has helped me get through these dark times, but also how ultimately empty it has been. I had everything so carefully planned; I’ve worked so tirelessly. I’ve warped and twisted my surroundings to the point where I can never be sure if I’ve completely settled back into reality, and even if I did manage to turn off everything planted in the walls to deceive myself, I think my mind would deceive me still. I don’t need clinical testing of the long-term effects of these devices to know that I’ve undoubtedly done permanent damage to myself. I will always see what I want to see, but worse than that, there is the splinter, more like the stake, always deep into my heart reminding me more and more every day that what I see is a lie. Through your patience and your indulgence of me, you’ve tried to keep me happy, but it’s also somehow brought me back from this world I’ve made for myself. I think maybe it would have been better for you to have not indulged me; then I could have excluded you from my bubble, convinced myself that you were crazy like everyone else. But instead, your unceasing love caused me to listen to you, to let you in, and the consequence of that was seeing the truth in your eyes, and letting that in as well.

I have my Charlie here with me. You will never have to indulge me in her again. Rather than taking joy in her, I have cried over her, so many countless tears. I have poured agony into her, until she serves as another reminder not of what I once had, but of the unbearable pain of what was taken from me. She has come to reflect my pain back to me; whereas I, for a time, took great comfort in her eyes, I now only see loss, endless, debilitating loss. Her eyes will never fill me again. In fact, they have emptied me.