text: She had been so happy with *him*, feeling at peace with herself for the first time in her life after meeting *him, a* friend of a friend. After years of longing for a deep, intimate relationship, he suddenly appeared right before her. Both of them had rather melancholic temperaments, so sadness was a well known acquaintance to both of them. He especially suffered from depressive episodes, but when they held each other tightly, their negative emotions seemed to disappear. He tried his best to always come to her aid, and she tried her best to be always there for him. She allowed herself to accept the thought that maybe, just maybe, life wasn't as cruel as she had imagined. She needed him and he needed her, so everything was perfect. They spent most of their time together, periods of time where in their minds everyone else disappeared from the surface of the world. An objective observer would have probably declared this relationship as a mutual dependence, but she would have taken this as a compliment, as a symbol for their deep love and affection toward each other, for the fact that they were able to keep going simply by supporting each other. For her, life reached a high point when he gave her a key to his flat, allowing her to come by whenever she felt like doing so. And so she did. She craved his love, his presence, his smell. She loved being dependent on him. But she always feared that she was unable to make him happy, as an aura of sadness still surrounded him, while she herself felt great. So she made an extra effort to cheer him up, to be a shoulder he could always lean on. And so the days went by. Until he said to her how he thought they had slowly stopped existing as individuals, and how it would be beneficial to their relationship if they started to spend more time being separated from each other again, in order to keep the spark between them alive. During the first moments, while processing what he had just said, she felt deeply saddened and alone. But she could nevertheless understand where he came from, and since her worst fear was losing him, she agreed to his proposal, all while holding back her tears. After this conversation, something changed within him. Texts she sent him were met with a reply hours later, calls were often not returned, visits to his flat were short-lived because he often told her about the plans he had made in the afternoon with his friends. She felt as if their relationship was nothing but a shadow of its former glory. But what had brought about this sudden change in his behaviour, in his feelings? Had she been too clingy, too affectionate, too needy? But maybe he was just busy, which of course may be a logical possibility, she thought. That was what he had texted her before, telling her how much he missed her. And like that, months went by. She finally reestablished contact with her best friend, someone she had neglected for such a long period of time. She felt disgusted regarding her behaviour towards the girl, but nevertheless her primary thought wasn't about her guilt towards her best friend, but about the growing distance between her boyfriend and herself. She confined in her friend about the changes, his eagerness to get rid of her, his short replies. After thinking through was just had been said, her friend brought up something she would have never wanted to hear, never wanted to think about, never had allowed herself to even consider the possibilities. An affair. Tears shot down her face, because she instantly realised that this had to be the truth. An affair. But with whom? With her boyfriend being "away on a visit to his parents“, she had more than enough time to think thoroughly about the possible candidates. Was it this girl from his Biology course he had mentioned a few times because of her unnatural long hair? A mutual friend? Maybe an old flame from his high school years? Who was she? It all made sense. He never wrote her back because he felt guilty, he always practically chased her out of his flat because she would afterwards come over. He put a distance between them because he wanted to spend time with this side fling. He switched wearing simple t-shirts for long-sleeved turtlenecks which made him look like a pretentious follower of Sartre, probably in order to hide the love bites she had marked him with. He became less affectionate because his love was now directed at another woman. He was probably spending the night making love to her in a hotel instead of visiting his parents. How could she have been so naive? Shortly after, she got a text from him, stating how much he loved her, how much he craved her presence. Liar, she thought to herself. Liar. The first text she had received in two days. Liar. After a sleepless night nearly breaking her head about his affair, about the identity of this woman who had stolen the man she loved, she realised what she had to do in order to come close to the truth. With trembling hands, she dialled the phone number of his family home, and after some seconds which felt so endless they took away her breath, his mother answered. Forty seconds later, she learned that her boyfriend was, in fact, not at his parents home. Her heart skipped a beat. He had, in fact, lied to her, straight to her face. He had lied. He had lied to her. It took minutes for her to comprehend this. She picked up the keys to his flat, still laying on the table where she had put them five days ago. It felt as if years had passed since her last visit. Now he was staying there with another woman. Liar. She opened the door silently and listened. No one was talking, no trace of perfume was in the air. There were no moans, no laughter. Just a deadly silence. Had they heard her coming into the flat? It didn't matter to her. Still, she tried to make as little sound as possible while she made her way into the bedroom. As the distance grew smaller, she noticed the faint sound of a female laughter coming from the room. The light also seemed to be on. So he was there after all, and in his company was a woman. She didn't bother knocking on the door, entering it fully expecting seeing him on top of the long haired girl from Biology. But instead, she saw him sitting on his bed. The first thing she saw was him wearing a t-shirt again. The second thing was a blood soaked tissue he firmly pressed onto his hand. Then she saw his arms, covered with fresh red marks. The third thing she noticed was an empty syringe, laying next to him on the bed. The sounds emitted by the television instantly faded into the background as she took a look into his eyes, his eyes, so far away, which formerly were so full of love. No, not formerly, she realised. He was still in love. Not with her, not with the girl from his Biology class, but with what seemed to be heroin. She realised that while he was able to give her everything she needed to be happy, she herself had been unable to do the same for him. So he turned to something else in order to give him what he craved so severely. Yes, they were both dependent. But obviously to very different things.