Immortal Beloved

By Jessica Lake

I'm not an idiot.

I took Psych 101.

I know about Stockholm syndrome. And what I have is not that. Sure, there are some similarities. The doctor has kept me locked up for three years.

But it's more like I'm his Immortal Beloved.

Once there was a maxillofacial surgeon who loved his wife Estella too much. Still in the summer of her youth, death stole the blush from her cheeks. Her husband, lost in his madness, swore to find her doppelgänger and resurrect his Immortal Beloved.

For years he searched. Then he stumbled upon me. Now, I'm certainly no beauty like Estella. But he saw the beauty within me and said he could work with that. It took years of painful surgery, but now I am his Estella. He saved my life.

I'm sorry, but this isn't working. I sound either crazy or stupid. Or maybe both. You can only understand me if I tell you about Ben.

Ben was both blessed and cursed. He was born missing something we all take for granted. You know, where you have your dreams, hopes, and desires? Well, Ben had none of those. Nothing.

An only child, his parents showered him with love. They were well-off, if not wealthy. And baby Ben had the face of an angel, framed by tousled golden curls. Passersby would stop in their tracks and beg to touch the child. He grew tall and handsome without losing any of his mystic aura.

At school, Ben was well-liked with lots of friends. He was easygoing and got along well with everyone. No one suspected how the boy suffered, except his parents. You see, Ben was a funhouse mirror to everyone. His friends saw their friendship reflected in Ben and were thrilled by his camaraderie. His teachers saw their passion for knowledge mirrored and delighted in Ben's enthusiasm. On the inside, the boy flickered like a candle in the wind, a butterfly's breath away from extinction. He got by, but he didn't thrive.

His parents sent Ben to a special school for the developmentally challenged and scheduled countless therapists. They got him a puppy, and he learned horsemanship. God knows his mom and dad tried. But how could Ben get better without the desire to do so?

Up until college, Ben did what he was told, and that was enough. He learned to exist through the lives of the people around him. At high school graduation, he was untouched by heartbreak, rejection, disappointment, or failure—all the petty woes of adolescence that prepare you for the adult world.

Ben's mom and dad decided it would be best for their son to travel for a year before starting college. One short year to do what twelve years had failed to do. Three years later, he was an opioid addict in Amsterdam, as close to suicide as a crow to its feathers.

Imagine feeling as empty as the space between stars while everyone around you is brimming with life. That was Ben's personal hell. His dad, seeing only a life of stark suffering for his son, said his goodbyes.

The poor and addicted, like Ben, dealt with the lowest rung of drug suppliers. Tainted supply meant a few wretched souls met their maker each day. So, day in and day out, the boy, now a man, played Russian roulette with a syringe. His only prayer was that he'd soon pull the trigger and put a fentanyl bullet through his skull.

Now you know how someone can sink into such misery, falling into a bottomless, cold blackness. That's what I mean when I say the doctor saved me. Our twin stars aligned that day. There's no way it was a coincidence. It was fate. At the exact appointed moment, the doctor was at my side.

I can still picture his silent efficiency. The cold of the alcohol swab. Him drawing the vial's contents into the syringe. The tap-tap of his finger freeing trapped air bubbles. And, blessedly, the jab of the needle in my outer thigh. In that rush of naloxone, Ben died, and I was born.