Sarah text him first the next day with a simple "How are you?"

He realised that together they had created something more beautiful by addressing their ritual and bringing their feelings into the public, now it was more nuanced, there was uncertainty and depth in who would text first and when, there was more room for expression but also deception/manipulation and therefore trust, ultimately there was more room for an interesting story to be created.

We made this more beautiful accidentally even at our worst, I was afraid and she revealed vulnerability yet we turned that into making our daily ritual even more real and interesting. As opposed to with Ner, I was at my best, I planned that out, I crafted the most beautiful story for us to participate in and we still couldn't make it work, it even made things worse I guess. Are they worse? they are certainly interesting, I have no idea what she feels, I should really text her where I am at and probe her for what she thinks but I don't know, it feels like the scales have been tipped and lately I put in all the effort into our relationship, I need her to realise if she wants to make this work too. I have so much to say to her...

He responded to Sarah "I'm well, just dealing with a girl fucking with my mind" he second guessed himself before sending it but decided to be honest and sent it.

He decided he would write to Ner and started typing into the notepad on his phone.

"To Ner

A lot of what I do isn't exactly genuine, it is manufactured in a way that I think is best for both of us. I think you (like most people) don't care so much about the good, and you just want the interesting. The drama, the confusing emotions, the beautiful story, I wanted it too and tried to provide it for you. Sometimes I would have a choice between saying something nice and saying something interesting and usually I would go with the interesting, the strange and embrace it. It's not so much that what I would say wouldn't be coming from me but it wouldn't be the emotional me of the moment, it would be an intellectual distant me trying to craft a story. I think our shared story is beautiful even if it's not exactly lovely and I hope one day you will realise this. I implied I was creating it but really we were creating it together, a lot of it was genuine but also a lot wasn't. I like to be confusing and strange to you, not just for personal reasons, not just for the shared story but because I believe this is what you actually want. I might be wrong, time will tell if you realise you love me, I think you do but I could be wrong, I am not going to force it on you even if I think it is best for you. I know that could be romantic, to force onto you what you want/need even if you reject it but i'm done, I have tried that and at some point I have to let you decide, I need feedback from your emotions and whether you realise our story is beautiful or not will provide that. I was aware that what I am doing might be misinterpreted even if you love it, you might love the experience and hate me but that is what I was willing to risk for you, I hope you are right for me and can see it though, actually, you don't even need to see it, just feel it.

I know our relationship is toxic, I know I mock others who stay in toxic relationships but I am allowed to be contradictory, I need to act like I truly hate it to make it seem more real. I do truly hate it and hate you a lot of the time, at least the conscious me does but the subconscious me loves that and he gets a say in my life too. I love to hate you, I love to love you, I love our story that we have been writing together. I even love this part where we are falling apart for possibly ever, it gives my life colour. I don't want it to be forever though, I want to be connected with you forever both in a metaphorical sense such as a shared story even if the shared part is the ending but also in a physical sense. I guess that is the main thing that I cant control with you, I know I like you enough to make our story interesting or at least to provide enough input into the shared creation but the driving force behind this is some irrational attraction to you. I think that is always required for two people to want to stay connected, I don't know the exact balance between the different parts of you that I am irrationally attracted to you so ignore the order but your face, your body, your voice, your mannerisms, the way you say things, the origin of your life etc. I can only hope you have the same for me. It's funny, I do really like the things you can control about yourself too such as your personality or what you do but in the grand scheme of things they are absolutely irrelevant to me, maybe I only like them because they are you, who knows? it doesn't matter.

I think there is still a lot we can write together through our shared story, there is a lot of beauty left and I hope you will experience it with me. I don't care if everything is toxic, whether you treat me like crap, whether we argue constantly, whether we hate each other. Sure, I will call these things out and try to fix them and patch them up but really it doesn't matter if that is successful because I know I will find meaning and life in the mere attempt to fix them, I know that there will still be genuine moments of absolute bliss between us, where everything just feels exactly right and beautiful, where none of the bad parts of our story matter. Perhaps it will be when we make love or perhaps it will just be one of those moments when we realise that we are both in the same position in all the currently meaningful ways to us. What is meaningful to humans changes from day to day slightly but often times ours align in beautiful ways, I find myself being absolutely in joy to simply know you but then to know you feel the same is otherworldly.

Perhaps I am ruining everything by telling you things are artificial in a sense but I don't think so, I realised this early into our relationship and it didn't remove any of the magic for me. I think it is just because I want that magic so bad that I can always find a way to create some more even if some is revealed. It's like no matter how genuine I be with you, no matter how much I reveal about myself, I can always find some little new area of personality to be confusing to hide in, to create something interesting. We can do this together if you only want to, at this point I am leaving it up to you. I know it will be hard, it will require you to make a big compromise with your ego, you will have to tell me you love me. I will also make it as hard as possible by acting indifferent to the result, trying to mislead and by not apologising for any of the bad things I have done to you but this difficulty will only make it more rewarding when you inevitably admit it, you want me, there is no reason for you not to. Or maybe I am wrong about you, maybe you don't innately love intrinsic things about me, maybe you fooled me, it wouldn't be the first time. If so then so be it, we will see then. I am not going to send you this letter, the only way it will ever reach the light of day is if I die. I love you but I will never say it. In a way I am only writing this because I think it makes our shared story interesting and as such I can't trust myself enough to share this with you as I am trying to stop doing that"

That's kind of funny, I wonder what are the chances this letter ever gets seen if I die. It seems completely up to chance, I wonder whose possession my phone would fall into if I died, whether they would give it to my family or if the police would hold onto it, I guess it depends on the nature of my death. There must be some laws surrounding confidentiality, who knows who could read it or if my family would be entitled to it. There are many people who could read it though and never get caught breaking the law, they probably have programs to bypass lock codes, maybe some low level policeman will read it and not think a second word of it. It's probably just generic rambling to anyone else but to me, though I hope to you Ner, the words are of immense weight. It is generic though probably, so many people have these type of relationships, right? maybe they cant word as accurately what is going on though, who knows.

I feel like a bit of a cunt for setting her this ultimatum even if I don't tell her about it but in my defense she started it, she showed she was unsure if she was still interested in me. If I try to win her over it seems artificial, even if I tell her I wont try because it seems artificial and she should like me without trying this wouldn't sound good, I wouldn't like to hear this either but girls definitely don't like hearing this. She needs to see me not trying and hate me for it but still realise she loves me regardless, maybe afterwards I can tell her that I was testing her, I'm not really testing her though, I'm letting her test herself. She indicated she was testing herself softly and all I did was make it so that she has to actually test her devotion to me properly. She loves me, it's obvious and if she cant see that then she must not be willing to love anyone anytime soon. If it works it is just another lovely chapter in our shared story, these so called toxic relationships are the best. A 'good' healthy relationship is missing passion and variety and that otherworldly quality of things you cant control, a 'good' relationship is more like a business transaction based on mutual benefit, it is cold and inhuman. I guess an exciting toxic relationship is still based on mutual benefit but the benefits aren't purely of the physical realm, I guess that is the difference, the benefits of our relationship are life and colour.

I didn't realise I liked this girl so much, maybe I should just tell her? nah, I do like this girl so much but the girl I love is the Ner in my head, the actual Ner might be different, I don't think she is, I think I am right but I guess we will wait and see. But how long will I have to wait? I'm nearing fucking 40, I guess I'll take it day by day, if I move on by the time she is ready then that's just another tragic chapter in our story, I doubt I will move on but we will see what happens with Sarah.

Our story was so beautiful but you stopped participating, Ner. Or was it I or stopped participating? maybe I started actually putting effort into my poems because I could no longer care to create beautiful stories with you. Look at me, I haven't worked on my poem for days because I've been obsessed with Sarah, girls are something else, you really cant let them dictate your life like this, by all means, chase them and live with them but don't depend on them, finish your poem, they can wait and if they can't then they can't. I will wait until her birthday and give her a real ultimatum then. I guess I'm hypocritical, I said that you pretend to want simple but actually want a complicated life but I'm the same.

After work he went to the park again, his mind was tired from thinking about Ner all day so he just admired the scenery without any complex thought until he reached the bench he had met Sarah at.

Why is she never here? surely she knows there is a high chance I will be here at this time since I was here at this time before. I guess she is consciously avoiding me, maybe it's for good motives, maybe she thinks our story is better if we only communicate by text, I guess I agree but dear god I do long to see her again, she was so beautiful, her nose alone wont leave my mind, I guess she is in no rush, she knows the longer we wait, the more special it will be. There is some sort of contradiction here, there is the fact that true love waits for no one, you have to seize it but there is also an element that love exists outside of time and it cant be influenced by such shallow events such as day to day interactions. I don't know, I think it's more like the creation of love waits for no one but love sustains itself, it really doesn't though, look at Ner and I, I think it's more like real love never truly dies, there is always some remnant that can be rekindled though then again I think the difference between love and real love is the willingness to rekindle the dwindling flames. Maybe Ner isn't willing to work on our love, maybe her love isn't real, maybe it never was, maybe she is just young, I used to think that once love died it could never be the same again, I guess there are things that can do that but certainly nothing we have done.

He text Ner on his way out of the park "I'm coming over"

"I'm out, at a friends"

"Which?"

She didn't text back instantly so when he reached his car he text again "?" to which she replied "Sarah's, but don't come" he stood by his car door.

Sarah? does she know? she probably just invented a name as an excuse and is with some dude, her dude. 'Don't come' as if I know who Sarah is and where she lives, she is such a bad fucking liar, she really expects me to believe she has told me of a Sarah and where she lives for some reason and I just cant remember it, she is retarded, I'd remember something as rare as that.

Could she know? maybe she hacked my phone and can see my messages? but even they aren't very incriminating, there is nothing tangible I have done that needs to be hidden, the only offence I have committed is thinking about Sarah fondly in my mind. There is no way she could know, surely, maybe I spoke her name in my sleep but did we sleep together since then? no. I guess she just came up with a fake name for her imaginary friend and chose something generic, it's purely a coincidence, but holy fuck, what a coincidence. She is lying surely, she doesn't have a friend named Sarah, if she did she would have to be new and where would she meet new friends? She is lying, it's obvious, we need to sort this out.

He decided he would go to her house expecting to catch her with another man, he knocked on her door to no response, he looked through her window and saw nothing of interest until he noticed that something was missing that used to sit on a cabinet. An abstract painting of hers, she had said she had done this painting while thinking about him. He was pissed and convinced she had thrown it out, possibly as a way to avoid thinking about him but definitely as a reflection of how easily she was ready to give up on them. He had asked her after she had painted it whether he could have it, even offering to buy it, she had refused but he had begged her that if one day she no longer wants it for whatever reason, if she hates him or whatever that she can give it to him.

Really? I can understand if you want nothing to do with me but you knew or at least should have known how much you mean to me and how much I would love to have that painting. I know you don't care about me, it's fine, I will deal with it in time but I'm still a human and you had a chance to do something with so little effort that would mean so much to some other human. You always claim how you want to help people, to make a difference etc. but here you wont, even though the effort to reward balance is greatly in the favor. I guess you are just filled with ego, it's probably not even that you don't care about helping me regardless of effort, you would probably rather put effort into hurting me, I can't believe the things that you do, I can't believe how cold you act towards me is accidental and simply due to indifference, I cant imagine a world with people who are naturally so cruel, I would rather imagine one where your actions are distorted by hate and bitterness. We will sort this out one way or another.

He considered waiting around until she returned but didn't want to let her know how much she was affecting him considering how little she seemed to care about his opinions on her or anything. Maybe I could hide and observe her from a distance. He looked around but there were no areas where he could wait and not be seen as suspicious, his car was too recognisable to her. I should buy a second car, off the record, one that no one knows about in case one day I need a car that no one knows about, one day like this, what else do I need money for?

"When will you be home?" he texted her and returned to his car, waiting in it for 5 minutes for a response.

"We are drinking, maybe not tonight, idk"

Really? drinking at a friends on a worknight and staying over? is she trying to be so blatant in her lying? maybe she wants to tell me the truth but cant bring herself to so her subconscious causes her to lie in a way where it is obvious, so I can find out and she doesn't have to go through the pain of telling me. Pain? as if she cares, if she cared she would at least say something, anything.

"Whatever, let me know"

He went home and passed out drunk around 9pm, he woke up around 4am and then drifted in and out of sleep in a semi conscious state until morning. During this time in a state between awake and sleep he had an in-depth conversation with imaginary Ner, most of it was forgotten by the time he woke up but one line stuck with him and he didn't know it had come from his 'dream', he now believed it was something she had actually said at some point and something she actually believed 'I am trying to blur out everything good about you to let go'. Throughout the morning these words would replay in his mind and although he realised that were basically straight out of a song he loved, he still never questioned if they really came from her or if he made them up, his mind turned his attention to the song they related to and he played it at least 10 times that morning before work and during.

Determined to send the first message to Sarah today he text her just before lunch with the same message he received yesterday "How are you?" to which she replied "Same old, boring week" this was the first message she had said that didn't invoke some deep emotional response from him but he didn't dwell on it too long as he went back to thinking about Ner and that song and how she hadn't told him if she wasn't coming home and didn't try to arrange an alternative meeting time. He sent her the song that currently meant a lot to him, a song that used to be his favourite years ago but now had a vastly different meaning to him. They exchanged songs from time to time, Ner would often use songs as a proxy to represent how she is feeling after some minor dispute or significant event. It insulted Ast, the way he saw it was that she either cared too little about expressing herself to him that she took the easy route and got a song to do it for her, like she was too lazy to put in the effort to learn how to word it or she just didn't understand herself enough to be able to word it, both were two sides of the same issue for him.

Ast believed that if some emotion was meaningful enough to you then you would naturally work towards understanding it enough to be able to articulate it eloquently, there is nothing wrong with first realising you feel something vaguely from a song or media initially but you should learn how to communicate it eventually but she never did, she would drop the topic and move on. The ability to be able to self reflect and communicate your motives behind what you did was the number one indicator for intelligence in Ast's mind and something he prided himself on. Although he usually didn't know why he would do the things he did or react the way he did at the time, he could easily self reflect and figure it out and explain to others his logic or illogic behind his actions. Ast sent songs back to Ner from time to time but he would intentionally avoid any song that had a deep meaning to him, opting instead to only share songs that he found musically interesting which precluded the vast majority of songs he truly loved, his reasoning being that he assumed she would have a similar sentiment to him and be insulted for his lack of effort but he also didn't want to possibly mislead her if it wasn't entirely accurate to how he felt. Today however he took a chance and sent her this song, he qualified it by saying "these lyrics mean a lot to me" to make it clear that it wasn't just another link of his and this one was special and hoped she should treat it with more respect. He hoped she would understand the message of it and if not ask him to explain why it was special to him but she text back just five minutes later, only long enough to have listened to the song once and not even read back over the lyrics that she might have missed through a first listen. "Ok, I believe you" she dashed his hopes, another attempt to connect to her on a different level and he was shut down again, maybe she is going to try to understand it later he thought for a moment before realising she wasn't going to hear him out, she didn't care to understand his perspective, she didn't even acknowledge how he had been trying to meet up with her. He took an early lunch but didn't eat, he felt like throwing up, he lay down on the bench and focused on his physical reactions and tried to control them.

That afternoon he wrote another message to her in the notes of his phone that he didn't plan to send.

"To Ner

This is what I think that song is about, he is asking what he will find to help him deal with the tragedy of life, it is optimistic as in he already believes he will find something to help him make it through but doesn't know what it is yet. He is worried that perhaps he already had the thing and lost it, by that thing he means he might have had the one for him, do you believe in the one? He says that everyone needs something or someone to get through life. He asks if he sings both their names at once when he sings, like when he expresses himself he is wondering whether he also expresses a part of her since she has left such a mark within him that now everything he does is a reflection of who she is.

He still feels her presence everywhere, he imagines the shadows through his window are shadows of her and says that her shadows are warmer to him than the rest of the light is. He hears her voice everywhere, probably catches a tone that sounds vaguely like her in something if only for a fraction of a second and his brain jumps back to her. Now he is comparing her to the sunlight rather than the shade, it shows how he sees her in both the light and dark, everywhere.

He recounts a fond memory of her and says he should let it go, he simplifies it down to its nice essence that he can carry with him and forgets the details as dwelling on the details is ruining his life. He has trouble sleeping as he cant get her out of his mind and even when he does find some peace and falls asleep she comes into his dreams and theyre not delusional dreams, they are boring realistic dreams like buying groceries so when he awakes he feels like they are still together and she must just be making breakfast or something. Under more introspection he can finally admit it isnt real, the girl he loves isn't with him and she never was and never will be, I don't know what this means, perhaps they never really connected, perhaps the girl he loved was based on a girl in real life but he loved a distorted version of her that wasnt accurate to reality, perhaps she is purely imaginary and he never met her but he used to feel like she was around meaning he had hope but now he is coming to terms with the one might not be out there for him. He then says he thinks that sometimes he isn't there either, he doesn't know who he is, what he is aiming towards, all his days are centred around her, they start and end with her and she doesn't even know how much she has impacted him.

He recounts the same memory but vows to forget it, this time he reduces it to it to its worst part and forgets all the nice parts, he thinks it will be easier to let go if its a bad memory, he says he is letting go but then he says i wonder when i will as if he wasnt yet successful with this other approach. He still feels her everywhere even if he no longer has solid memories of her, the impression she left still influences everything he does so he asks if he should just embrace her influence and let go of himself to some degree.

He says he will, he will be more optimistic, he will hope that her ghost will stop haunting him but he no longer needs her to, he can get by with her haunting him. He says that who she is will be reflected in everything he does, every word he sings and every line he writes but particularly she will influence how he talks about anyone elses tragedies, he will now be able to relate more deeply to their struggles even if they are of a completely different form. To relate to those who are on the verge of thinking everything is too hard to handle, he will talk about their connection and what it was and wasnt.

I used to love this song like a decade ago, it didn't mean much to me, but I could sense the passion in his voice and words and wanted to experience some passion for life that I was lacking vicariously, I guess in a small way I related, I didn't have a 'one' but I was still in love with the idea of the 'one'. Now I am starting to relate to it, mostly the attempts to blur out certain memories and hold onto others, the difficulty in this and how even if you do it successfully, a vague reminant of the feeling will linger in your soul, we cannot go back but we can embrace what has happened, even if it was negative, it is now a part of us and always will be. If we deny who we are then well, I dont know if that is life or the opposite of life

I know it sounds like I am relating in superficial ways and finding connections in vague statements like they do in horoscopes but there are many subtle ways that I think I uniquely relate to this song that I can't easily word. It's also the progression and story throughout the album which leads to this song and defines it more, mostly in why he writes, I want to explain these ways in great detail but I realise the more I write the less likely you are to read this but then again you probably wont read this regardless and if you do you wont give it the weight it deserves and if you do you probably wont understand anyway, so what does it matter?

I wonder whether I relate to it simply as a coincidence or if my previous obsession with this song essentially defined what I would think love is and when I inevitably found my love as does everyone eventually who believes in it when their whole life works towards it, the love had to be of the same form. Do you know what I mean, Ner? like I wonder if I like this song because it is special to me or if I like this song and it defined what would be special to me, what way does the causation go?"

After work he went over to her house unannounced, he became gradually more consciously aware of his breathing and blinking as he approached her door, anxious over what would happen, first noticing her car, then a light in her kitchen and finally hearing her walking around just before he knocked all slowly helping him realise that this was real.

"Oh" was her response as she opened the door and her face instantly changed to a weird mix of somber and emptiness as she noticed the man on her doorstep.

"We need to talk" he said in an unconfident manner and stuttered slightly, sounding like he had rehearsed it earlier yet still failed to get it out properly. He hadnt rehearsed it though and was accidentally emulating a movie deep in his memory.

"We already talked, you said you would wait, what is there to say?"

He looked past her into her living room and pretended to look at the cabinet to notice the picture missing for the first time then looked back at her in silence, he was unsure whether she had followed his eyes or was looking right through him the whole time.

"That painting" he said.

"What?" she said angrily as if he had no right to mention it.

"You threw it out? you know I wanted it"

"I still have it" she paused as he stared at her and took a deep breath as if he was restraining himself from lashing out "I was just doing some cleaning"

"Bullshit"

"It's right here, come inside if you must"

He stepped inside, tripping slightly on the entrance and shut the door very gently behind him overcompensating to make it look like he wasn't filled with murderous rage, she took them into the kitchen and showed him that on the counter there were a few pamphlets, the painting and some old Christmas cards. He didn't know what to think, whether her story checked out or if she considered it a pile of trash that just hadn't made it to the rubbish bin yet but decided it was better to just address the problem itself rather than what he considered to be a representation of the problem.

"Just tell me" he blurted out "there is another man, right?"

"Are you serious right now?" she put back down the glass of water she had just picked up.

"Don't lie to me"

"There isn't another man"

"Do you mean like no one at all or like most of your lies where you hide behind some technicality, I mean is there a man you see more than once a week of your own choice"

"I'm allowed friends but there is no one romantically"

"Right, here we go, just friends, he is 'Sarah'?"

"No, Sarah is Sarah"

"Then who is Sarah?"

"I met her at my art classes that I have been taking"

"You never told me you are taking art classes"

"Didn't seem like you would care"

"Whenever I would try to talk to you about something mundane or boring like day to day life you quickly stop responding"

"You are overthinking it"

"You're lying, you're shit at it"

"No but that's a good thing"

"So"

"So what?"

"So don't you have anything to say?"

"No, you are the one who said you had something to say, I have said what I needed to, you make me feel like shit all the time and i'm not sure I can care about someone like that, there, honesty"

"I can't control how you feel, you s-" he stopped himself and left it there.

"Right"

"Right...?"

"What? I don't understand what you want me to say"

"I don't know, 'sorry, I didn't tell you this when it was happening? sorry I made you suffer for weeks unsure about what was happening? sorry I changed what I want in life? sorry I don't care about what you have to say or fixing this?'"

"I hope one day you realise how much of an asshole you are being"

"Right, I'm the asshole, fucking, all women are the fucking same, 0 empathy" she didn't respond, instead taking a drink from her glass and looking at him like she wanted him to continue.

Stop it, she wants you to get mad and say these things so she can feel like she is in the right and you are the one who acted irrationally and tried to end this.

"I know and you know I know" he continued "or maybe you don't, you will say you only went to him because I was misbehaving but really I lost interest after you lost interest, I have seen this before, you all follow a formula"

"Ok" she started walking over to the door expecting him to follow but he didn't until she reached for the doorknob "Goodnight Ast".

"No" he meant that he was not ok with this whole situation and what had been communicated, he didn't think things were adequately concluded and didn't feel like the truth had come out, she simply interpreted it as him denying that the night was good and thought he understood that she had already moved on.

Really, out of all the fake names she could have chosen she had to choose Sarah? such a tragic existence, it's just a coincidence though, that's another term I almost forgot about, coincidence theorist, remember to write that down. Maybe I should just get her to prove Sarah exists if she really does, what's the point though? if she exists then she is still cheating, it doesn't matter, if she doesn't exist then she will just invent some new lie for why she told me it was Sarah, she wont learn anything, some people just don't want to learn or be loved. I get it, women aren't supposed to put in effort and you are supposed to pursue the one you love regardless of how much they reciprocate if you truly love them but holy fuck, she wont put in a single minute of effort even if would provide me with a month worth of joy.

He got in his car which was just out of sight from her window and drove home, he started writing on his computer about his term "Coincidence Theorist".