She was perfect, the girl of his dreams, the girl in his dreams. Every night he would crawl up the junk crusted stairs to his damp bed in his shitty apartment with a smile on his face.
He saw her every night. It was the only constant in his life. Between the contract jobs he did for almost no money and arguing with his landlord about a place he knew he couldn't afford, this, this was reliable.
He had grown to love her, the girl in his dreams. He knew everything about her. They would talk for hours and hours about nothing every night. Most of the time though, just smiling is enough to prevent the air from being polluted with awkwardness.
Today was different. He looked around his cluttered room and she was there. He had never seen her in such a gross place. In his dreams, he always made sure they only spent time together in the most ideal of locations. She couldn't see him like this! He began to clean like a mad man.
All the trash was gone in minutes but some of the stains just won't come out. He scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but they were still there. She stood in the middle of the room silently smiling as if she was grateful for what he was doing. After hours of scrubbing the same god damned stain on the floor he came to the conclusion that they couldn't be here, they had to leave, she can't see him live like this.
On their way out his landlord opened up his suite across the way and screamed.
"You got my fucking money today, asshole?"
He was petrified. She had seen him talked to like that. He responded with a face that turned from pale white to tomato red.
"You fuck! You fucking fuck! How -- how fucking dare you!"
The landlord confused at his response sternly says back.
"Get the fuck out punk. Don't even come back to get your worthless shit."
Absolutely not. He could absolutely not let her see him spoken to like this. He charged the man and they fell down the apartment stairs together. The landlord laid silent. He reached for the landlord's pocket and took a pen from it.
He stabbed repeadetly into his right eye, crying from embarrassment until he was pulled away by the police. Later he was sent to a mental hospital to live in solitary for many years. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and late-onset OCD.
When they checked on him in his padded room he was always smiling, because to him this wasn't solitary, to him there was no mess, to him his jacket had no stains, to him nobody was embarassing, to him her smile was enough to prevent the air from being polluted with the horrible things he had done.