'Yeah?' I asked irritably

  'Morning ma'am, I'm from the apartment office.  I'm here to fix your fridge.'

  'There is nothing wrong with my fridge.'

  'Isn't this apartment 6A?' He asked puzzled.

  'No, it's 9A.  The '9' lost a screw and that's why it's upside-down and?'

  'Oh, I'm very sorry about that ma'am.  My apology.'

  'Yeah whatever.  Bye.'  I said and banged my door shut.  I felt bad for displacing my feelings towards the innocent man, but not bad enough to run after him and apologize.  I was still standing there when was another knock.

Without looking to see who it was, I snapped 'I said there is nothing wrong with the fridge!'

'Good.  Does that mean there's breakfast in it?'

It was Steve.  I was ecstatic and the broad smile on my face was a living proof.

  'How did you find me?' I asked not really caring.

  'I followed you.  And you left your wallet in my house.'

  'Oh thanks.' I blushed.

  'Can I come in?'

  'Yes, definitely.'  I said.  I had forgotten that he was still standing outside.

  'I love your home.' He said.

  'It's just a house.  I'm the only one in it.'

  'What about me?' he asked smiling.

            Steve and I spent the rest of the day together and discovered we had a lot in common.  He didn't leave my house till the next day and ever since then, the story has been different.  It had been almost two years since we started dating and it was great, though I could not help being reminded that I was 12 years past my target age of marriage, but I refused to be bothered a lot.  Steve and I had planned to go out and see a movie, and I was driving to his house. That was until I woke up in a strange room.  After looking around for about 30 seconds, I realized I was in a hospital room.  I started screaming to get someone's attention.

The nurse came flying into the room and said 'oh, good, you're talking.'

 'Of course I'm talking.  What kind of stupid question is that?  How did I get here?  Where the hell am I?'

 'Calm down ma'am.  I'll get your doctor.' She said and walked out hurriedly before I had the chance to reply.  A few minutes later, an Asian doctor came in and introduced herself as Dr. Yiu.  She told me that I had been in a psychiatric hospital for the past two months and I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.  She claimed that I had been having visual and auditory hallucinations; I had claimed that I lost my soul mate, Tony, but that in reality none of it was true.  How couldn't it have been false?  I pinched myself to wake up from the bad dream, but I did not wake up.  I asked her why I could not remember anything about my stay in the hospital and she told me it was because I had a fight with my hospital room mate the previous day and that she had pushed me into the wall so hard that I was temporarily suffering from amnesia.  How had this happened?  As far as I knew and remembered, I was on my way to my boyfriend's house.  Had I had an accident and died?  Was this what heaven was like?  Or maybe hell?  Dr. Yiu was still trying to explain the enormity of my illness to me when Steve came walking into my room.

'Hey sweetie!  I'm so glad to see you're finally awake.  How are you?'  He said as he reached down and kissed my lips passionately.

I was very happy to see him because his presence gave me some hope that the doctor did not know what she was talking about.  If Steve was still my boyfriend, then how could I have been in the hospital for the past two weeks?  'Wait here; I have a surprise for you.' he said and walked out of the room excitedly.  I was sure he noticed the apprehension on my face.

'Did you see him?  He's real right?' I whispered to Dr. Yiu.  Even though I believed in the love Steve and I shared, the past 10 minutes had been the most confusing of my life, so I wanted to be sure I was not hallucinating again.

 'Yes, of course I did.  He's your husband.'

 'What?!  When?!  How?!'  I exclaimed and looked at my finger.  That was when I saw a ring with a huge rock sitting on it.

Before I could gather my thoughts together, Steve came back into the room 'baby, I'm back!  I brought our children to see you.'

I blacked out.  When I woke up, I was still in bed, but not in the hospital one I remembered being in.  I jumped up from bed and looked around me, but I could not recognize where I was; I was in a bedroom, but whose was it?  I spotted a picture on the dresser so I went closer to see who was in it; it was a picture of me, Tony and the two kids Steve said belonged to us.  What the hell was going on?  Tony was dead or maybe non-existent as Dr. Yiu claimed, and I could not remember being married or having kids.  Could it be that?

*the preceding story is a fictional account.*