"I wouldn't stake my sanity on it otherwise."
Dr Lim let the sentence sit between them.
She did not challenge it. She did not soften it either.
"Michael," she said, "I'm going to ask you something very specific now. I want you to answer it as directly as you can."
He nodded once. "Go ahead."
"When Hidayah told you she did not know you," Dr Lim said, "did you believe she was lying—or that she was unable to remember?"
Michael's answer came without pause.
"Unable."
"And that inability," Dr Lim continued, "how did you understand it?"
"As interference," he said. "Stress. Influence. Maybe trauma from the transition."
"The transition," Dr Lim echoed.
"Between lives," Michael clarified patiently, as if explaining something obvious. "Memory doesn't always survive intact."
Dr Lim made another note. Her handwriting remained neat, controlled.
"Did you consider," she asked, "that her account of reality might be the accurate one?"
Michael's mouth tightened.
"No," he said. "Because that would mean everything I remember is meaningless."
Dr Lim looked up. "And is that acceptable to you?"
Silence.
Michael's jaw flexed once.
"No," he said quietly.
Dr Lim nodded, not in agreement, but acknowledgement.
"Tell me about the moment you approached her during the incident," she said. "What was your intention?"
"To remind her," Michael replied. "Not to frighten her. Just—to make her look at me properly. To make her recognise me."
"And when she asked you to step away?"
He frowned. "That wasn't her."
Dr Lim's pen paused.
"What do you mean?"
"That response," Michael said, a trace of irritation slipping in. "That coldness. That wasn't her voice. Someone else had taught her to speak like that."
Dr Lim folded her hands.
"Michael," she said evenly, "is it possible that Hidayah's refusal was an expression of her own will?"
His eyes hardened.
"She wouldn't choose that," he said. "Not after what we had."
"What if," Dr Lim said gently, "what you experienced as closeness, she experienced differently?"
Michael leaned forward.
"You're suggesting I imagined her love."
"I'm suggesting," Dr Lim replied, "that two people can inhabit the same interaction and come away with profoundly different meanings."
Michael shook his head once. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because she centred her life around me," he said. "She waited for me. She adjusted herself to me. She prioritised my needs."
Dr Lim's voice remained calm. "Michael—those behaviours can also describe imbalance."
His expression shifted then.
Not confusion.
Offence.
"She chose to do those things," he said. "I didn't force her."
"I didn't say you did," Dr Lim replied. "But choice does not always equal health."
Michael's hands clenched fully now.
"You're reframing her devotion as weakness," he said. "That's unfair."
Dr Lim met his gaze steadily.
"What concerns me," she said, "is not that you remember a relationship. It's that you believe her autonomy now is a betrayal of you."
Michael stared at her.
"She belongs to the story we shared," he said. "She can't just rewrite it."
Dr Lim inhaled slowly.
"Michael," she said, "people are allowed to leave stories. Even ones that feel unfinished to others."
His voice dropped.
"Not when the other person is still inside them."
The room felt suddenly smaller.
Dr Lim closed the folder carefully.
"I'm going to be very clear with you now," she said. "Your conviction that Hidayah owes you recognition—and that her refusal is an injustice—places both of you at risk."
Michael scoffed softly. "She hurt me."
"And you hurt her," Dr Lim said, without raising her voice.
He fell silent.
For the first time, uncertainty flickered—not in his belief, but in how it was being received.
Dr Lim stood.
"We'll continue these sessions," she said. "For now, you'll remain under observation."
Michael looked up at her.
"You think I'm dangerous," he said.
"I think," Dr Lim replied carefully, "that you are unable to tolerate a reality where you are not central."
She paused at the door.
"And that makes restraint very important."
When she left, the hum of the air-conditioning filled the room again.
Michael sat very still.
They still didn't understand.
But they were getting closer.
And so was he.
——————
Dr Lim noted that response carefully.
Responsibility.
Not grief. Not longing. Not even entitlement—at least not in the way it is usually presented. Michael framed his fixation as duty. Repair. Obligation born of history.
That distinction mattered.
"Help me understand what 'fixing it' means to you," she said.
Michael did not hesitate. "Helping her remember. Helping her come back to herself."
"And if she doesn't want that help?"
The question landed softly. Precisely.
Michael's brow furrowed. He leaned back slightly, as if needing distance to think.
"She would," he said finally. "Once she understands."
"Understands what?"
"That we were happy," he replied. "That she loved me."
Dr Lim tapped her pen once against the folder—not impatient, but thoughtful.
"Happiness," she said, "can be remembered differently by different people."
Michael's gaze sharpened. "You keep saying that."
"Because it's important," Dr Lim replied. "Michael, I'm going to ask you something difficult."
He nodded.
"In the life you remember," she said, "did Hidayah ever say no to you?"
The room held its breath.
Michael opened his mouth—then closed it.
He looked down at his hands for the first time since the session began.
"She didn't need to," he said eventually. "We understood each other."
Dr Lim wrote that down.
"And when she was sick," she asked gently, "did she ever ask you to let her go?"
His fingers tightened.
"She was afraid," he said. "She didn't mean it."
Dr Lim did not correct him.
She had learned long ago that confrontation at this stage only drove belief inward, made it harder, denser, more resistant.
Instead, she asked, "What do you think she would want now?"
Michael looked up, certainty rushing back into place like armour snapping closed.
"She would want me to stay," he said. "She always did."
Dr Lim closed the folder slowly.
From a diagnostic standpoint, the pattern was clear—not just a delusional belief, but a rigid narrative that reinterpreted all resistance as misunderstanding, all refusal as external contamination.
From a human standpoint, it was more troubling.
Because Michael was not chaotic.
He was organised.
He was patient.
And he believed—truly—that persistence was an act of love.
That belief, Dr Lim knew, was the most dangerous kind.
"Michael," she said, standing, "for now, our focus is going to be on helping you tolerate uncertainty."
He frowned. "Uncertainty about what?"
"About her," Dr Lim replied. "And about yourself."
She paused, then added carefully, "You don't need to fix anything today."
He watched her, expression unreadable.
"But I will," he said.
Not as a threat.
As a promise—to himself.
As Dr Lim left the room, she made a final note in her tablet.
High insight. Low flexibility. Strong affective conviction centred on specific individual. Risk increases with perceived rejection.
Outside, the corridor lights hummed softly.
Containment, she thought, would buy time.
But time alone did not dissolve belief.
It only gave it space to reorganise.
And Michael was very good at reorganising.
—————
From Michael's standpoint, nothing had ended.
The transfer to the secure ward was orderly. Paperwork signed. Personal items catalogued. Explanations repeated in calm, practiced tones. He listened to all of it with polite attentiveness, nodded when appropriate, asked no unnecessary questions.
This was not punishment, he told himself.
It was a delay.
The facility was quieter than the holding room had been. Softer lights. Neutral colours. Doors that locked without drama. Staff who spoke gently but never casually, who maintained distance without hostility.
Michael noticed everything.
His room contained a bed bolted to the floor, a desk, a chair, a window reinforced with mesh so fine it was almost invisible. Outside, a patch of sky. Nothing else.
He sat on the bed and folded his hands neatly in his lap.
They believed they had intervened at the right time.
That was their mistake.
Intervention implied interruption—something halted before it could complete its course. But what Michael was experiencing was not a process in motion. It was a truth paused mid-sentence.
They had removed him from proximity, yes. Enforced distance. Created barriers.
Barriers were temporary by nature.
A nurse checked in later, asked how he was feeling. He answered honestly.
"Clear," he said. "Focused."
She made a note and left.
That night, lying on his back, Michael replayed the courtroom proceedings not with bitterness, but with interest. The phrasing. The logic. The way the judge had spoken about risk as if it were an external variable, something measurable, manageable.
They had reduced his certainty into symptoms.
They always did.
The Personal Protection Order, especially, fascinated him.
No contact. No proximity. No exceptions.
The law treated connection as geography—as if distance erased meaning. As if absence weakened bonds.
Michael smiled faintly at the ceiling.
They didn't understand how memory worked.
In the days that followed, he complied fully.
Medication taken on time. Sessions attended. Questions answered with precision. He did not challenge diagnoses or argue terminology. He let them believe what they needed to believe.
He learned quickly which answers reassured and which unsettled. Which silences invited concern and which suggested insight. He adjusted accordingly.
He was, after all, a student of systems.
And systems always revealed their seams to those patient enough to observe them.
During one session, a junior clinician asked him, "Do you still think about her?"
Michael considered the question.
"Of course," he said. "She's important to me."
"And do you feel anger toward her?"
"No," he replied sincerely. "Why would I?"
The clinician hesitated. "Because of the restraining order. The separation."
Michael tilted his head slightly. "That's not her decision," he said. "That's yours."
The note-taking paused.
He watched that carefully.
Later, alone again, Michael sat at the desk and closed his eyes.
He remembered her laughter. Not from the corridor. Not from the recent months.
From before.
From a hospital room flooded with late afternoon light. From moments when she had reached for his hand first. From conversations that had felt unbreakable.
Those memories were not intrusive.
They were sustaining.
They did not demand action. They justified patience.
They reminded him why restraint mattered.
Because if he truly loved her—as he had then—he would wait until conditions were right.
Until interference weakened.
Until clarity returned to her.
This was not obsession.
It was continuity.
Michael lay back on the bed and folded his hands over his chest.
Outside the window, the sky shifted slowly toward evening.
Time, he thought, was finally on his side.
Because systems tired.
People relaxed.
Restrictions expired.
And history—real history—had a way of resurfacing when everyone else believed it was finished.
Nothing had ended.
It had simply been contained.
For now.
————-
Hidayah learned the outcome seated at the small dining table in her parents' living room, her phone resting face-down beside an untouched mug of tea that had long since gone cold.
Kamari stood by the window, one hand braced against the frame, listening as the investigating officer explained the decision in measured, careful terms. He did not interrupt. He did not pace. His posture alone told her how closely he was paying attention.
Her mother sat beside Hidayah, close enough that their shoulders brushed, one hand resting lightly over Hidayah's wrist—grounding, steady, wordless.
When the call ended, Kamari lowered the phone.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The house felt heavier, as if the air itself had settled.
"So… that's it?" Hidayah asked finally, her voice quiet but even.
"For now," Kamari replied. His gaze stayed on the window, not the street beyond it. "He's under supervision. There's a standing order. He won't be allowed anywhere near you."
"He won't be coming near you," her mother added, firmer. Protective. "That's what matters."
Hidayah nodded.
She understood what they were offering her—certainty, structure, a line drawn cleanly by the law.
But something inside her refused to settle into it.
Because she understood something the others did not.
Michael had not acted out of panic.
Or loss of control.
Or a momentary lapse.
He had acted out of certainty.
That belief—fully formed, internally coherent, untouched by doubt—did not disappear just because a system intervened. It could be restrained. Redirected. Managed.
But not erased.
Later that night, when the house had fallen into its familiar quiet, Hidayah lay on her bed with the lights off, the ceiling fan turning slowly above her. Her phone glowed softly in her hand.
She typed, erased, then typed again.
Hidayah: It's over. At least legally.
The reply came almost immediately.
Khairul: I know. I've been updated. Are you okay?
She stared at the screen longer this time, the question heavier than it looked.
Finally, she answered.
Hidayah: I think so. But I don't feel relieved.
There was a pause—not long, but long enough for her to breathe through it.
Khairul: You don't have to. Relief comes later.
She let the phone rest against her chest and closed her eyes.
Outside, the night moved on as it always did—quiet, indifferent, unremarkable.
Inside, she remained awake.
Not afraid.
Just alert.
—————
Back at IMH, Michael sat alone in his assigned room, staring up at the pale ceiling above him.
The room was designed for calm.
Soft corners. Muted colours. Nothing sharp. Nothing that could be used to harm himself or anyone else. The air-conditioning hummed at a steady, regulated temperature, and the light overhead never fully darkened—only dimmed, as if even night was carefully supervised here.
He did not resist treatment.
He attended every session. Answered every question. Swallowed the medication placed in his palm without complaint. He spoke when spoken to, listened when asked to listen, nodded at the appropriate moments.
On paper, he was cooperative.
But compliance was not the same as surrender.
At night, when the ward settled into its artificial quiet—doors locked, footsteps fading, televisions silenced—Michael's mind returned to the only place that had ever felt real.
Hidayah laughing softly at something he said, eyes warm, unguarded.
Hidayah curled beside him, asleep, breathing slow and even.
Hidayah in a hospital room that smelled of antiseptic and grief, her fingers tightening around his as if anchoring herself to the world.
He remembered the weight of her hand.
The sound of the machines.
The way she had looked at him, terrified but trusting, as if he alone could keep her there.
These were not fantasies.
He did not experience them as imagined scenes or wishful reconstructions. They arrived with the certainty of lived experience—textured, emotional, anchored in sensation.
They were memories.
And memories, Michael believed, did not lie.
They could be buried.
They could be suppressed.
They could be forgotten.
But they could not be false.
He closed his eyes, the dim light pressing faintly against his lids, and whispered into the controlled stillness of the room—so softly it barely disturbed the air.
"I'll wait," he said.
There was no anger in his voice. No desperation.
Only patience.
"You'll remember."
—————
Elsewhere, Khairul stood in the dim light of his living room, phone in hand, Hidayah's last message glowing softly on the screen.
The room was silent except for the low hum of the city beyond the windows. Streetlights cast long shadows across the floor, unmoving. He had been standing there longer than he realised, not scrolling, not replying—just letting the weight of the past days settle into something clearer.
He was not part of the legal process.
Not officially.
His name would not appear in reports or statements. He would not be referenced in court documents or assessments.
But he had been part of the reality that forced all of it into motion.
He had seen the cracks forming long before they split open. He had watched Hidayah carry herself through discomfort with discipline and grace, choosing restraint again and again until restraint was no longer enough. He had stood close enough to understand that what happened was not sudden—it was inevitable.
And as he stared out at the quiet street below, one truth crystallised with unmistakable clarity.
He was not here temporarily.
Not as a shield raised in response to danger.
Not as a presence summoned by crisis.
Not as someone who would fade once things were "handled."
He wanted to be something named.
Something chosen.
Something steady.
Something that remained when the threat receded, when the noise quieted, when life returned to its ordinary rhythm.
Not because she needed protection.
But because he wanted to stay.
His phone buzzed softly in his hand.
Hidayah: Thank you for staying.
Khairul's reply came without hesitation, fingers moving with certainty rather than impulse.
Khairul: I'm not going anywhere.
Across town, Hidayah read the message and felt something inside her finally settle—not relief, not safety alone, but belief.
And for the first time since everything began, she trusted that this was not a moment.
It was a beginning.