Months had passed and it felt like centuries. Every day felt like forever, every minute unbearable. She lied on the bed and she watched as the clock ticked. She stared, eyes void and cold as whispers continued on the other side of the walls, as the wires were checked once and twice and three times just to be sure. People touched her hand, they told her to do various things. They questioned her again and again, does it hurt, can you feel. They toyed with her and they tinkered with her. Her eyes strayed away, she watched the seconds tick by as the day opened and closed before her very eyes. It didn’t feel like she was breathing and she wasn’t sure if she was even living right now. She stared at the clock, counting as the seconds passed by. People walked in and out, faces she would never remember or even bother to. The clock still ticked; time continued to be her tormentor. Sanity left her but she continued to stare anyway. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to act or where to look. She didn’t know what else she could have done.

            Her mother stood on the other side of the door, looking into the small window as she watched her daughter stare at nothing, her eyes as cold as a droid’s. She believed the worst pain would be watching her daughter undergo the procedure. She believed that nothing would have hurt more when she learned of the cancer in her arm. She honestly and truly believed that would have been the worst for her daughter. Her mother stood there before the nurse, the tears welling in her eyes as she stared at her daughter, reminded of the screams that would greet her when she walked into the apartment after a long day of work, the cries that would creep along the walls at the devil’s hour, the untouched food, the empty stares, the hollow words that meant nothing and searched for nothing. She stared at her daughter; she stared and she wept for her.

            “They always start off like this after the surgery,” The nurse spoke but she did not know what the mother cried for, she had no idea what burden’s laid in the mother’s heart. The nurse spoke half assed words, words that even she did not believe. The mother stared at her daughter and the nurse at her papers. “She just needs time to rest.”

Taekwoon stared at the ceiling, etching out the days that had gone by. He lived quietly in that flat, watching the sun set and rise, counting the stars that faded from the human eye. He cleaned more often then he used to, tried testing on himself for the first time ever. He didn’t read much and he hadn’t listened to a single note of music in a while. He simply stayed there, not really existing, not really disappearing. He was somewhere in the middle, a hell more worse then hell itself. He lied there and he stared at the white ceiling. For some reason it was comforting and he finally understood what she had been saying all that time.

            He had stopped worrying about thinking about her. Now she would just slip in and out of his thoughts by some will he had no control over. She wasn’t there; he hadn’t seen her since that night. He locked her door and he tossed the key in the trash. The trash collectors came yesterday. He was sure it was long gone from now. Every picture was turned upside down, facing something so he could never see. He didn’t want to be reminded of her face. He didn’t want to be reminded of her smile. He didn’t want to hear her voice, feel her touch, smell her scent. He didn’t want to think about her and somehow he had talked himself into believing that if he didn’t think about her for a while, she would eventually find her way out of his thoughts. And for a while, it worked.

            He missed her; he couldn’t deny it. He wanted to see her, to hold her, to talk to her and watch her smile at his inability to understand the human logic. He wanted her there, sitting at the end of the couch as she massaged his calves or next to his head as she combed her fingers through his hair. He wanted to see her eyes, to kiss her lips, feel the pads of her fingers, her breath against his skin. He wanted to feel the pulse on her wrist, to know that she was truly alive. He wanted to admire her beauty as a human, as a creator, as a person who loved him—as a person who could no longer look at him.

            He stared at the ceiling and the gnawing against his chest pulsed through his wiring as he tried to understand and control the phenomenon that was wrecking his system. The first few weeks had been the most unbearable and although it had been months, although he was sure it couldn’t get any worse, it did. It surely did and it ruined him as he laid there, victim to the suffering and torture of whatever that racked his hardware. More then once did he think about rebooting. On multiple occasions were he able to talk himself to it and each time, he was able to get himself up and to the door but every time he did, every time he tried, he remembered her face, the smile he adored, the sincerity he admired. He remembered her and he couldn’t bring himself to open that door; he couldn’t bring himself to go through with the reboot. Every time he tried, every time he got close, she would pull him back and she would stop him from doing it. He had turned every picture over; he had locked the door to her room; he changed the format of the apartment, the furniture and color but she always came back, she never left him. Even though he couldn’t hold her hand; even though he couldn’t feel her warmth; she always came back. He couldn’t forget her face, no matter how hard he tried. He thought the constant reminder would give him more courage to go through with the procedure, that it would build up and eventually lead him back to Ravi’s workshop but every time it failed. Every time he saw her and every time he could never let go.

            He turned to press his face against the pillow. He missed her more then he could imagine. She made him feel things he would have never thought possible. He lied there and he groaned his agitation and grief as he closed his eyes to be seeped into the darkness. He missed her. He missed her dearly and wholly. He wanted nothing more but to see her but her mother told him not to, that now wasn’t a good time. When he spoke to her, when he hung up the phone he never realized. How was she doing? What was she doing? Where was she? Why was now not a good time? Why couldn’t he see her? Why couldn’t he speak to her? Taekwoon grasped his chest. He wanted to know; he needed to know. The worst of the worse haunted his thoughts and he had to fight himself from leaving the apartment to find her at that very moment. Her smile, her laugh, the thought of losing that forever, the thought of never seeing her again—Was this how it felt to be heart broken?

            But he didn’t have a heart. He never had a heart. He had hardware, codes, bolts and screws and they were all in place. He wasn’t a human. He wasn’t able to feel emotional pain. He wasn’t built for that kind of stimulation and no matter how many times he reminded himself this, no matter how many times he tried to talk himself out of believing that the pain was something more, he couldn’t stop it. The pain was far too real, ridiculous in the amounts of aching and throbbing he felt somewhere in his bundle of wires. He didn’t have a heart but he was sure that this was what it felt like. He was sure that this was how humans suffered and is body wept at her pain. He was unable to cry but his body wept for him as his fingers dug into the cushions, as his teeth bit against his tongue and eyes clung shut. He thought of her agony, of her despair.

            “I need to talk to her; I need to know that she’s okay.” Taekwoon had never begged in the history of his existence but he begged now as her mother was at a loss of words, breathless at his pleas. He begged and he begged as he grasped onto the phone. Tears were the body’s natural way to relieve pain but he had no tears. “Just let me see her once; once is all I need. Please, at least let her know I called.” Oh how he wished he could cry. “Let her know that I need to see her.”

            Irrational, pathetic, disgusting, Taekwoon hung up the phone and he returned to his dock, looking around the clean, white room that had papers pinned onto the walls, polaroids taped in an orderly fashion as reminders of their time together. He looked around, the room that was drenched with her. She would sit at the desk and piece at the codes that were plastered on all three screens. He would lay at his charging station, watching as she sipped her coffee and spoke lightly to herself. Sometimes she would tell him jokes and most of the time, he would pretend to laugh. She always said that the hardest thing to do was make a robot laugh and he was the prime example of her theory. Whenever she tired, it would end up with her throwing something at him and for some reason, she had incredible aim. She would sit there irritated and he would lay there with a smile as he watched her backside, an image that he would never forget no matter how many times he was rebooted. Sometimes she would sing; sometimes they would dance. Sometimes he would read her excerpts of her favorite book and remind her why she loved him. Taekwoon stood at the frame of the door and he stared into the room. Even here reminded him of her.

            He ripped her sketches from the walls; he threw the frames against the walls. Every polaroid was ripped and tossed against the floor without another thought. The notes he kept in a shoebox, the ones she would occasionally leave at his door, was kicked and thrown aside. Her chair was kicked to the corner, the computers shoved aside. He walked up to the trinkets and gifts he had collected from her from the moment he met her, the drawings, the toys. He held the fluffy white charm in his hand, the first one she had ever given him, the first gift he had ever received, the first birthday he ever had. He held it, gripping it in his fist and his hand trembled as he wanted nothing more but to crush it. He wanted nothing more but to scream and yell and rid himself of everything that was her. And he did, he did scream and yell but the memory of her small hands as she handed him his first birthday gift, as she was the first person to ever tell him happy birthday, as she looked at him as though he was another human being, as though he was not another piece of junk metal that was meant to serve. He remembered her kind eyes, her sweet words, her gentle embrace that brought warmth to his skin for the first time since his creation. The only one; the only one; she was the only one to ever hold him, the only one to have ever loved him.

            Taekwoon fell to his knees, pressing the ball of fluff charm against his chest, his forehead against the tops of his thighs. “Why did you leave me?” Nothing made sense. “What did I do wrong?”