He has been back home for a few weeks now. He is physically present there, in the peaceful and secure environment with me and all these professionals, all prepared and qualified enough to take care of him, and yet his mind keeps wandering off visiting the dark corners that his body once was trapped, in the past. He barely curls up in the corner of his assigned hospital room, catatonic ever since, refusing to interact with any individual for hours. He has turned into a broken shell of a man.

Though, the frequency of his psychotic episodes has diminished a little since the past few days, it seems like his subconscious is finally giving up to the nursing and medication. He still rouses up each day, in the dead of the night, screeching and kicking the air that surrounds him. He now and then tries to talk to me in a very vague mumbly monotones, clings on tightly for hours or on a few dreadful days bounces at being merely touched.

While my brain is clogged with such thoughts, I catch myself staring at Milan, my happily married employer sitting across from me on the round conference table during the meeting. He looks at me with a puzzled expression and waves, while I thrust myself back to real life. He knows everything about what all is going on in my life at the moment, so he gives me an understanding and sympathetic smile with pursed lips. He has that concerning look on his face as he shoots his eyebrows up, intending to ask, "are you alright?" in between the meeting (where we could not discuss our personal issues and had to focus on the ongoing presentation through the projector, on finances by this lady that I barely knew, who is the new head of the accounts department).

I shrug at him, indicating "I don't know."

Unlike most bosses I have heard various horrid stories about, Milan is one of the most understanding people I have ever come across. He found me the most perfect shrink when Sawyer was gone, invited me regularly to his house for dinner with his family to cheer me up, and handling the HR manager a few months ago once when I for a moment lost my chill. I had a breakdown and shouted at a co-worker. We have always had that sibling relationship more than a boss and subordinate affiliation. I adored his gorgeous and compassionate wife and his cutest little five-year-old girl, who were always pleased to have me over and graciously welcomed me. They were my only family and companions when Sawyer had disappeared. Though my Mum came to visit for a month to help me out through it in the beginning, but then her work started catching up on her and so she had to rush back. He was the only one who supported and encouraged me to find Saw when everyone else had given up, assuming he was dead (even his own family had tried hard but had given up after a few months).

People called me crazy and stuck up, someone who could just not let things go and accept that her lover was dead after all. The first to give up was the Police, telling me to give up as well as, saying things like "He is dead" and they "understand the pain" that I am going through, but I "must get psychiatric help" and "just accept the truth". They were ready to believe that he ran away, just so they do not have a case still pending, making their files look bad and incomplete.

I somehow had this feeling in my gut that Saw was alive and he was worth looking for even if it takes up all of my life. Milan was always there to help with my "paranoid or unrealistic hopes," always willing to pull strings in any scenario that he could. He has been a constant pillar of support ever since, just like a big brother that I never had.

As soon as the presentation ends and the Branch Manager allows us to leave, I rush out the door of the conference room to my cubicle to pack up my stuff that was lying around on the table so I could leave as soon as possible.

The cubicles are in an array of multiple desks, designed in a perfect symmetry and with barricades to denote each cubicle and the employees' own personal space. Saw used to love such perfectly symmetrical things, his weird idiosyncrasies made me obsessively compulsive (or as they say) as well.

As I start packing up the Laptop bag that I carry to office and fitting inside the bag my things that are carelessly cluttered on my desk, I hear someone run up behind me in loud formal office shoes, clanking against the clear marble floor.

"Nikita!"

I turn back to the nasal voice of Milan, calling me from about 10 metres away, while he keeps briskly walking towards me.

"Going to the hospital?" I nod while turning to face him completely, as he asks again, "do you need any help? I mean should I tag along with you today?"

I give him an assuring look and genuinely pass a smile at him for his sincere offer for help, "no no, Milan. I will manage today. He has been pretty quiet and subdued for a few days now and even seems to be taking all his medicines orally as well. It seems like he is giving up the fight..." My eyes slowly start to get a little teary and my voice seems shaky towards the end of my sentence.

"In any case, you keep me in the emergency contacts of your mobile and call me whenever you need anything."

"Is there anyone I trust more than you to be my emergency contact Milan?"

"Know this, I am here for you. And for heaven's sake, STOP OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING. You have done the best that you could. He is back, is he not and literally in one piece, unexpectedly. That is the greatest achievement of them all." He tells me as he immerses me in a hug while I dry my tears.

"I know. But..." as I toy with the 1.5 carat engagement ring, he was going to give me on my ring finger. "I do not know how I will be able to face him now after I uncovered this shiny and beautiful thing wrapped inside his favourite blue tie, stashed up below his clothes this morning. I never even knew he was ready to pop up the question yet."

"It's okay, he will learn how to hide things better, some day."

"I don't know what to do..." I start off again, ignoring Milan's innocent attempt at trying to lighten up my mood.

"Oh shush!" He interrupts "Stop thinking over this right now and head back to the hospital. And know this, that he will be alright and when he gets back up again, he will lean down on his knees and ask you to marry him on his own, with the same ring. Now hurry, goodbye! I'll see you tomorrow." He pulls away and taps my head as he does with his little daughter, thus, my cue to rush to the hospital.

Milan's concern for me regarding my seriously disturbed and sick partner was pretty much valid, as last week Saw attacked me during one of his psychotic episodes. I still have the scratch marks from his nails on my arm. He never hit me ever since we have known each other, but since he has been back, he has been too disturbed to understand anything that is going on around him in the present moment.

The doctors have diagnosed him with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). They wanted him to stay back in the psychiatric ward of the hospital to help him cope with this issue under the supervision and care of trained professionals, where they can provide him the treatment and while I regularly visit him on hours that I am permitted to.

I pick up my bags and rush out the automatic doors of the office, running down the stairs of the building, towards Saw and my jointly owned Honda Civic parked in the open area just outside the building. I dump my stuff in the passenger seat and get in the driver's seat, still in the same speed.

"He was going to propose to you the day he went to meet his mother, he wanted her blessings before he could ask you," Yasin replied when I questioned him about the ring, over the hurried call I made while getting ready for office.

I called him up, expecting that Saw must have mentioned this crucial detail to Yasin, they have been best friends ever since high school, after all.

It is pretty mind boggling how the minutest of things and turns in life can abruptly make so many fluctuations. If only there was a stabiliser for life. I do not know what decisions he made in the spur of the moment that brought us to this very unfortunate spot. Before, I was staying with my soulmate- my significant other, in our own house with our beloved female dog, Pearl. I enjoyed my work and so did he. He was going to ask me to marry him and we were soon going to start off a new beautiful world of our own, called family.

Now here I am, rushing from home to work to the hospital, trying to stay calm and optimistic. In spite of everything going on, I still somehow manage to keep my hopes of getting him mentally and emotionally back with myself once again. I manage to keep breathing with the help of my oxygen tank full of dreams of us, one day, going back home together and him being completely treated and back to his best psychological condition, just like he was an year ago, or maybe even better.

As I drive twenty-five kilometres towards the hospital, I breathe in and out to break this thought bubble over my head. This is my me-time and I get to revisit the best times of my life at this moment. This is when I can simply ignore every negative aspect of our lives that we have to go through each day and just smile like a carefree idiot that I used to be before. So, I usually flashback to the old times.

I replay to about the first time that we met, about six years ago, and how it felt.