Papers were flourished and lawyers consulted, our signatures revealing nothing of the triangle between us: Hade's desire for me, my love for his best friend, and his greed for the wealth of my betrothed.

Soon after I began to reveal a sickness of the mind, doing so with a degree of subtlety, even though I had, in truth, long been afflicted by strange thoughts and visions. They, as with many of my habits, were lost on the man I was to marry, one who had eyes only for that which lay without, preventing him from seeing any malady within.

Still I sank into the arms of his friend and we planned and plotted, we loved and I let myself be loved. I was adrift even then, far before there was a man whose wife went mad on the night of their wedding, before as newlyweds we shut ourselves away to consummate the marriage and I shuddered at his touch, bringing everything to head in a single sentence:

I am afloat a sea on a raft of doors.

His hands withdrew and he stepped back as I let my eyes roll to reveal their whites, sure that only such a sign would finally convince him of his wife's condition.

The men in white came shortly after, the time prior to their arrival spent with my husband holding the hand that bore his diamond ring. I was seated upon a wooden chair, rolling my eyes while repeating the notion that I was afloat, the statement not in truth a lie.

I knew they would come, those men in white, for it was all part of the plan, all arranged. They took me away, removing me from a house that would have been my prison to lock me in a room of white cotton with walls so soft I could sleep standing if I wished. Yet sleep was not my due, and so I settled on the floor to sit and wait, aware that it may take time but unable to keep my eyes from the single rectangle of grey behind which lay the world he was passing on his way to save me.