Changing the implementation of a function, or method, while the program is running is called swizzling. Also known as monkey patching, it's usually a way for a program to change the behavior of libraries whose source code it can't access—like an object defined by the company whose software you're building for.

My methods have been swizzled. All of them. On top of wondering about the bounds of Davis's moral corruption every time I see him, I'm inhabiting hell in my own brain. Paranoia is one thing. Constantly looking over your shoulder, feeling an invisible pair of eyes watching you wherever you go drains your soul.

But there's no shoulder to look over when you're afraid of yourself.

And I am. I'll look up from chopping vegetables for dinner and wonder if this is the knife I'll drive through someone's heart. I look at my reflection in the mirror and see those scarlet irises again, and I imagine my own voice, echoing and deepened like the one in the hallucinations. I stare at Sven as we sit together watching TV and wonder if it's really him I'm seeing, or another vision.

I am drowning. Something is taking me over from the inside out, and if that weren't bad enough, I look over the divider of my desk every day and remember that there is something so bad about Davis that my own fiancé can't even speak about it. The soft tap of his keyboard has become a menacing pound.

It doesn't matter what time of day or night, he hangs over me like a heavy, suffocating blanket. Every inappropriate joke that I ever rolled my eyes at, all the winks, the shady quiet that he fades into whenever Sven is around—why didn't I see it before? Why did I consider him a friend? Why did I ever associate with him?

And the dreams. They're still the same. I haven't left the hallway. I always wake up just before the strange man steps fully into the light. Sometimes I almost think I can recognize him as Davis. Sometimes he has no face, only glowing red eyes. Sometimes I see myself in his place.

I hold Sven tighter at night, and he pulls me closer until I fall asleep. He sees me shaking in the mornings and tells me to work from home if I need to, but we're too close to the release. I need to be in the office, which means that I have to sit next to Davis and pretend like nothing has changed.

I refuse to let Sven to see how much I care about it. I've always thought I was a better judge of people, but in this case Sven was right. I shouldn't be surprised; he usually is. But I can't help a little twinge of embarrassment every time I think of it.

I'm supposed to be smart. I'm supposed to be aware. Why didn't I see any of the red flags right in front of me? Even though Sven arrived before I could blurt out my whole concerning history of mental health issues, I still trusted him enough to think about saying it. What would he have done with information like that?

I manage to avoid speaking directly to him for two whole days, but on the third, my phone vibrates around lunchtime. It's a number I don't recognize, and I press the ignore button, but then I accidentally catch Davis's eye as I turn back to my computer. I stand abruptly, seizing my coffee mug, as his mouth opens.

"Ronnie—"

I pretend I haven't heard him and duck through the kitchen door. I groan when the coffee machine refuses to work, and dash for the stairwell.

I emerge on the fourth floor and practically sprint to their kitchen, silently pushing the door open a crack and slipping through. I'm so laser-focused on setting the mug on the machine that I don't notice the two people standing in the opposite corner of the room. My finger is hovering over the start button when I realize that the noises coming from the other pair aren't exactly conversation. In fact, it sounds more like a drain plug being extracted, several times.

No, that can't be right.

Vaguely, I remember the closed door. I would have questioned it if I hadn't been so intent on running from Davis; the kitchen door is almost always propped open, which is why the whole floor usually smells like everyone threw their lunch in a giant blender and nuked it. Either someone inside wanted privacy, or someone outside got offended by the smell.

One glance over my shoulder is enough to confirm the former. And then my next breath sticks in my throat, solidifying into a half-ton lump of lead that splashes right down into my stomach and settles at the bottom.

Because yes, a couple is kissing in the corner. And I can imagine every little swipe of his lips on hers, every crevice and crack in them because he always forgets his chapstick and can't always get downstairs to borrow mine. I know exactly what his hands on her hips feel like, I know the firmness of the chest that she's pressed against and the warmth radiating from his body as he pulls her closer.

I know, because he's supposed to be mine. My fiancé, my future husband.

My Sven.

My world narrows down to the miniscule space between them. The pounding of blood fills my ears. At first, the scene flickers in front of me, like a television losing reception. Sven's face blurs, and I can almost convince myself that it's only someone who resembles him. The hair might be the same shade of blond, but it's not his eyes that are closed in bliss, and it's not his mouth on someone else's. But it is, and I stare at them in shock.

If someone proposes to you, they love you. If someone cheats on you, they don't love you.

A searing pain splits my head, and I don't realize I've cried out until I notice that the hideous noises have stopped, and both pairs of eyes are on me.

"Ronnie."

That's Sven's voice, but it doesn't sound like him anymore. It doesn't sound like the man I lo—

The next stabbing pain makes even my eyeballs hurt. I think I'm getting a migraine, but damn, I really wish it was something a bit more fatal right now.

It doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense. We're engaged. He proposed to me. He loves me. But he doesn't love me, because he's still got his hands around some girl's waist, even as I stand here, staring at them. He doesn't even have the decency to let her go.

Why? Does he love me, or not? Those two conflicting facts—one of them is untrue. Obsolete. Deprecated. I just gape at them, tears forming in my eyes as I try to figure out which one.

"Ronnie?"

Davis stops in the doorframe, taking up the entire thing with his hands on either edge of the trim. I see his thumbs dig into the wood—I'm sure his other fingers are mirroring them on the other side—and his jaw clenches as he takes in the whole scene.

"Son of a—," he growls, making a beeline for Sven and his strange woman.

An audible sob escapes my lips as I realize the truth.

Davis spins around at the noise, his attention refocusing on me. "Oh, hell," he breathes, changing course and grabbing me instead. "Come on."

I let him guide me with a hand on my shoulder, like the ocean following the pull of the moon's gravity. I can't see past the blur of water in my eyes.

"Come on." I hear the dull thud of a door swinging shut, and I stumble down the stairs after him. Another door, then one more, followed by the click of a lock, and I collapse onto cold, tiled floor. I lean one shoulder against the wall, struggling for breath, feeling warm moisture slide down my cheeks and wondering if this is what being hit by a truck feels like.

"Ronnie."

"Don't say my name," I whisper. All I can hear is Sven's voice, uttering it with no follow-up. No explanation. No reassurance that I'm having a hallucination, that what I saw isn't really what happened. Maybe if I ask my therapist, she can tell me the truth—that I'm insane, that there are drugs that can fix me—anything to make me see reality, because what's burned into my head is not real. It can't be.

"I need my phone." I reach out blindly for it, even though I know it's nowhere nearby. I have to call her. My next appointment isn't until next week. It's not enough.

Davis breaks through my haze of shock. "Are you okay?"

Am I okay? No. I'm crazy. I'm seeing things.

I hear a sigh. "Never mind. That's the stupidest question I've ever asked. Here."

A hand takes my trembling one gently, and then three fingers close around my ring, twisting softly just like I've sometimes found myself doing absently while I think. Then the band slips over my second knuckle, and it's only then that I realize how tightly it gripped my finger. I feel the absence of its weight, on my hand and on my shoulders. I still wheeze, but my chest can expand enough to catch my breath now.

I blink rapidly, and my tears clear just enough to see Davis holding the ring Sven gave to me. He closes his hand around it quickly, hiding it from view. He grabs my shoulders, keeping the last two fingers of his right hand folded over the ring, and gives me one firm shake.

"Ronnie," he says, carefully enunciating each syllable, "Sven is an idiot."

"You don't know him." The response is automatic, so much so that for a few seconds I don't even question why I'm defending him.

Davis, however, does. "Why are you insisting he's better than he is?"

"Because I l—"

Once again, the word love sticks on my tongue. My headache stabs at me again, and I double over, clutching my own head. But this time, something changes. The pain lingers, jolting me with electric fire, but suddenly I go still. Everything stops except my own breath.

Sven wants to marry me. He loves me. But he doesn't love me, because he kissed someone else. He can't love me and not love me. One of those assumptions is wrong. I just need to figure out which one.

"He said he loves me," I whisper, surprised how soft my voice is. "Why would he say that if he was going to do this?"

"Because he's a liar." Davis's answer is quick, like it's as natural as adding one and one. A well-known fact.

"He's not a liar!"

Davis's mouth tightens, but he keeps it shut, and it's a damn good thing. Sven has never, ever lied to me. He wears his honesty like a medal.

Slowly, I become aware of my surroundings. Three unoccupied bathroom stalls sit across from us, and for a moment their toilets beckon invitingly as my stomach turns. But I can't remember the last time I lost my lunch, and I'm not about to start now.

"Ron," Davis calls my attention back to him. "You asked. I'm just trying to say it how I see it. You know how they say actions speak louder than words?" He shrugs. "If he really meant it when he said he loved you, he wouldn't be kissing anyone else."

"But who are 'they'? Who came up with that?" I don't even make sense anymore. But why should I? Nothing else does. I try desperately to get a grip on logic, to reason out how any of this can be true. I squint at Davis. "Did he change his mind?"

Maybe he'd meant it then, and doesn't anymore. He's not a liar. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Davis thinks for a moment, opens his mouth, then stops. It's like he wants to say something else, but what he settles on isn't enough.

"I don't think so, Ronnie."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

I stare at him, and he stares back, and suddenly I realize that I'm locked in a bathroom with Davis. Davis, who I've been avoiding—despite my insistence otherwise—because he isn't any better than Sven. In fact, he's worse.

He must notice the shift in the atmosphere between us, because he suddenly turns businesslike. Grabbing my hand, he presses the ring into it and closes my fingers around it; the edges of the diamond dig into my palm, as if etching the scene in the kitchen even further into my memory.

"Give it back," he says, like it's really that simple, and then he stands swiftly. He steps around me, the lock drags back, and then the only thing left is silence and a hint of breeze as the door eases back into place.

I stagger to my feet and stumble out of the bathroom, toward my desk. But I stop short when I find Sven sitting in my seat, glaring over the divider at Davis, who frowns right back. At the bang of the bathroom door, they both look up, and I hurtle toward the stairs for the second time this hour. Sven stands up to call my name, but it falls flat in the stale air behind me as the door slams shut.

The cold wind blasts me the second I step outside, and I wish I hadn't left my coat at my desk. I wish Sven and Davis hadn't been sitting at my damn desk. Anyone with a shred of common sense would have avoided that spot.

I swipe at my eyes, but there's nothing to wipe away. I am so god damn empty I can't even muster up tears as my world burns.

Give it back. Is Davis so emotionally stunted that he thinks I can just trade this ring in for a new one from any other man? He thinks one person is as good as the next? That I don't love Sven?

I do. I love him. And I wouldn't love him if he was a bad person, because that's not how love works, right? Either he's not really bad, or my internal algorithm is so wrong it's an offense to humankind.

I throw the ring on the sidewalk; it settles into a crack, and I force myself not to look down as I step over it. I stare at the sky instead. Maybe God exists. Maybe he programmed all of us, only he messed me up somehow. His finger slipped on the keys and he made a typo in some important piece of code. Maybe that's why I can't feel. Maybe that's why I wasn't enough for Sven.

I speed up, wondering if Sven followed me downstairs. I don't want to see him. I dart down an alley and break into a run, refusing to glance over my shoulder in case he's there. If I never see him again, I can pretend that he never existed.

I run until my lungs sting, and the wind has finally pulled stubborn tears from my eyes. I can pretend the breathlessness is from gasping sobs. I can pretend the trembling is the remnants of shock.

I can pretend I feel.