I groggily looked around the room, confused. My hair was sticking on end and I had to wrap myself in a robe to stop myself catching a cold. I knew I shouldn't have been so worried, it's not as if David would have strayed far. But I had never woken up to an empty bed before; as soon as David was asleep, he slept soundly through to the morning. It wasn't like him to get up during the night, and the fact that I hadn't woken up confused me slightly. I had been leaning onto David last night when we finally drifted off to sleep, so I would have been woken if he'd left me considering how light a sleeper I was.

I walked unsteadily towards the door. I felt awful, I knew I must be coming down with something because I felt as though I wanted to throw up, and falling asleep on my feet wasn't exactly out of the question either.

My feet gave out beneath me as I tried to make my way into the living room meekly calling David's name. Someone was in the living room but it wasn't the person I was calling for. In fact, it was the last person I wanted to see; the person that made me feel sicker to my stomach than I already did feel.

It was Katie.

"Sam," she smiled sweetly. I wanted to hit her as I saw the feign concern in her eyes. "You look tired. Maybe you should go back to bed; you don't look at all healthy. Are you sure something hasn't been slipped into your drink?"

I looked at her, angered by her boldness to admit her involvement so casually. "What did you do?" I whispered, tears springing to my eyes. "What have you done to me and David?"

"David?" Katie actually looked shocked. "I didn't do anything to David, he came to me of his own free will. Have you noticed how this place depicts everything your interested in and little of what David is? That's because he was planning on leaving you all that time. In fact, he helped me put the sleeping pills into your drink this evening - do you honestly believe I would have succeeded alone?"

I was shaking now, trying to hide my tears behind my hair, but I knew she could see them and took satisfaction inn doing so.

"You're pathetic, did you know that? You're so scared and insecure that David didn't even have heart to break up with you himself, I had to do it for him. Does that even annoy you? The fact that your own boyfriend - well, ex - who was with you for two years found you too pathetic to leave you? Its actually quite amazing, though, really, isn't it? He was looking for an excuse to rid himself of you and then I come along and he falls completely in love with me, as men are obviously prone to. I mean, can you actually imagine having a body like this? Every man wants me, but only your boyfriend was given the time of the day. He must have felt so proud of himself because he had actually managed to get the attention of the most beautiful person in the entire college."

She sounded so self-obsessed. I remembered the gloating smile on her face earlier and I knew right away that the reason she was smiling like that before was because she knew of what would happen later on. David had promised me we'd be together forever. He made love to me last night and the look in his eyes…..I honestly thought he loved me. He told me loved me…..he had a life plan for us, we were going to spend the rest of our lives together!

How could he do this to me? I was whimpering as Katie went on to talk about how she and David had been cheating on me behind my back since they'd met.

"He was loyal to you, though, of course. At least for a little while. I think he managed to resist me until Christmas - do you remember that he called you to say he was sick? He wasn't sick, Samantha, he was in bed with me and you were the last thing on his mind! I have to say, you have managed to keep a very powerful secret in your bed the past few years - he was amazing. He knew exactly what I wanted, he made me go completely crazy. I almost understand now why you acted as though you needed him so much - no man has ever done what he did to me." She muffles a squeal and I want to throw up, disgusted. "I have him now, Samantha, and you're not going to get him back. He's mine now; let him go, like he's let you go. He doesn't want you anymore, so don't pine for him. Forget about him, move on - go to a different college. I know you're a good artist, so you would be happy in another arts college. Just move on with your life."

The fake sympathy on her face disgusted me and the desire to throw up was intensified but nothing compared with the hatred I felt for her and how much I wanted to hit her for doing this. She didn't want me to move on with my life, I knew that. She was taking satisfaction out of the idea that I was going to pining over the boyfriend I lost to her, and that I couldn't get him back.

I tried to argue with her, though. I tried to tell her that David loved me and that he wouldn't live without me, no matter what happened between us, no matter who he met at college or anywhere else. He wouldn't have said about us being together forever if he was going to break up with me that very same night.

And if he did break up with me, I couldn't believe that he would actually do it through his new girlfriend. In fact, he WOULDN'T do it through his new girlfriend; he would have had the decency to do it himself, he wasn't the type of man to let another person do his dirty work for him - he was too much of a gentleman.

I couldn't believe David did this. In fact, David wouldn't! She was lying to me, I know she was. I wanted to argue then, even more forcefully than originally, but I felt as though I were fighting a losing battle, as if my eyelids were too heavy to keep open.

I collapsed onto the floor, my entire body succumbing to its own weight. I was breathing heavily, and I felt my own body convulse, but Katie just laughed, mildly explaining it were a particularly horrible side-effect of the drug.

My body tried fighting back but it was too late……..everything went black.

When I awoke the next morning, my whole body felt dense and immobile. I wanted to scream and shout and search for David. I wanted to see him agai8n, to look into his bright green eyes and for him to whisper that he loved me. I needed him to do that. I understand that a woman should be independent and never feel as though she needs another man - or woman - in her life to be comfortable, but I DO. I need David; I love him and I always have. I could never survive without him.

With great effort, I somehow managed to pull myself up from the floor and I looked around at the apartment and felt a tear carefully slide down my face. We had no pictures up yet, but David had already decided which ones were going to be on the wall. There was one that I couldn't remember being taken but we looked so together in that my heart just crumbled to look at it.

We were at the ceremony where I was awarded my medal, at least I thought so, judging from my blue suit. David was holding my hand and I was looking up at him; he must have said something funny because I was giggling happily and he was smiling down at me, his eyes creasing.

"David," I murmured. "Come home."

I let another tear fall down my face but I brushed them away angrily after a few seconds. David was MY boyfriend and I was the one he told every night that he would love forever, not HER! He isn't hers, she was lying to me.

I brushed aside the voice in my head that was constantly whispering that David wouldn't have left the apartment unless it was of his own free will. I had been overcome with drugs, but David hadn't. If he had, he would have been dragged out of the apartment - which means I would have felt him being tugged away from me, and heard the front door being forced open. That meant that David left willingly, without being forced. He left with her.

She was telling the truth, the voice was saying. He didn't want to live with you; he was just humouring you and you just went along for the ride.

But then there was other part of me telling me she must have tricked him, that he had gone to answer the door and she was standing there, acting like the damsel in distress, maybe pretending she'd been mugged and wanted to go to the police but she was scared of being alone. If she'd done that, he would have gone with her, all thoughts of me waking alone flying out of his head in his desperation to help her. Then she would have brought him to her place, wherever that was, and hit him so that he would get knocked out while she went to deal with me. Most likely, she was hoping that I would swallow her lies and get as far away as I could from David. She was planning on me seeing through her deception.

I sat on the sofa for a while, silently willing myself to calm down and breathe deeply. I could hardly help David get away from her when I was acting like a crazy person. I settled my thoughts clearly and I remembered all the conversations I'd had with David about Katie. I knew she didn't live on the campus, but in every one of our conversations, he never mentioned what district she lived in, what street. Nothing.

But she might have been listed. A girl like Katie wouldn't have kept information like her phone number quiet - she is that self-obsessed that she would want as many people as possible knowing her number and address, just so she could get an ego boost.

I called the operator and smiled to myself as she told me there was only one Katie Sofia Carlton within my area and the address and number was listed. I jotted down both on a pad and laughed quietly to myself as I looked down at my scrawling.

I was going to find David.