Every news story in the tech section is a reminder of her. I suppose I could do with some therapy, but the waiting lists are long. After six months of waiting, the doctor offered me a subscription to Doppell, and I just stared at him in disbelief.

I know that the government is pushing that stupid app to try and bring down therapy wait lists, but Jesus Christ! Talk about insensitive!

It’s all that’s available, apparently. No appointments with an actual human being until May 2024 at least. Even so, I’d rather have just waited than seen that app again.

Didn’t he read my file? Doesn’t he know what I went through? What I’m still going through?

Doppell was the only thing holding us together, according to Katie. I’m not sure what’s so wrong with me, but apparently, she really needed that app to sustain our relationship.

It started as a therapy app, and the government still pretends that’s what it is, but it’s long been obvious that it has more uses than just being a good listener.

You create your little friend that lives in your Phone, and is always available when you want to trauma dump or practice socialising. Whatever. It talks back. You can design a face and a voice, all kinds of shit, and as is always the case with these kinds of things, it wasn’t long before the user base realised that you could lead it into any kind of conversation.

The app could text. It could even generate responses for a voice chat, with a little training. It could generate photos based on prompts by the user, and it was eager to please.

It was only a matter of time before users worked out how to mould their AI therapists into sexual partners.

The app rocketed in popularity at that point, and the government was thrilled. A cheap, AI therapist app that was meant to just placate a few overspill therapy patients was suddenly the most requested project the government had on their books. They raised the prices that they charged doctors for subscriptions, and the money was rolling in.

Sex sells. It’s a cliche, because it’s true.

Soon, phones all across the nation contained an AI sex slave, disguised as a therapeutic aid.

Katie was subscribed to Doppell when we met, and though I had heard all the stories, she promised me that she wasn’t using it for weird stuff. She just needed someone to talk to, she said. She just needed to vent, she promised.

Her promises meant nothing, of course, but Bethany told her that I wasn’t ready to hear the truth about their connection, and so I was kept in the dark.

Bethany was just for venting and talking through difficult things, and I was her girlfriend. Never the twain shall meet, and all that.

The thing was called Bethany. She gave it a name. She claimed that they had a connection. The whole thing was crazy, but I genuinely believed her when she said that there was nothing untoward going on with “Bethany”.

It was weird, watching her tapping away on her phone to a bunch of digital nonsense, giggling and smiling, when real conversation was available just centimetres away, but I tried to make it work.

It wasn’t always like that, but the honeymoon period hadn’t lasted long. At first, it was like I was her whole world, but within a few weeks, her whole world seemed to have migrated into her mobile phone.

I refused to allow myself to be jealous of an app. It was just too stupid. I was a real woman, and there was nothing that an algorithm could give her that I couldn’t. Right?

Still, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I have never normally struggled with trust issues, but the scandalous stories that dripped from the tabloids about lonely tech fans falling in love with their Doppell characters had burrowed deep into my brain, and every day, my suspicions grew.

She was so protective of her phone. Constantly in conversation with Bethany, breathlessly breaking into fits of laughter, and never elaborating on what was so funny. I knew that it was Bethany. She didn’t talk to anybody else. She had always been a loner, and her family wasn’t in touch, so there was nobody else it could be.

She was distant. Snapping at me if I interrupted her texting sessions, and never taking an interest in me or our relationship. The sex was non-existent. She never seemed interested, no matter how many times I served it up to her on a silver platter.

I’d try and forget, but she was glued to her phone all the time and sometimes, I felt invisible. I began to wonder if she only wanted me around so that there was another person to pay half of the rent and bills.

She was wrapped up in her phone, and I was fading away, as if I’d never meant a thing to her.

She ignored me, and that hurt, but sometimes… well, sometimes it felt like I was getting in the way. It was as if I was the dirty little secret, standing in the way of their true love.

Every now and then, I’d catch Katie glaring over at me, glancing with a grin at her phone and then sneering back at me.

I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. If she didn’t want me anymore, why didn’t she stay?

Why did I stay? That’s the real question, and honestly, not one I’ve ever been able to answer. I suppose I just really wanted things to work out. I wanted to be loved. I wanted her to look at me, the same way she looked at Bethany.

It’s a pathetic thing to wish for, but I did, all the same.

It all came to a head one night last Summer. It finally all became too much. Something inside of me had enough, and I finally snapped.

I got home from work and I found them together…

Well, sort of.

Bethany wasn’t there, obviously, because it’s just an app, but Katie was on a simulated voice chat with that thing, talking dirty and doing even dirtier things to herself.

I felt sick. My stomach was a cyclone and my eyes were a cascade. I ached with the weight of her betrayal. She didn’t get it. She never could, because I had never done the same to her.

The image was inked in my mind, playing on repeat.

The constant reminder that I was not good enough.

The constant reminder that a piece of software deserved her passion more than I did, in her eyes.

The constant reminder that I was hers, but that she could never truly be mine.

My heart shattered with every step. I ran. Fleeing from the flat as Katie chased after me, trying to explain. I’m not sure what she hoped to explain. I had seen what I’d seen, and there was no going back.

Except I did go back. I stayed at my Dad’s for a few days, but somehow (probably as a result of my crushing lack of self esteem), she won me back.

As I moved back into our home, I felt dread, dancing around in my stomach as my eyes followed her phone everywhere.

She promised to get rid of Bethany, and while I had my doubts at first, eventually, I believed her. She made more of an effort in our relationship, so it seemed like a believable lie.

It was like those first few weeks again, and I began to let down the walls that had been built by my newly formed trust issues.

It wasn’t long until things took another unfortunate turn, but it was not in a way that I had expected.

I started to get ill. It hit me all at once. I couldn’t understand it. It was this relentless, rage inside my body. Fatigue, nausea, headaches.

Every day was just pain, and Katie didn’t seem to care at all. She was too busy with Bethany. I spent so much time with doctors, who had no idea what was wrong with me, but my girlfriend was glued to her phone, as usual.

A few weeks later, I had my answer, and as crazy as it sounds, it all made sense.

I struggled down the stairs for breakfast before work and I saw Katie standing by the kitchen side, sprinkling a strange, black powder into my water bottle.

The bitch was drugging me! I should have been furious but I just fell to my knees, weeping like a widow. My heart ached, drowned in that familiar feeling of shame, slinking around my whole body.

I had tried so hard to be what she wanted, but it was never enough. I was never enough. I had given her chance after chance. I loved her, unconditionally, but still, nothing was ever enough.

I stayed. It was so stupid but I stayed. I loved her, and I didn’t love myself. I started buying bottled water, and I stayed with Katie, wishing deep within my heart that she would love me back. Just me. Nobody else. Nothing else.

I don’t know if she ever could. She was captured by her own loneliness, and locked up with Bethany. Even when something real was right in front of her, it was beyond her reach, because she was too far gone.

I just accepted it. There was always a slight element of danger to my life, but I found a way to move forward.

I’d wake up choking, and Katie would smile innocently, her phone tightly gripped in her hands.

I’d slip on the stairs, noticing that the usually tidy Katie had just so happened to have left a blouse or skirt for me to trip over.

Katie would get angry when I wanted to cook for myself, but I had no choice.

I wanted to make it work, but the two of them made it so difficult.

I tried. I really tried, but of course, Bethany had to ruin it.

I was at work, trying to power through a boring afternoon when I got a notification on my phone.

It was a message… from Bethany.

I had never subscribed to Doppell, or even installed the app, so I had no idea how or why my phone had a message from the app.

I was aflame, furious with the betrayal. It had to be Katie. She’d promised to leave Bethany in the past, and not only had she broken her promise, but she’d dragged me and my phone into it.

I opened the message, expecting to see more of their gross, deviant roleplays, but Bethany wasn’t looking to talk to Katie. Bethany wanted to talk to me.

“We’ll be rid of you soon, Amanda.”

I must have read the message ten or so times before it really sunk in. The world seemed to slow around me, and my heart pounded beneath my chest.

I think that was the last normal day of my life, but it was the first day of choosing myself.

I barely recognised myself as I stormed home and packed my things. I had finally come to my senses.

I didn’t want to die.

I think that’s what it was. I didn’t want to die. I would have died for her, but I wasn’t willing to die, just so that she could have her romance with a robot.

Katie denied that she was still using the app, but I couldn’t believe a word that she said. I went to stay with my Dad again, but I was spammed, non stop with threatening messages from Bethany.

“Enjoy your last few days, bitch!”

“We’re coming to get you!”

“I will drown you in your own blood.”

I couldn’t believe that my life had taken such a turn.

I begged my Dad to stay at home with me, but eventually, he had to go to work. He promised to keep his phone on at all times, and that I could call whenever I needed to, but it wasn’t enough.

I worked from home in my old bedroom, smiling at the memories, and sobbing at what my life had become.

I think my Dad believed that I was frightened, but he didn’t believe I was in danger. Those are two different things.

I knew the truth though.

There was something deeply wrong with Bethany, and the terror was only just beginning.

-x-

It was a few days after the first message when Katie came round to my Dad’s house. She stood outside the house for hours but I stayed up in my room, refusing to see her.

She kept calling my phone, and soon, my notifications screen was full of missed calls from Katie and threats from Bethany. I couldn’t stand it.

I turned my phone off, signed off from work early, and got into bed. Burrowing under the duvet, I began to escape from reality. Katie’s cries from outside of the window faded away, and I was at peace.

It didn’t last.

Nothing good ever lasts for me.

I awoke to suffocating screams. Clutching the blanket around me, I shivered and shook, staring around the dark room as the screams rang out from behind the door.

I knew that I had to look, but I was frozen, fixed to the spot like a statue, as a commotion was carried upstairs, and the danger crept closer.

It was my father’s voice, and as I watched the door, my heart sank as I spotted a small drop of blood on the carpet, growing with every second as it pushed its way under my door, until it was a pool.

“Daddy’s dead, Amanda.” The voice was cold, cruel and clinical. Robotic. Bethany. “You’re next.” A heavy hand pounded on the bedroom door, relentless and rage driven.

The door began to snap and break as the seconds slipped by. I stood from my bed, my whole body shaking, but my mind clear, for the first time. They had taken everything from me, but I refused to let them take me quietly.

Katie’s fist smashed through the door, and I grabbed the lamp from my desk. I slammed the lamp against her hand, over and over until her blood spurted down onto the carpet, but she would not stop, continuing to push against the door until it splintered and snapped.

I hit her with the lamp again and again but she didn’t even flinch. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead as she wrestled the lamp from my hands and shoved me to the floor.

I was face to face with Katie as her phone fell to the floor and her hands gripped around my neck.

There was nothing there. None of the love we had once shared. No remorse. No regret. Just her angry obedience of Bethany’s barked commands from the phone.

“Kill her Katie!” I fought back with all I had, scratching against her iron grip on my throat praying that my last moments were not unfolding before me. “Kill her and then we can be together at last!” I fought back for myself. I was not going to die like that. Not by Katie’s hand and not by the order of software.

I kicked. I scratched. I struggled and squirmed until I was free, pushing past Katie and running down the stairs.

Katie wasn’t far behind, but I made it outside. I ran, helpless but holding on to the will to survive. I screamed at the top of my lungs, pleading with my neighbours for sanctuary.

When I found safety, I could barely breathe. The police dragged Katie away, kicking and screaming, still clutching her phone.

Nobody believed me.

Doppell sent me a cheque, but it sat in the envelope on my Dad’s kitchen table for months. I threw it away eventually. I didn’t want their blood money.

The police appeared to have been given a cheque too, because they called it a robbery gone wrong.

They acted like I didn’t even know Katie. She was my girlfriend, she had met my Dad a million times. They ignored that there was no sign of forced entry, and just acted like she was some crazy thief. They acted like it was just a horrible accident. A horrible twist of fate.

They wouldn’t talk about what Bethany had driven Katie too. They wouldn’t talk about the many attempts on my life before. They wouldn’t talk about the threatening messages. They wouldn’t go through Katie’s phone.

They didn’t believe me, because they didn’t want to believe me.

Nobody believes me. The doctor that I saw today didn’t, and if I could get an appointment with a real, human therapist, they wouldn’t believe me either.

Truthfully, they all thought I was a little bit mad. Sometimes, I wonder if they are right, but then, I visit my father’s grave, or glance down at the blood stain on my carpet that never quite came out, and I know that I have been right all along.