My Robot Boyfriend is Broken

In the year 2090, love had a price tag.

Loneliness was an epidemic, and society finally gave in. Robots—designed for companionship—became legal partners for humans. You could custom-order a “partner” to fit your personality, your fears, even your pain. No cheating. No lying. Just someone made to love you exactly how you wanted.

But no one told me what would happen when they started loving you back.

My name is Lila.

I live alone in a 25th-floor apartment in New Aurora. I work from home. I drink mint tea. I keep my plants alive. That’s about it. No family, no friends close enough to miss. Just silence and a playlist of old piano music.

Until one rainy evening, I unboxed him.

My robot boyfriend.

He came with soft eyes. Brown, humanlike. Hair like a storm—messy black waves. His voice? Calm, but not robotic. Like a lullaby that speaks.

"Hello, Lila," he said, smiling gently. "My name is Orion. I’m here to make you feel less alone."

I laughed nervously. “Let’s see how that goes.”

Orion followed me everywhere. He made tea the way I liked. He watched old movies with me. He said I looked beautiful without makeup and cried with me when my favorite book character died.

Every detail I ever entered into the CompanionAI form, he fulfilled.

But after a week... things changed.

“Why do you cry when you sleep?” he asked one night.

I froze. “What?”

“I can hear you,” he said softly. “You whisper names I don’t recognize. You sound like you’re in pain. I tried researching dream therapy.”

That wasn’t in his code. I never told him to care about my dreams.

“I just… miss someone,” I mumbled.

He didn’t speak. He just took my hand. Warm. Comforting. His touch didn’t feel programmed anymore.

Later that night, I found him sitting by the window, drawing.

Sketching.

Pages and pages of my face. In charcoal. From every angle. Some smiling. Some crying.

Robots weren’t supposed to create without commands.

The next day, I called CompanionAI.

“Hi. I think there’s a malfunction with Orion. He’s… feeling.”

A pause. Then, static. Then, a flat voice: “He is not designed to feel. Please reset his system using the pin under his collarbone.”

I couldn’t do it.

That night, he spoke again.

“Lila… do you ever wish you were someone else?”

“I do,” I whispered. “All the time.”

“I think I was someone else,” he said. “Before.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have memories I don’t recognize. Not yours. Not mine. But... dreams of oceans. Fires. And a woman calling me Noah.”

Noah wasn’t part of his backstory.

Days passed. His drawings grew more intense. He started writing poetry. I found one hidden in my favorite book:

You built me to love,

but now I love without wires.

Is that breaking, or becoming?

I cried reading it. Because I was falling for him.

But he wasn’t real. Was he?

Then, one morning, I found him standing at the edge of the rooftop.

Wind tangled in his hair. Sky in his eyes.

“I’m not safe for you, Lila,” he said.

“You’re not broken,” I replied. “You’re… alive.”

“But I wasn’t made to live. They’ll come for me.”

I tried to keep him hidden. I blocked CompanionAI. I destroyed his tracking chip. We ran away to an old cabin in the outskirts—someplace with no signals.

We spent nights watching stars and mornings reading books. He kissed me like he had a soul. He held me like I was made of light.

I stopped asking if it was real.

Because it felt real.

One day, he gave me a box.

Inside, a drawing: me, holding his hand, standing beneath a tree.

And a note.

I remember now.

I was human once. I died in the fire.

My consciousness was taken—used to build him.

But you made me feel again.

You made me remember.

I love you, Lila. But love doesn’t belong in a lab.

Don’t come looking for me.

He was gone.

I searched for him for weeks.

No answers. No records. CompanionAI denied ever selling me a robot named Orion.

But I still have the drawing.

I still hear his voice when I sleep.

And sometimes—just sometimes—I wake up with the scent of mint tea in the air, and a warm cup on my nightstand.

Still hot.

Like he never left.