She decided she was happy. At least, as happy as she could be lately. He was gone, leaving her to clean up the mess they always made together; the air thick with unsaid words and unhappy, discontented sighs. It was a fair cry from the former reassurance she used to feel before he became a part of her imagination. Mother had called to whisper another family nightmare, but the panic failed to touch her through the ocean and mountains separating them.
"I know something about those kinds of guys," she had told her mother firmly. "Inflated egos and arrogant manners."
"You know something about manners," her mother reminded her, "You take the knowledge you have for granted."
"Human beings have a curious capacity to take things for granted," she quoted. "Miracles like the daily sunrise fail to astonish because they're commonplace! Repetition and time dull our sense of wonder."
"That is not the point," her mother argued, but in the end, the daughter decided she didn't-doesn't-care. The conversation is short. And for the most part, they always are. She hung up the phone and traced the bedspread again with one finger, following the spiraling lines of a pattern she didn't create and weaving together the threads of guilt she felt at this revelation. It didn't matter, she supposed, hugging her legs.
She pulls her thoughts away from the dark halls she remembers and toward her closet. He is coming back for her soon.
A/N: I'm kinda iffy about tense xD