Suppressing time had become one her specialties.
And she had never waited more patiently for something in her entire life.
The train pulled up, she stood in her chair. They both got off, she stood in her chair. They hugged their family and friends, she stood in her chair. They shared a kiss, and although she gripped her seat a little tighter than normal, she stood in her chair. When the program was over and her television immediately shut off, she stood in her chair.
She listened to the sounds in her house. The faint sound of her mother breathing downstairs in the room on the left. The birds flying, chirping and winding their way through the air. The way her house made the occasional creak, indicating that there could possibly be a spirit wandering the walls of her house. She wouldn't be surprised, it was an old house.
Just to suppress the time, she made a story of the spirit. Possibly a lost soul of the mayor's wife who died before her father became mayor of District 12. It'd be nice to know that her mother wasn't the only walking dead person in her house. It suppressed her for an hour and a half. It was a good, well thought-out story and situation of this spirit. It blocked her mind from what actually was going on in her current life. But after all that thinking and pondering, even the story came to an end, and she was left back with her emotions.
Still, she stood in her chair. She was afraid to move for about three specific reasons.
Her mother thought that she was at the ceremony for the returning victors... she was not. To make a move would indicate that she was home. And she didn't want that. So she stood in her chair.
Moving would require risking the choice of letting her body control her, and she might just end up running to his new house and flinging her arms around him with such power and force that she could strangle him to death, so she stood in her chair.
And the last reason, was risking the fact of breaking down to the floor in a pile of hysterical tears. And there was no real reason for that, so she stood in her chair.
She took this time to notice how the wonderful light yellow color was just the greatest thing she had ever seen in her entir-
The door downstairs pushed open.
No, not the front door her father would use when he arrived. Nor the back door that she would open when Gale Hawthorne came with her meal of the night.
It was the secret door in the basement. The one only she would be able to hear. A sound she has not heard in a while. She shut her eyes and stood in her chair, making her body so rigid that she was physically hurting herself as she gripped her seat. Then the silent sound of someone coming up the back staircase; a sound so faint but she had trained her ears to hear over time. It seemed almost impossible for tears to fall from her eyes considering she was shutting them so tight, but they came anyways.
Then her door opened and she let out a choking sounds, but she didn't open her eyes; she stood in her chair. "Madge?" his voice rings and she finally can feel it. Her emotions and the final crack of her heart. Hands grip her arms and a voice, that's pleading and sobbing is reaching her ears. "Madge, I'm home."
Suddenly there's a loud sob and a bang, as both bodies fall to the floor in a huge embrace.