Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
In Reality
***
At first, she thought that maybe it was just a nightmare.
So, for the first few days, she waited.
Just waited. Hoping.
Hoping that she would catch a glimpse of his yellow truck coming down the street, stopping at her house.
Him waiting for her.
Then, she'd get in and they would drive, far away, far from reality. To once again belong in their world—just him and her—their reality, where she was happy content…herself.
But, his truck never came—he never came.
"You need to move on," people would say.
She would close her eyes, tightly, preventing tears. Why was she about to cry? He would come, wouldn't he?
"What?" she would reply to them. She tried to play dumb, oblivious, act like it never happened. It was just easier—easier than the truth.
"Move on. He wouldn't want you to act like this," they would insist.
Her eyes would squeeze, if possible, tighter. Sometimes a tear would fall. Sometimes. "I'm waiting for him. He'll come, you'll see." Wouldn't he? He had to.
Sometimes she thought she actually believed it. That he would come. Sometimes, it scared her, but she still couldn't stop hoping.
She knew people thought she was crazy, but she didn't care.
People just didn't understand her, not like he did. He understood her, they understood each other.
She continued to wait, for weeks, and after a month, when he never showed, she began to worry—to doubt. She didn't know why, maybe because reality, a tiny glimpse of it, began setting in, making her heart feel empty, cold…lifeless.
She worried that everything—his death, his funeral—was not just a nightmare.
Could nightmares become reality?
After a while, she stopped waiting, and instead, began to drive. Because, deep down, she knew—knew he wasn't going to show. She just couldn't admit it. Admitting would mean facing reality—a place she didn't want to be.
She drove for hours, for miles, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, trying to grasp onto the reality she was living and the one she wanted to forget.
He was gone, he had left her.
She continued to drive, trying to feel again. Without him she felt hollow, lost…broken.
Sometimes when she drove, she felt alive—she could finally breathe. Sometimes she would forget, and sometimes…remember.
She didn't know which was worse, forgetting or remembering.
The problem was, he was gone. Waiting, driving, and hoping weren't going to change that. She had tried to deny it, tried to go back to their world. But, he had left her, crushing their reality—it didn't exist anymore. She couldn't grasp it, couldn't find it.
Keith had left her, left her to suffer, by herself—to face reality, alone.
Fin.