A/N: Debt of gratitude to Village Hall for encouraging this. Also recoilandgrace because her stories are lovely and painful.
It's been a year. A year since she left him, a year since she sorted her life out, and still she can't sleep.
She's reorganized, reprioritized, learned to let things go, but it's two-thirty again, and she's still up.
Letting go was good: she's not panicking tonight, not unless she starts brooding on things, and she won't. She won't. All her mistakes, all she's left behind…those were her decisions. She can't have it all, can't control it all, so she's learned to settle for less, be happy with what she has. No, not settle. Celebrate. Revel in her own self-determination and rejoice in the decisions she makes, own them, because they are hers, and at the end of the day, they're what she's left with.
If only it were the end of the day.
It's too late to be up.
She has a train to catch in the morning. She's going in to town to see Emily. The girl's as perceptive as her father was, and Gillian doesn't relish having to explain her dark eyes or the droop in her shoulders, in her smile, in her cover. Maybe Emily won't ask.
She's made it to her room, at least. She tidies her calendar and plans her accessories for the next day. Brushes the lint off a jacket.
It's frustrating, really. She wants to blame him, write it off as his debilitating legacy still shadowing her life, but really, she knows it's all her own fault. No one's making her stay up late; her work load doesn't demand it, her boss doesn't demand it.
Still…deep down, she wonders if it could be him. If she's still not snared in his grasp somehow, unable to move on. It'd be nice to have someone else to blame, have some rational, legitimate explanation for her behavior. But that's all it is, ultimately. A wish. An unfulfilled desire for something that she knows better than to want.
So she sighs and shakes her head, knows she'll get up in the morning vowing to change, knows tomorrow night will find her curled on her bed again, calmly reading a book or flipping through a psychological journal. Maybe writing a letter.
She'll be content, she'll be collected. Complete. Just ignore the stillness of the house and look away from the clock.