a fire spreads

She was losing her mind in the way a fire spreads: slowly, yet it is unpredictable.

It all happened too fast. That's her excuse for herself, her shortcomings, her craziness. One day Travis was there, buying her blueberry muffins (always two. "You're eating for two now, Katie," he would say) and making her breakfast in bed. The next he wasn't. It's as simple as that, yet Katie is trapped.

It all happened so fast...

She keeps seeing him appearing in doorways. His reflection is in the bathroom mirror before she goes to turn on the light.

At night, all of her dreams have become nightmares. At first she tries to ignore it, tries to ignore everything, but she finds she can't. Not anymore.

It used to be that he would disappear for moments of blissful agony, but not anymore. No, now he never leaves, just follows her around all day, doing exactly what he used to.

"Why don't you ever leave me alone?" she whispers, but he never seems to understand. She spends most of he day talking to silence that never replies, except to her.

Get a hold of yourself, Katie. You're seven and a half months pregnant. Travis is gone. Get used to being alone.

And yet she can't. She is swimming -drowning, really- and this is the real world. There is no lifeguard waiting to pull her out. There is no Travis. Travis is gone.

Travis is gone. She repeats it over and over in her head, hoping to find some meaning from it, but if there is any, she can never find it.

Travis is gone. Yet she is with him every waking moment of the day.

Travis is gone. She saw him get hit by the bus, didn't she? She vaguely remembers a funeral, but how can that be true if he's sitting next to her right now, full of smiles and pranks and everything that she fell in love with twelve years ago when he put chocolate bunnies on the roof of her cabin.

Travis is gone. No, Travis is here. She is not losing her mind.

She is not.

It all happened so fast...