Some days she feels like a prisoner in her own home. There’s no reason why she can’t go out, of course. Nobody could tell from simply looking at her. But on days like today, it feels as though someone has peeled back a layer of skin, leaving her face red raw, offering no protection from the elements. From anything. On these days she hides away, waiting until she feels able to face the world again; ready to put her mask back on, to keep smiling.
She wonders sometimes how long she will be able to keep it up. For ever? In some ways, she’s so used to keeping this secret that it comes naturally. And on the days when it doesn’t, when she yearns to open her heart, her mouth, to let it come spilling out, he is there to remind her, as he has been over all these years. Keep quiet. Don’t tell. The consequences will be worse for you than for anyone else. He’s just trying to protect her, she knows that, and is grateful for it.
So she carries on, shaking off those thoughts of the past that haunt her. It’s not only the past that scares her; she fears the present too, some days, and not even staying at home helps. Sometimes she feels even more suffocated there than she does out in the world.
She keeps her circle small because she finds it hard to trust people. Even those who she does let in don’t know the whole story, or even half of it. He is the only one who understands. Only he has helped her, reminded her that other people are not to be trusted with their story.
She doesn’t need reminding that not everyone is what they seem. She of all people knows that only too well.