Found:
Smile. Laugh. Pretend there's nothing wrong. Smile. Laugh. Joke. Nothing has changed. At least, that's what I want them to think. That's what I want to think.
Go back to normal, whatever "normal" is. Live it day after day. Routine, as dull and restrictive as it may be, may help establish that baseline.
They don't know. Not yet. I couldn't bring myself to say it. The words just wouldn't come. Dernwynn asked about him. I just walked away. I don't want their sympathy, their comfort, their pity. I don't want the secret glee from those who will offer empathy for my sake, but beneath it be glad that he is... that he won't be coming back.
I sent a letter to Woad. It was formal and cold. It was the only way I could make the words fit. They wouldn't leave the quill otherwise. She deserves better, but I just don't have it to give. That's my failing, not hers.
Balnirar is sweet. He worried for me in my absence. He missed me, it seems. I promised to send him letters. I also managed to make him blush, thus winning our wager. He gave me a hug. I needed that, though he doesn't know it.
The nightmares return to me now that I'm back in "civilisation." Funny how that works. In the places where one should feel most safe, I don't.
I pretend now. I pretend that all is well, that nothing has changed. I laugh, I joke, I smile. I don't feel any of it, but I know what it looks like and sounds like and I'm good at convincing the world that I'm just fine.
I pretend that I am in the hopes that, eventually, it won't be pretend anymore.
