Solo: My Love Is Like...

[peccadilloparlour]

It hits Pru later that night, after she switches on the light in her beautiful apartment, with all its carefully arranged notes in silver and black, in white and burgundy and mustard, that Violet has really left her. That Pru has let her. That it is over.

Whatever it was they had had.

Like a balloon in her chest, pushing against her ribcage, the realization forces a sob out of her throat. God, what will she do now? What will she--

She needs to get a grip.

Pru walks into her kitchen. Every surface carefully wiped—that is her morning routine after breakfast, the only meal she has in her own place. A vase with a single red rosebud still stands on the counter, a gift from herself to herself the other night, when she’d still been pretending to have a lover.

She picks it up by its stem and crushes the little flower in her hand. She picks up the vase, a lovely slender thing. Lets it slip between her fingers. Ceramic shards scatter on the flooring; droplets of water splatter her stockings.

She supposes that means she didn’t get a grip yet.

She slips away into the bathroom and into her shower, waiting for that balloon to burst into whatever mess she needs to be right now. She has until tomorrow.