Her Secret World

She sat quietly on her bed. Daring not to breathe. She sat and dreamed of a new world, a new life. Even the slightest breath would blow that fantasy away forever. She dreamed of a world far from her own. A quiet apartment where she would spend her days covered in paint and cookie dough. The walls would sparkle as her small cat wove around her ankles. Were she to stick her head out the window, as she often did to watch the sunrise, she could smell loaves of bread baking at the bread shop down the street. Most of all she was free there. Free to laugh. Free to love. Free to embrace the world around her in her joy. Inevitably that breath would come though. Her world, evaporated like a puff of smoke. She would sigh and go on with her day, her world locked up so tightly in her heart that even she forgot it was there sometimes.