Monotony.

Her life had become an exercise in nothing.

Every day it was the same old routine, with no hope of a morsel of variation in sight: wake up, agonize over the cryptic message offered by the deck, go to school, masquerade as a proper student, make sure to eat something to at least feed herself once a day, return to her apartment, do whatever schoolwork she needed to do for that day, go to sleep, and repeat.

The only thing that ever varied was the kind of food she ate when she remembered she was a human that needed dietary sustenance and the cards that she received for the daily spread. It was all repetitive droll.

If there was at least one good thing about this routine, it was that it left no space for her to agonize over social media. Whatever was occurring within Bennie's life was unknown to her. And considering that there was nothing truly important occurring within her own life, she was more than happy to remain ignorant towards whatever fascinating, fun, and exciting things her ex-boyfriend was undoubtedly filling his own life up with.

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Even though she was aware that the phrase misery loves company existed for a reason, she was more than happy to fester within her solitude. There was even a sense of freedom finally being alone gave her; trapped within her own mind, relishing within her own sadness, swallowed up by all the uncertainty, fear, and anguish as she may have been... At least everything that she was feeling now was hers only. No one was here to dictate what to do... How to feel... How to get over Bennie's betrayal.

She knew that eventually she would have to claw her way out of this prison of her own creation. Eventually she would have to respond to her family's messages with more than just meaningless replies of promises she would never fulfill; eventually she would have to give her friends more than just “I'm OK I promise please just give me space I'll text you when I'm ready” as a response to their messages of concern; eventually she would have to face the world again and step out and back into the real world.

But she was on her own timeline now. And her timeline said that she was not going to leave her loneliness until she was well and ready.