Evening

She looks away from her computer, the white light is making her eyes hurt. Outside, the sun is already setting, she remembered seeing it rise as she arrived at her office. It wouldn't have been so bad, hadn't it been summer. But it was summer, and seeing the sun set while she was still working only meant one thing; she had worked more than twelve hours again. She had been working long days for long, longer than she could remember, longer than she should have. She couldn't remember the point when long days at work stopped being rare and became the routine. By then she spent more time at work than out of it. Hours flew and she was glued to her computer, typing as if there were nothing else in the world. It was all she did, work and go home to sleep. One day after the other, sometimes even during the weekends.

She told herself that it was because she had lots of work to do, that it was temporary, that she would have more time to herself as soon as the project finished. She lied to herself and believed it. But the truth was that she was afraid. She was scared of getting home to an empty house, to receive silence as the only answer when she opened the door of her apartment. She was afraid of facing her loneliness, of having to admit that there were days when she needed someone to hug her. She was afraid of getting into her bed and find only cold sheets. And most of all, she was afraid of having to admit that she had brought all that on herself, that it was her who pushed everyone out of her life, that it was her who never wanted to meet anyone new. She was alone because she made it so. She was alone with her work and that was everything she had.