She could feel it clawing at her as she sat in the room, nudging her, trying to pull her back.
The fantasy was becoming ever more difficult to escape from. The fantasy of her life years from now, successful job, a partner who was her equal and who she could love for the rest of her life, the promise of children, the happy ending that she had always desired.
It was consuming all her waking moments.
The hope that she held in her heart that she would survive this and everything would turn out well.
She hadn't needed to escape into an imaginary world in years.
Not since high school when things were tough.
But with her tall, strong, bull-headed grandfather sitting in front of her, weakening with every breath, it was hard to keep herself in reality.
Reality was rubbish.
It was oxygen tanks and talks of chemo and all the what if... conversations.
The dream was wonderful, it was all consuming and comforting.
But it would never be real because in her dream, she introduced her partner to her grandparents and behind her back, he would ask for her grandmother's ring and they would be at her wedding.
Hell, in her dream, they would see her graduate.
Reality was hoping her grandad wouldn't make it through the summer so that the pain wouldn't be prolonged.
Reality is rubbish.