She caught the next available flight home. She'd spent the waiting hours systematically removing all traces of her online self. The person who had appeared out of nowhere and produced those astounding words - she deleted her, unpublished even those writings written in secret, her hiding him in plain sight and oh the pain of it! Each time her finger punched the 'unpublish' button, another small part of her faded... she, the woman who had chanced upon him, and in doing so, was morphing now into this creature who stared with dead eyes at other passengers engrossed in their own screens.

It was systematic, it was emotionless, the act of obliterating all traces of that woman. Maybe he would search for her, maybe not. His life would continue just as surely as hers would. The only unknown was how he'd react to that woman's disappearance. She attached no pain to this, no loss. Plenty of others like her he could chance across, she was no special thing.

Back at home, she ignored everyone's concerns and the barrage of questions. Headed up the stairs and dumped her suitcase on the bed. She lit a cigarette - something she never did indoors but hell, it was freezing out, and she felt so bloody cold despite being in her room, despite the heating set to a balmy 24 degrees - something she allowed no one to mess with.

Without properly looking up, she tugged at his photo. Placed it face-down on her desk. The greatest words ever written followed... these she placed on top. Later to be burnt perhaps, or scattered in small pieces to the wind some place away from here. Not placed in the rubbish - no! No landfill claiming this most treasured love.

'You okay?'

Her eldest son stood in the doorway.

'You were right babe. Nothing online is real.'

She knew his eyes would wander to her wall.

'He messaged me. Asked me if-'

'Shhh.' She placed a finger on her lips. 'I don't want to know.'

'Ummm... I'm sorry... he was - you know - he was good for you?'

'He was hon... he was. Only, he wasn't...real?'

'Wanna go to the supermarket? We can have some fun there?'

'Not just yet. Later maybe?'

'Does later mean what it used to mean mum?'

Her son left her with this question. She sat at her chair, powered up her trusty desktop computer and stared at the empty screens, her previous session restored, only now every former well-loved tab prompted her to 'join' or 'create an account'... She closed them down one by one.

Her gaze drifted to the picture on her wall, the penciled hand reaching out from a page of words; the words drawn up, dragged into the emerging hand, leaving empty spaces behind... She'd always thought of it as his hand, reaching out to her. Now it was a reminder. Words - her words - had no place to be other than in her mind. Lesson learned, finally.