Carry it around like marrow in your bones. Her body runs on autopilot, taking orders and smiling, finely-tuned muscle memory. Some days, she finds herself standing in front of her front door, hand on the knob, and does not remember anything between eleven a.m. and now. Other times, she watches herself from someplace else, the red-haired woman who chuckles at shitty jokes to keep her tip above ten percent, a stranger wearing Daphne’s clothes.
Maybe it’s more like swimming than autopilot, Daphne thinks. The world around her muted, a constant burn in her chest. Sometimes, she holds her breath until her vision vignettes.
She’s thought about going back home, packing her things after handing in notice. There’s no car for her to take. The busses don’t go as far as her hometown. Daphne spent so much time traveling in high school, she never realized how a car can be an anchor. How without an anchor, a person can be pulled, run aground and stranded somewhere they never meant to go.
Emily Capettini is a queer fiction writer from the Midwest who loves a good ghost story. Her work has appeared most recently in Dream Pop Journal, Passages North, and Permafrost Magazine. Her chapbook, Girl Detectives, is forthcoming from Porkbelly Press. Find out more about her at emilycapettini.com. Twitter: @pollycocktail
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