𝖋𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 𝖕𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗 ⋆ 𝕶𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓 𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖔𝖓𝖊

╔═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖✰〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══╗

There's nothing inside Daisy now. That much is for certain.

Where once there were fields of memories, a tide of emotions that ebbed and flowed, a wealth of knowledge and feelings that made her feel more human, there is now the burnt husk of something that was lit on fire and put out too late.

Daisy feels it in her fingertips, no longer buzzing with electricity but weights at the ends of her hands. She feels it in her feet, far too heavy to break connection with the ground she's planted onto. Mostly, though, she feels it in her heart. She'd rather have taken an ice pick to the chest than to feel this... this harsh emptiness. This feeling of not being quite whole and not knowing what she needs to fill the void with to regain her soul.

It's strange to mourn a version of yourself that never truly existed. Daisy Cohen was a figment of a person that nobody ever really met. It was the polished girl that Daisy looked into the mirror and saw smiling back at her, lip gloss and straightened hair and denim cut-offs that showed her lean thighs. She would say hello to the other athletes in the dorm, she would get lunch with girls from her classes. She would pretend that the letters from her brother in prison didn't make her dry heave to even think about and that the nightlight beside her bed was for aesthetic purposes and not because she was terrified that one day she would open her eyes in the dark and it would all just be... gone.

Almost like it is now. She fucked up, and she fucked up bad. Like, existential levels of bad. Biblical apocalypse levels of bad. Her future is almost certainly ruined, and everything she's been working towards since she was a kid is dashed.

That's what she thinks to herself, knees drawn so tightly into her chest that the airbag in front of her would do no good if they crashed, for the two-or-so hours west on the I-26. The man beside her shoots furtive glances her way. She doesn't look back, because her head is too full of nothing to care.

She's trying so, so hard to care. It just doesn't come as easily as before.

At some point she dozes off. She keeps weird hours now that her system is clean, and rest comes in what furtive snatches she can steal from the sandman. He dangles the concept of sleep over her head in the funny way that he always has, except now her constant exhaustion leaves her unable to jump to catch it. She watches him, feet buried into the ground and arms leaden at her sides, with eyes brimming with tears that won't fall. It's been four months since she could just crush a couple of pills and fall into dreamland for hours. Now all she has are these little moments she can dig her fingers into and milk for all their worth.

A violent shudder is what wakes her. The driver stalled the car at the best of moments, right in his parking spot outside of the apartment building. He looks over at her.

"Sorry," he says. "Been meaning to replace the damn thing for years, but you kids keep me too busy to go check out the car yards."

Daisy blinks.

She unfolds herself and clicks her seatbelt while the man is wrestling her bag out of the backseat. She wasn't allowed to take much with her on such short notice, but her roommates had managed to cram a duffel with everything she might need on her stay. It was sweet, really, all of the things they'd tried to sneak in for her. Candy, a photo album, her little pink nightlight, an unassuming mobile phone tucked into the lining. It was all discovered and taken away. Almost how most of the things she's ever felt were taken away, too.