When she was young she’d dreamed of being a dancer. She’d had the right look. Long legs, svelte and athletic. She had pretty toes and fingers. The dream hadn’t lasted all that long. It had been hard to look past her nose very often.<br/><br/>Mom had been sick more frequently than she was well. Sometimes it was her body, sometimes it was her mind. When mom had gotten too tired, she’d found rest outside an eighth story window. With just Dad and her left, the apartment had felt too big. He’d found company in the bottom of liquor bottles. When her October-grey eyes were too much like Mom’s, he’d bruise her face and shout. She’d found her own forms of escape. There were boys in the neighborhood that didn’t mind sugaring her tongue with pills and holding her down in their beds. She never knew if she liked it much, but it had been something to think about besides home. It had been somewhere to be besides home.<br/><br/>When she’d felt herself grow tired too, it had been on her suggestion that they’d moved: a small flat in a little city, three hours from Mom’s headstone. It had the same sounds at 3 AM and the buildings were still too close together. But, at least the cars were different. The stray dogs were different. It was enough that she didn’t feel like her mother’s ghost was hanging. Dad must have felt it too, because he’d stopped holding her arm too tight and calling her Margot when he was wasted. He still drank, but at least he stayed locked up in his room. Sometimes, she thought she still wanted to help him. But, then they’d pass each other in the kitchen and he’d look at her like she was the worst sort of memory.<br/><br/>She would remind herself that she could save enough money to move out on her own, if she just kept her head down a little longer.<br/><br/>Emmie rolled out of bed at half-past ten, blinking sleep from her eyes and pushing her wild, dark hair out of her face. She had the genetic fortune of an easy sort of pretty that wore her lackadaisical sense of fashion like it was deliberate. She was usually half-dead until she’d had her morning coffee, shuffling about her room aimlessly until she resolved to go down to the café at the end of the block. Today, she hadn’t been assigned any shifts though, so she didn’t have much reason to make the trip. Instead, she took a seat at her window, pushing it open and propping her feet on the sill. A cigarette hung from her lips as she settled in to wait for the fog to clear from her head. She didn’t sleep well, most nights.<br/><br/>Across the way, she could see her neighbor settled in and working at a canvas. Emmie has seen her sitting there often enough, and even recognized her from the café she usually sourced her caffeine. “Good morning,” she mumbled around the filter, to herself more than the girl next door. They’d never spoken, but she felt a little like they shared something in their routines. Once in a while, Emmie would comment on the weather, and it was like a joke with herself because the girl would most certainly never hear. Emmie yawned, catching the cigarette between her fingers. The thin tail of smoke rising, an old t-shirt with holes worn through, hair like black coffee coiling in wild waves against her pale cheeks. In a way, she made for a modern sort of Mona Lisa.<br/><br/>She’d meant to wake up and get a start to the day, but the air was cool and the sounds of traffic were a droning constant. At some point, Emmie must have nodded off, cigarette still trapped between her fingers and sprinkling ash on the floor.