I removed the hairnet, allowing my chestnut curls to cascade upon my shoulders. Mask and shoe covers already in the bin, I collected my bags and headed for the lot. It had been one of those days that seemed like two in one, much like the day my family drove up to the Great Smoky Mountains in hopes of seeing Dolly at her much beloved theme park.

I remember we walked miles around that place, people-watching, picking out candy at the fudge shop, and my mother, always on the look-out for Dolly herself, pointing towards the candy apples. That day was long but filled with wonder and excitement. Today was just as long, yet there was no Dolly. No candy apples.

I reached for the phone in the pocket of my scrub top, and there were no messages. Maybe I’ll text mom and let her know I’m on my way. As I approached my vehicle, I noticed a slip of paper under the wiper blade. Black sharpie bled into handwritten words upon a torn envelope.

I imagine that envelope previously held an invoice that was tossed haphazardly into the floorboard of his work van. Perhaps the words were true, an undying love that never had the chance to blossom. Maybe they were lies, hopes of guiding me towards a path of infidelity, producing excitement to feel like two days in one. Breaking the monotony. Loving the one you’re with, but with a bit on the side.

I crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it into the floorboard of my car. Tit for tat. I turned on the radio and let the windows down, as the breeze cut the streams of saltwater falling down my face. Tiny specs of teardrops, splattered upon the rearview, caught my eye –the mountains, just as far away as the memories I so desperately clung to, laid upon the setting horizon in a haze of orange and blue.

Lindsey Heatherly is an emerging writer, born and raised in Upstate South Carolina. She has work forthcoming in The Scriblerus Arts Journal and Rejection Letters. She works as a pharmacy technician in an inpatient psychiatric hospital and spends her time at home volunteering as a reader for Chestnut Review and raising a strong, confident daughter.