just finished the Crème Br?lée for the dessert table, and he grabbed my ass.” I’m shaking from head to toe in anger, trying to keep my voice even. “He asked if he could talk to me, and I nodded all sweetly.” She laughs, knowing I’m not one to be sweet. I’m bitter and haughty, that’s why they call me Hotwheels.
“I followed him to the lounge room, the one connected to the bathroom in the commons area.” She nods, accepting my information, and I continue with bated breath, hating what comes next. “While he searched the room for lingering staff and attendees, I turned my phone’s recording on. He didn’t even lock the door. His confidence astounds me to this day because he believed he’d get what he wanted from me. It was easy after that; his delusions are what made him fail. If you call him forcing himself on me easy. He started telling me how much he liked me working for him, and that if I was a good little chef-in-training, he promised me a future at any location I wanted. He groped me, and I told him to back off, that I wasn’t interested. He proceeded to call me a slut and a tease, and that if I didn’t fuck him, he’d fire me and blacklist me from working for any five-star restaurant in the future.”
Her cigarette, all but forgotten to the point that the ash is long enough to break off itself, falls to the ground as she hiccups. Tears flood out, her body shaking like mine. Instead of anger, hers are shudders of disgust and sadness. “But I’m okay. I kneed him in the balls and threatened to turn him in if he so much as brushed past me again.”
Robbie comes over to me and brings me into a hug. I’m not much of the hugging type, but brushing her off seems callous. She squeezes me for a moment longer while I inhale deeply, reminding myself she’s not him. She isn’t hurting me. “Instead of staying somewhere I didn’t feel safe, I left before he could find a way to fire me.”
“I’m so sorry, Joey.” After Robbie takes a long drag, she grinds the bud using the heel of her work boots, then turns back to me with a frown.
“I’m not. He reminded me why being strong is important. Now, you need to be strong, too.” Robbie pulls back, her eyes red and puffy. She probably thinks I’m crazy for not shedding a single tear. But when you have certain life experiences, you tend to grow stronger, not weaker.
“I-I—” she stutters, “I don’t know how.”
I nod, understanding her entirely. You don’t know how strong you are until it’s the only option left. She needs that to be her only option. “I don’t want to scare you, Robbie, but you need to walk away. He’s sexually harassing you, and I wouldn’t doubt that he put something in your drink that night to take advantage of you. It won’t get better, no matter how many times you tell yourself otherwise. He’s a sleazebag.”
She seems so small right now, like my words are hurting her more than this man ever did. “How are you so wise for such a young woman?” Her question shocks me. Age is only a number in the game of life. You can experience so much at such a young age. It can define you, it can even break you, but the choice is entirely yours. My dad doesn’t even know the half of it. How could he? He lives in a blissful bubble of ignorance. A palace of his own making where the only thing that matters is her and money.
Either way, I’m wise because it’s the path I took.
It’s the only choice I decided on after France.
No pity parties or slaving away at scars, it’s pure drive to never be a victim ever again.
“Experience,” I reply in short, watching as awareness flickers in her gaze. I nod, not wanting to talk about it. It’s the past. That’s not a page I ever intend to turn back to.
Looking down at my arms out of habit, where my scars reside beneath the knitted fabric of my long-sleeve shirt, I sigh.
The past has the ability to destroy you if you don’t leave it behind.
Scars don’t define you, not if you don’t allow them that right.
“Either way, he reminded me of the future I’m working for. He was only a step in the long staircase of my