couple holding hands, pass by. I rub my hands over my face and stand from the bench seat, ready to make the walk home. Ali hasn’t come back. My feet keep me in place while my mind tells me to wait. Just a few more minutes, she’ll turn up. After two weeks, I’m doubtful she’ll be back now. Every night I’ve come back here to the bridge, hoping she’ll come back so I could see how she was doing. At least, find out more about her so I could keep an eye out for her. But I’m as helpless now as I was when I was a kid, because I can’t help her, just like I couldn’t help my mother. I had no way to find her, and every day she doesn’t come back leaves me wondering what she returned home to the night she left me standing on the bridge. I shuffle on my feet, forcing myself to leave and hang my shoulders in defeat.
Four Years Later
I flatten the needle against my skin plunging it in deep. Oxycontin flushes through my veins and the rush pulls me under almost straight away. My eyes close for a second, relief settles over me. For a brief moment, I forget about the music pumping in the background. I forget about the girls surrounding me, getting prepped to go on stage or have just come off. Cheap perfume and alcohol no longer linger on my skin like a constant reminder of what makes up my life. But the moment doesn’t last long. One of the girls sits to my right, brushing her hair in the mirrors in front of us without batting an eyelash at me. Most of them don’t care around here, they all know I use and half of them do too. We’re all here for one reason or another. They’ve either been forced to be here, or they want to be here. I don’t know which riddles me with disgust more.
I lean over, my make-up scattered on the counter in front of me and check my face in the mirror. My bright pink lips stand out, but my eyes pop with the shit ton of black crap shadowed around them. No one would ever guess underneath the make-up is a nineteen-year-old girl doing what she has to survive in this screwed up world. I sit back down in my seat, biting my nails as I stare at the floor, concentrating on the seductive lyrics, the beat of sultry music while I wait for my cue. The fog in my head thickens. It’s my escape and my reality. My perfect world where nothing can hurt me. No one can touch me. Get past these walls because I’m lost. Lost in a place with only myself, and it’s fucking wonderful. No voices. No memories. Nothing but bliss.
I stagger to the main stage from the dressing rooms of Sweet Tarts tripping up the stairs, but I don’t fall. Something tightens around my arm, holding me up. I blink through the fog still clouding around me and I see a flicker of long red hair followed by a whisper.
“Ali, you need to pull your shit together before Giuseppe or Lucio sees you. They’re both here tonight. You might not care if you kill yourself but I do.”
Silver’s voice swirls in the air. Standing up straight, I squint my eyes closed in an effort to pull myself together, but when I reopen them Silver’s face blurs in my vision.
“Fuck.”
My head spins.
“Yeah, well, what do you expect,” she mutters pushing me toward the stage, hand at my lower back.
I turn back before stepping out into the lights and cheers coming from the audience as I’m announced. “Thanks, Silver.”
She gives me a warm smile filled with pity. That’s how pathetic I’ve become—a prostitute with no family, no future, and hardly any life in her feels sorry for me.
Fire burns all the way down my throat as I take another shot of bourbon. My eyes never waver from the half-naked ass shaking in front of me. Small, round—fucking delectable. Light flickers off the silver pole as she swings around it in perfect precision, her long dark hair flowing behind her. Her eyes lock onto mine as she grinds against the pole. My cock stiffens and I relax back in the seat to adjust the ache growing below my belt. She watches me as I reach down and give my cock a squeeze. Lust pulses through me and I