Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
What would Faith say if she saw me now?
What would Lily say?
What would that little girl who was curled up in a lumpy bed, broken and violated, say? The little girl who had had her innocence wrenched from her tiny body before she had time to realize it was something to be stolen?
They’d all rear away from this stranger in disgust. I’d do the same if such a thing were possible. But I couldn’t run from myself. Couldn’t escape nightmares when they existed when I was awake. I could only choose the things to make it bearable to stumble through the life I’d been given.
I chose the easiest escape. What was another mark on an already stained soul?
Four months later
I was flying high. Not exactly high; that’s what the pills did. Shot me into space until I was floating and plucking stars from the air. Heroin was different. Gave me a happiness that had been unfamiliar until that first hit. It wasn’t just happiness, but contentment. Life, for the first time since forever, was okay. I was okay. It wasn’t gray anymore; it was color, it was fresh. My job wasn’t dirty, or shameful. It was fine. It was good.
And the grief melted away. It still existed, but it wasn’t draining me. It was part of me. It was okay.
Since the moment we buried Lily’s mom—my mom—I had relied on the prospect of my next hit to get me through. Through the pain that not only sliced my soul, but the utter devastation that lay beyond my best friend’s beautiful eyes. I couldn’t surrender to that pain; I’d learned that early in life. I also had to be strong, put on that mask I’d become so skilled at hiding behind. I had to do it for my friend. My sister. The only person in the world who didn’t see the filth.
I hid behind the drugs while her grief hid the drugs from her. I used them as a way to feel nothing in order to take care of my best friend as well as I could. Which wasn’t exactly well. And I took it to escape my own demons.
When it got down to it, I just took them to make it easier.
So, as I strutted my barely clad ass onto the dimly lit stage, I was high. Soaring.
That meant the world was fuzzy around the edges, and everything seemed like it was underwater. I was wading through at exceptional speed. I could feel the music inside me, as if the beat originated within me. I let my vacant mind move my vacant body to the music, aimlessly looking over the crowd that was focused on me. I didn’t see them. I never did. I learned quickly not to look at the mostly disgusting men leering at my naked body.
Drugs helped.
But I glanced at Lily’s portion of the bar, just to make sure my girl was okay. Because even though I may be flying high, forgetting all the bad that took up ninety percent of my world, I wouldn’t forget the good. The ten percent. My girl. And if anyone fucked with her, they were dead.
I was trying to help the best way I knew how. The only way I knew how. Dragging her around to parties where she knew no one and could embrace the anonymity. Be someone other than herself. Hide from the pain. Escape with the help of a cocktail or five.
I was a fucking terrible friend.
Bringing my socially anxious best friend to the strip club where I worked, which was full of disgusting assholes who would eat her alive.
Yeah, a bad friend. The worst.
Just add another stroke to the lines staining my soul.
My step stuttered slightly when my gaze landed on her. And on the hawt-as-balls biker who had his hand firmly around her neck. Then moved quickly to two more bikers, their eyes on me. I didn’t have time to focus on them more because I was flying. Flying meant thought was hard to capture, like that fucking snitch in those Harry Potter movies. I gave up on the golden fucker and did the thing, the only thing I was good for.
I embraced the dirt.
“Fuck, babe, I’ve seen a lot of strippers in my time. A lot,” a deep voice exclaimed from beside me. “But you transcended mere stripperdom and became a celestial being. An angel sent down from heaven, designed by God to pursue a career in exotic dancing.”
I rolled my eyes, sucking down the last of my drink and pushing off the bar where I had been leaning. This was the part I hated. I could shake my ass, show my tits, and objectify myself on stage without blinking an eye. Even before the drugs, I was fine with that. Fine with the lap dances where I had to get up close and personal with a wide variety of perverts with body odor issues or drunken frat boys, provided I had some form of mood-altering substance flowing through my bloodstream. Before, I’d had wine. Now I had better.