“All my friends think you’re lame.”
I stared at Ace, my supposed boyfriend. He stood towering in front of me, tall and muscular. His jet-black hair was gelled up and back. His brown, nearly black eyes, glared all the way to my core.
“Good thing I don’t give a shit about your friends,” I shot back as I pulled my arm from his painful grip.
“Shut the fuck up,” he bit out as he yanked open a bedroom door. He put his hands on my back and shoved me forcefully into the empty room.
“Get your hands off me!” I demanded, my voice rising as I spun around toward him. I flinched as he slammed the door shut behind us, trapping me alone in the room with him.
“Shut your damn mouth!” he roared as he advanced toward me with rage in his eyes.
My heart pounded as I stumbled backwards. I knew that wild look. My stomach churned as I frantically searched for a way out of this room, away from the out-of-control hunter in front of me.
“I’ve told you not to fuck with me in front of my friends,” he continued his angry rant as he grabbed my arm and yanked me roughly toward him. “You just don’t ever learn, do you?”
His arm suddenly swung, his first colliding with my left cheek. I crashed to the floor from the hit. It felt like a damn brick had just made contact with my face. Tears burned my eyes, but the monster wasn’t done yet.
A string of swear words spewed from his mouth as he kicked me in the side with his booted foot, sending me flying into the air and crashing onto my back. The wind rushed out of my lungs as I frantically tried to suck oxygen back in.
He stood above me, screaming about how this was all my fault. I stared up at him, unable to breathe or even cry. I pinched my eyes closed as I prayed his vicious attack was over. He had once been my hero but, in moments like this, he was exactly what we had escaped.
He moved away from me, still cursing as I watched him walk to the door. He ripped it open as he yelled one last time at me. “Take a nap you dumb bitch. I ain’t leaving the damn party for your pathetic ass.”
The door slammed closed behind him and my rigid, tight body instantly began to relax. I had survived another attack.
I was okay, well okay as I could be at the moment.
Air slowly began to trickle back into my lungs as I struggled to my feet. All I had wanted to do was go home, to leave this stupid party and crawl into my bed for much needed sleep. My drug-addicted boyfriend was obviously too consumed with the buffet of drugs in front of him to be bothered by taking his girlfriend home. Of course, he wouldn’t have to take his lame girlfriend home if he would quit stealing my money and let me save up enough to buy a car.
My head began throbbing, my cheek still reliving the force of his punch over and over again. I gingerly moved my jaw, making sure it wasn’t broken. My fingers trailed to my tender side. I was pretty sure he didn’t break a rib this time.
I inched over toward the empty bed in the room and sat down. I dropped my head into my hands as tears drained from my eyes. How the hell did I end up like this?
I coughed. And coughed again. A third cough woke me from my sleep. I groggily opened my swollen eyes. My throat was scratchy and felt swollen. My breaths wheezed in as sweat broke out across my forehead. Why was it suddenly so stinking hot in this room?
I sat up too quickly and the memory of what had occurred in this room slammed back into me with the shooting pain in my side and the dull throb of my cheek. I rubbed my eyes, realizing I must have fallen asleep on the foreign bed.
I stood up, my movements much slower and cautious now. A burning heat continued to torch the room as I shuffled over to the door. I wiped the sweat from my brow as I grabbed the door handle. My hand flinched back, burned by the flaming heat.
A sick feeling of dread slowly began to take hold within me. Why was the room hot? Why was the door handle burning? I took a deep breath through my nose and, for the first time, realized it stunk of smoke. The house was on fire!
Panic began to pump through my veins as I pulled my shirt down over my hand and again tried the doorknob. The heat seared through my shirt, but I ignored the pain as I tried to turn the knob. The stupid thing wouldn’t budge. Ace had locked the door.
I quickly stepped away, ignoring the pain as I rushed over to the window. I unlocked it and pulled upwards but the stupid glass pane wouldn’t budge.
No! No! No!
This is not how I was going to die. I was not going to die at only eighteen in a freaking drug house! I didn’t go through everything I had survived to die like this!
I spun around, frantically looking for something to break the glass with. I grabbed a lamp and rushed back to the window. I swung it at the glass, but the lamp simply smashed as the window remained intact.
My heart pounded as more sweat broke out over my entire body. I swung around and my heart dropped to my feet as the door I had just tried to open was now on fire.
“No!” I screamed as, in a complete and utter panic, I banged my fists on the window. “Help me! Someone help me! Please!”
Tears began streaming down my face as I hit and kicked at the window, but it refused to break beneath my limbs. I didn’t want to die! I wasn’t ready!
Smoke billowed into the room and my childhood education kicked in and I dropped to the floor, knowing more oxygen would be down lower.
I pulled my cellphone from my jean pocket and cursed as the stupid thing was dead. Just my luck. I shoved it back into my pocket as the smoke began to surround me with its promise of death before the fire. Like hell. I wasn’t going out like this.
Sirens suddenly wailed out from the darkness outside as red and blue lights lit up the smoke-filled room. Help was here! But would they even know I was in here? Would Ace alert them? Was he even still around? What kind of lowlife, scum of the earth boyfriend would leave their girlfriend in a house that was on fire?
Depressingly, I realized I had that boyfriend, and I allowed him to treat me like this. I was no better than he was.
I scrambled to my feet and again attacked the window with all the force of a crazy person refusing to go quietly to their death.
“I’m up here!” I screamed though I doubted they could hear me. “Help me!”
I thrashed against the window with everything I had, desperate for someone to somehow hear me. My vision began to blacken around the edges as my head began to get foggy and lightheaded. I forced my eyes to focus on the lights outside the window, but it was a losing battle. The smoke was cutting off my oxygen supply and slowly killing me.
My pounding turned into clawing as the strength began to drain from my arms.
“Someone help,” I forced out, my voice only a whisper. “Please.’
“Get back!” a voice replied.
My eyebrows crushed downward as I stumbled backwards like a drunken sailor and tripped over my own feet and fell backwards onto my butt. Had someone actually answered?
“Stay back!” the male voice again called as something suddenly smashed into the window. Glass shattered everywhere and I threw my arms over my face.
“Are you okay?” a male voice asked with a British accent.
I clumsily dropped my arms as my eyes looked loopily toward the fireman in full gear crouched in front of me.
“Come with me,” he said through his mask in his British accent.
I sat staring at him. My body was so deprived of the oxygen it desperately needed that my brain sent the message to move but my limbs remained in place.
He cursed beneath his breath and I pondered how very un-fireman like that was. He stepped toward me and bent down, scooping me into his arms as he retreated back toward the window with me.
My eyes gazed at this mystery fireman’s face as he carried me as effortlessly as a loaf of bread and met his eyes. They were the most gorgeous color of green I had ever seen and yet they held speckles of yellow and brown deep within them also.
I was staring at his eyes as he said something, but between the mask and his accent, I couldn’t make it out. The black on the sides of my vison began to close in around me which caused my heartrate and breathing to spike. I gasped for breaths, suddenly realizing that by picking me up from the floor, the air had gotten much thicker and heavy with smoke.
I coughed hard and turned into the fireman’s hard chest. “I don’t want to die,” I whined out in nothing more than a whisper as I bounced with his steps. I took one last breath and looked into those stunning green eyes as the darkness overtook me.
Green eyes flashed before me as, with a gasp, I opened my eyes. I looked side to side, frantically trying to figure out where the hell I was and what was going on. Sterile cleaners burned my nose, along with whatever was stuck up into it. I quickly grabbed at it, feeling tubing running into my nose and behind my ears. I looked around the drab, beige hospital room. An empty chair sat in the corner. No one was here to see me, no one concerned if I was dead or alive. It was a depressing realization that sunk down upon me as a nurse walked into the room. “Glad to see you awake, honey. How are you feeling?” I stared at her as I took a moment to process her words, my brain apparently still lost within the fog of the fire. She was an older woman with graying hair tied up into a bun. “Tired,” I finally responded. “Where am I?” “The hospital,” she replied as though I should know as she logged onto a nearby computer and began typing. “I’ll just need your name and I’ll get some vitals from yo
I walked into the apartment and glanced around silently. I didn’t hear any noise inside so I gently closed the door behind me and locked it. I glanced around at the open floor plan apartment. To the right was a futon in front of a TV hanging on the wall. Beyond that were vertical blinds with a sliding glass door behind it leading out to the small, concrete patio. To the left was a small dining room with a circular table with two chairs. Behind that was a cozy, white and wood kitchen. I walked over to the table as my eyes studied the vase of red roses upon it. My fingers traced over the flowers before picking up the piece of paper on the table. It was a handwritten note in Ace messy handwriting. Stella- I’m sorry I blatantly failed you again. I have more remorse than I could ever write you about, baby. I know I hurt you, and the fact you were almost seriously injured killed me inside. I’m begging for your forgiveness. I screwed up, and I want to fix this. I have to work until six, b
I applied my make-up heavy, as I always did when working at Blue Hades. It wasn’t my dream job. It’s not like I grew up thinking I hope one day I work in a brothel. No, this job was one of necessity. That’s all it was, a job. It didn’t define me, or make me any worse than anyone else on this earth. I stared into my brown eyes in the mirror as I applied mascara like a pro. I curled my long, brown hair and sprayed it into place before running my fingers through the curls to give it that sexy, messy look. I never wore it this way except for when I was working at Blue Hades. I blew out a breath as I examined myself in the mirror. I tugged down on my tiny mini skirt and adjusted my slinky red top. The guys always loved red. I put a swipe of bright, red lipstick across my lips. I ran my fingers through my hair once more, trying to get as much volume as I could. I strutted down to the main living space of the house where myself and the three other women working this Friday night gathered.
I picked up a couple extra shifts at Kiki’s the next week, trying to make up for the loss of money on Saturday night. Alaric never text me any further and I had pushed him and his green eyes out of my mind. I rushed around, taking care of my tables in the middle of the week over the lunch hour when Ace came in. My smile at his appearance faded as I approached him and saw his dark shades on despite being indoors. “Why do you have sunglasses on indoors?” I jokingly asked him as I reached over to take them off. He swatted my hand away. “I came here to eat, not for fashion advice.” My stomach dropped as I took in the sight of him. His hair which he normally straightened and styled was curly and unkept. His jaw was set and his hands twitching slightly. He shifted on his feet as though he couldn’t stand still. His clothes were baggy and he was far from the nicely dressed appearance he normally gave out. He was on drugs again. “What do you want?” I asked him softly. He laughed at me as
I slowly sauntered toward the firehouse, internally debating if this was a brilliant idea or a completely stupid one. I placed Alaric’s forgotten hat atop my head as I approached the firehouse and hoped he was actually here. As I got closer, I could see him standing outside the firehouse speaking with a couple other men. One of the men had been with him at the restaurant and slapped his arm and pointed toward me. Alaric turned around, a broad smile spreading across his face as his eyes looked me up and down. “That hat’s never looked so good,” he hollered at me in his delicious accent. “Like it?” I asked as I tipped the brim slightly. “It’s new.” He said his goodbyes to the men he had been talking to and walked over to me. He slid his hands across my stomach and onto my hips as he lowered his lips to my ear. “I’d like to see you in just that hat.” His warm breath tickled my ear as my insides tingled at his words, my skin aflame at his touch. A fire ignited deep within me, my entir
I sat in our apartment alone on the futon the next day. Ace was who knows where. I had come home yesterday after my rendezvous with Alaric to an empty apartment. Ace had never called or text me to tell me his whereabouts, which wasn’t that unusual if he was high on drugs. I was worried about something much deeper than whether Ace was currently high on drugs or not. Had I cheated on him? I shook my head. The thought was ridiculous. I had a job which was a sexual position. I had sex with men for money. It was nothing more than a financial transaction, which was exactly what had happened between Alaric and me. He had paid me for sex, like any other man did. Why did I have this guilt than? Why did I feel as though I had done something wrong? Was it because of how badly I had desired him? Or how about how I had consented to the sex before ever knowing he was a paying customer? I had wanted him before I knew he was paying. I had wanted him on a personal level, not a professional level. I
I took the bus across town to my friend, Catherine’s, apartment. I knocked at her door and she quickly opened it, a smile spreading across her face when she saw me. “Stella!” she squealed as she wrapped me into a tight hug. “Honey, it has been too long” she drew out in her southern accent. “Get in here girl!” She moved her petite frame to the side as she held the door open for me. I stepped into the apartment and out of the hot Florida heat. The cool air conditioning felt heavenly. She closed the door, trapping the heat out of her large apartment as she skipped happily next to me and led me over to the oversized, brown couch with bright white pillows. Her living room was at least twice the size of mine, and beautifully decorated. I never understood why she didn’t go into interior design with the natural talent she had. “So” she drew out as she sat down next to me. Her blonde hair fell in large waves around her tiny face. She looked like a real-life Tinkerbell and had the voice to m
I stood at the stove, cooking myself some scrambled eggs for lunch. I had rose early and Ace had driven me to get some much-needed groceries for our apartment. He had left to head to work as I put the food away and cooked for my rumbling stomach. A quick knock at the door drew my attention away from what I was doing. I walked over and opened the door to find no one there. Confused, I glanced around and noticed the note taped to our door from our landlord. I pulled it off and read the official notice our of impending eviction unless we paid our rent within the next two weeks. I angrily clutched the note in my hand as I stormed inside, throwing the door behind me, and charged toward my phone. I quickly dialed Ace number and he picked up within a couple rings. “Hey baby” he said happily. “Why are we getting an eviction notice?” I shot out immediately. The line went silent for a moment. “What are you talking about?” he finally asked slowly. “An eviction notice for unpaid rent! They