Page 43 of Saved By My Buyers

Jack takes my lunch box as I get out of the car, wrapping me in his arms.

“Welcome home, beautiful,” he whispers into the shell of my ear.

For the first time, I believe it while I hug him back. Things will be different now.

Chapter Eight

Dahlia

Shivering in the alley in my skimpy bra and panty set with a coat buttoned up over it, I lean along the brick, my head dropped back against the wall. The last few years have sucked donkey balls.

The things I’ve had to do to survive make me shudder if I have to think too hard about it, which is why I don’t like to.

Instead, I tell myself that the desperate things I’ve done don’t count if it means I’m alive and away from Gareth Davies. He may have said he was letting me go, but I’ve seen some really sketchy people around the last couple of years.

Men in nice clothing and greasy hair that shouldn’t be slumming it in Belmont. I may be paranoid, but it keeps me alive. I spent a year living on the streets, despite what I told the girl on the phone earlier.

I stayed in shelters that accepted teens who were on their own and didn’t ask many questions upon intake, and I left whenever they started to.

When I turned seventeen, I lied about my age and started dancing at Percy’s strip club. The tips helped me get into an apartment with a few other people looking to share, even if I had to suck one of the guy’s dicks, because I didn’t have enough for what he called “first and last month’s rent.”

See? I’m not proud of it, but Frankie never bothered me again, and I spent the night puking and brushing my teeth obsessively. That was the first and last blow job I’ve ever given.

I’ve had people hit on me at work various times over the last few years or ask me out, yet I can’t think of anything I want less. I’m still in love with Bronwyn, and lately I can’t stop thinking about Jack.

I don’t know when it happened, but his mismatched eyes have been haunting my dreams.

One time, I swear I saw him. It was springtime two years ago in Michigan, and I saw a man with a gorgeous tattoo of roses on his bicep and a beautiful dragon on his forearm come out of a high rise.

I was sad on my eighteenth birthday and was buying myself a small gift, a poor replica of the necklace Jack bought me on my fifteenth birthday. I was nostalgic, I guess. Every day is a struggle to keep myself from trying to find them, and one day I went so far as to go out to his house.

But, he doesn’t live there anymore, and I didn’t eat for two days, because I spent so much money to get out there. The buses don’t run to his house, so I got a ride share.

The day I saw him, Jack was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. I don’t know where he was going, but his hair was a messy mop on his head, and longer than I ever remember seeing it.

He walked right past me. My hair isn’t as sun streaked as it used to be, but if it had really been Jack, he would have seen me, right?

Blowing out a breath, I check my watch to see if it’s time to go back in after my break. I don’t have a cell phone because I can’t afford it. I make decent money, but I have other priorities.

I bought a small safe, a laptop, and am studying to take the test to get my GED. I don’t want to dance forever, and I know my body won’t always look like this.

The safe is to keep my shit away from grabby fingers, because I’ve had things stolen multiple times before. It’s as if every time I begin to get ahead, my shit head druggy roommates steal my things.

The only reason why I’m still there is because I know I can afford the rent, even if my life goes to hell in a handbag.

My share of the rent is one night of dancing, even on a slow night. The reason I’m trying so hard to save is because I want to enroll at a college, even if it’s community college. My dreams of fancy schools have been shattered and bombed since I never finished.

It’s hard to continue an education when the goal is simply to wake up one more day.

Even though I called the Keller Crisis Center today before work, I’m not suicidal. Instead I’m lonely and depressed. Talking to someone who is paid not to judge me was nice for a little while.

Bowen reminded me of Bronwyn, and when I heard her voice I almost said her name.

I’m glad I didn’t, because the truth would have been even worse. I’m just a sad girl who ran away. I don’t care what Bowen says, maybe I should have chosen differently. I just hope Bronwyn got the fuck out of that house.

“Dee, it’s time!” a voice calls, turning my head.

“Okay, I’m coming,” I murmur, walking back into the club.

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