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“Nothing.” I shake my head, “you can’t do anything anymore.”
“You can stay here as long as you need.”
"No…no, I can't. I can't be here with you anymore. I'll figure it out. I'll keep working…somewhere…and stay in the apartment Danny found. But I won't stay here," my eyes cut to him.
“You’re seventeen fire-, Chalene. They’ll make you stay with your next of kin.”
My eyes widen. I can’t go back to my dad.
He already reads my mind, “I’ll never let you go back there,” his face goes from sad to seething.
“Do you have any other family?” I shake my head.
“My grandmother is in a nursing home with dementia.”
This is the hardest thing to talk about right now when all I want to do is ball up and cry.
My lifeless body finally collapses on the couch with more tears than I can handle. My stomach clenches, making me double over and it all finally lets loose. I let all of it go. All of him…gone…forever. My best friend, my protector, the one who truly loved me.
Alyssa runs to my side as my bellows ring loudly and I barely see Jax as he clenches his jaw turning away in pain.
“I’ll make this right Chalene. I’ll make sure you have whatever you want. I’ll make sure you never go back to your dad do you hear me?”
Chapter 13
Chalene
2 years later
“I’ll take the special,” the short brunette yells her order over the music.
I tap the bar with my hand and yell out, “we got another one!”
Megan the other bartender slams her fist on the wood countertop as well and repeats my chant, and the patrons on the stools chime in.
“Come on lady, it’s time to dance!” I coax her holding my hand out to help her on top of the bar and she nervously takes my offer.
Megan jumps up to join her and the chants cue the DJ to play the song we always play when a girl orders the special on a weekend. Anyone who comes here more than once knows the drill and this poor girl doesn’t seem to, but the hootin’ and hollerin’ from the guys interested tell the story. Other women flock to the bar top and climb up chanting the lyrics already “Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey!”
I grin and step back leaning on the back wall as the show starts. It’s not my thing, so I stay down here…watching and bopping to the music. Megan used to beg me to come up there with her, but she quit after about a month of being constantly denied.
I wish I could be like Megan. She’sthatgirl, the one that all the guys like and all the girls envy. Her straight black hair falls to the middle of her back and her naturally tan skin glows in the bar lights. She's skinny, with big boobs that she makes sure to utilize for tips in her barely-there tanks and she always has on her cowgirl boots. She says they look and sound hot dancing in the bar.
I’msonot that girl. I got this job about six months ago right after I got my bartending certification. It takes a little more out of me than waiting tables and I've spent months perfecting that persona. Like a light switch, I turn it on when I come in those doors. My whole life I've stayed in my place…on the sidelines, quiet, doing what I have to, to get by. Here though…I'm a carefree girl that loves to chat and pour drinks and occasionally flirts, although my version is mediocre at best since I've never even had a proper boyfriend.
I chuckle as I shine a glass and watch the initially timid girl rock the hell out of the song dancing on the bar with the other girls. I swear I can hear her singing “pour some sugar on me” louder than anyone else now. The song never gets old.
Oddly enough not much gets old here. You would think that’s because the scene is always changing but it really doesn’t. It’s the same stage just different actors from time to time. The jest of what they say and how they act is predictable. But the pay is awesome. And it’s only about 15 minutes from my apartment in West Ashley.
I made it to that Apartment Danny and I planned on, but I got there after dropping out my senior year. I had no one, no one to take of me except my dad. Jax begged me for a way to make amends and when he and his dad came up with the idea, I agreed. My only stipulation was that they leave me alone afterward. I'd been taking care of myself since elementary school. I'd be fine now too.
I left the business of it up to them and somehow they talked my dad into letting Jax’s father adopt me so I could do with life what I wanted. That was the last decent thing Jax did for me because I told him I couldn’t see him again after that. I probably did him a favor. He would have only wanted to see me out of guilt. This way, I set him free.
As the song ends and the girls climb back down, the music lowers enough that I can hear myself think again and there’s a batch of people ready for refills.
“I’ll take one.”
I know that voice. I would know it anywhere.
