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In the five years I’d known him, he’d never had a job, just a revolving door of girlfriends who paid for everything and a lack of guilt when he manipulated people and stole from them to get what he needed.
He told me he’d replace it, but it had been two weeks, and he was still fucking around—a reminder of why I stopped relying on Jared to do anything for his child. Including keeping her alive, apparently.
Meanwhile, I’m on the damn edge every second of every day.
Could it wait a couple more weeks until I saved up?Sure.
Could Kadey have an allergic reaction tomorrow and die?Yes.
It was just whether I was willing to play that gamble with my world.
I stepped into the tiny dressing room at the end of the hall, my gaze pulled instantly to the far corner of the room where my four-year-old daughter had buried herself into her favorite beanbag, a fluffy pink blanket pulled up to her chin.
“She hasn’t moved an inch,” Gem whispered. My beautiful best friend of two years didn’t even take her eyes from the mirror. The corner of her mouth pulled up as she touched up her scarlet red lip. “The girl can snore, though.”
I slipped past her, bending over Kadey to check that her eyes were still closed before I allowed the tears I’d been fighting to drip out onto my cheeks.
My baby girl was a fighter.
I’d been working at this dirty, back-alley bar for years.
Late nights.
Long shifts.
And Kadey had put up with it all.
Thankfully, my elderly neighbor a couple of floors up from our apartment had become like a grandmother to her, even watching Kadey overnight occasionally while I came here and flashed my tits for dollars. That being said, having someone watch her every night I was here wasn’t realistic, so for the most part, she’d been sleeping here until the early hours of the morning, five nights a week for two years.
It was the only option.
We did what we had to do.
“I still don’t have enough to get her pen,” I whispered, hoping Gem would hear the croaking admission and not ask me to repeat myself. I don’t know if I could, to be quite honest. My heart felt like it had dropped into my boots, and the weight of everything sitting on my shoulders felt like it would push me through the floor.
Smothering me.
“Stop. Pull it together,” Gem ordered sternly, shoving her chair back and getting to her feet.
The bubble of hysterical laughter that burst from my lips startled my sleeping daughter, and I quickly covered my mouth, holding my breath until I watched her tiny body ease back into a deep sleep.
How many more days could I do this?
Risk her life, and my world.
Gem strutted to me with all the confidence in the world, then her hands gripped my face, and her thumbs swiped at the tears that I could no longer contain. “I don’t get paid until I finish my shift, and I have all of a dollar to my name after paying my school fees last week, but maybe some of the other girls will be able to help.” Gem was working on getting a degree, and she was almost done. The things we were working for were different, but she was fighting her way out of hell as much as I was.
Only she was surrounded by a different fire.
Stripping was never meant to be permanent, but the thing was, it gave us the money we needed that we possibly wouldn’t get elsewhere. Were we rich? No. But we could pay our bills and feed our families, and I usually had a little extra that I’d use to take Kadey out on the weekend for ice cream or a burger or to a movie.
It was the kind of income I could never get standing behind a fast-food counter or packing groceries, so I kept doing it. And things were usually fine until unexpected shit happened, and you suddenly had to find four or five hundred dollars for a device that could save your child’s life.
“I can’t ask the other girls for money.”
“You need it.”
“Everyone here needs it,” I croaked. “I can’t take it from them.”
