Paid For

Paid For

“You’re the whore that sleeps with a different guy every night.” he said as spit landed on her cheeks.

She was in utter disbelief that she worked up so much courage in order to tell him that she wanted out. And within an instant, gone. Every last ounce of her courage and hope, gone. The way he spoke just made you feel worthless.

“But, I, I need to leave.” she stuttered while focusing on his glistening gaudy watch on his wrist, which was accented with black and blue bruises on his knuckles. We all knew what that was from.

“God dammit, everything I do for you and you come back to me complain.’”

“What else do you expect me to do for you?”

“You would be nothing without me.” he annunciated as he got even closer to her face, the smell of cheap vodka lingered on his breath.

She looked at anything she could in the room to avoid eye contact with his beaming eyes. Glancing back and forth from the crack in the wall and the stain in the dingy carpet.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he screams as more spit squeezes in between his teeth as she braces herself.

She knew what she was about to get. Everyone knew what she was about to get. As she sees his hand raise, all she focuses on is the watch. The glistening watch. The light perfectly reflecting off of the face.

She is back in her childhood home. She doesn’t remember the last time she saw her father. She missed spending time with him. The long hugs after he would return from a long day of work. His huge rugged hands covered in black grease. How she would tell him how her day was while he scrubbed his hands over the kitchen sink. Ranting on about the details of her day. How she learned to add big numbers, the girl who wouldn’t share her colored pencils, and how she missed him while he was at work, as she played with her dad’s gaudy, glistening watch. Trying it on and getting her dirty sticky fingerprints all over the face of the watch while she struggled to figure the time. Confused as to why there were two sticks pointing in different directions.

“Daddy this makes no sense, why are the sticks going different ways?”

“Well hun, the short stick tells you what hour it is, while the long stick tells you the minutes.”

When she got the news that the memories she already had would be her only memories she was heartbroken. She lived by her memories. Every memory with her father was a happy moment. When he would teach her something new, when she would attempt to help him carry in groceries, or when he would give her his cherry on top of his sundae. Now she could never make any new memories with her father. But how could she speak to him while she was like this? Nothing. She thought she was nothing. Everyday she allowed grungy men to pay for her. How could she see her father in this state after all this time. He would be so disappointed.

“He can’t see his little girl he was once playing catch with now dressed in skin tight clothes, standing on the corner” thoughts like these were constantly running through her mind.

Wiping away the blood from her lip and the tear from her cheek. She awakes laying on the dingy stained carpet.

“Ha, look who finally decided to get up. Go fix yourself up and get out there.”