Chapter 44: Chapter 44

The club was fully packed. It hasn’t been this crowded in a couple of weeks and even though I am practically still new here, I knew enough to know that it was not normal for the regular customers to suddenly stop coming here. Oh well, none of my business. I was the waitress here with a minimal wage pay and place to sleep which was plenty for me to survive at the moment. And with the scavenged food from the bar and ‘kitchen’ there were nights when I didn’t need to buy any food at all.

Maybe one day I would be able to save enough to get out of here as well and get a place of my own.

All of it sounded like a ridiculous fantasy in this dark corner of the club, drowned in the booming music and the foggy smoke air as the men and women danced to the music on the dance floor. Some lost too much in the mood to forget that they could be seen while some just straight out started making out with each other, ignoring the random pushes and thrashing as the tight crowd grooved to the music and danced like nothing else existed in this moment except for freedom from everything. I wonder how that felt like.

“Hey, break is over. You need to go out there again.” Todd whispered in my ear, a little too close, as I flinched visibly and regrated it instantly. I hated that I was so transparent. Not that he was being inappropriate because he really wasn’t. It was impossible to hear anyone over this booming music. And… I was still not okay with people being too close to me and in my personal space.

“Yes sir.” Todd tried very hard to keep a straight face but I noticed the silent questions in his eyes as he nodded before disappearing with his mountain of a form into the thick crowd. He was not exactly the boss or the manager here but more like an assistant and definitely the security who worked for the manager who seldom even care here to this dump. This club was definitely not the normal kind or better than average and perhaps that’s what called out to the crowd most because of its loose lipped policies and easy going nature. It was more so evident through the few faces visible in the crowd that looked anything but adult to me.

But then again, I was not of legal age either.

I reached the bar and waited for the order to be ready while getting pushed every now and then. It bothered me a lot, all this touching, but I had to compromise. There were not many places that wanted to give a job to a runaway girl. Salary, food and shelter. All by being a waitress and later the clean up guy.

“Twenty shots for table number eight. Hurry up.” Bill handed me the order and then walked over to the other side. He never really handled orders so it was weird watching him work behind the bar unlike the other times where he would just work to… well, now that I thought abut it, I didn’t know what he did. He just appeared and vanished most of the time. But tonight, he was actually working. Perhaps it was because of the rush of people and the lack of staff to handle them all.

I still didn’t know what the occasion was.

I turned around with the tray in my hand, barely saving it from getting toppled over by a careless guy who rushed by and pushed his way through the wave of people. The same thing I would have to do to reach table eight which was at the very back in the private VIP area. It was not that fancy or anything and the only thing it did offer was the privacy. Good things never happened back there.

With a sigh on my lips, and a quick resolution to get this over with as soon as possible I started to budge and push my way through with the tray lifted up above my head with two hands. Yes, I looked absolutely ridiculous but I couldn’t risk wasting the shots because I would have to be one to pay for them otherwise and I surely didn’t have that much of disposable income to be carefree about it.

The darkness and the flashing lights with the ignorant people dancing with their eyes closed for most of the part made the whole journey so much more harder. There were times when I almost tripped and fell on my face, the heels I was made to wear did very little to support me properly but the thick crowd was too dense to actually give me any space to fall at all.

Somehow I managed to reach the end of the dancefloor which only thinned out the crowd by a people or two but still a great improvement as I finally let go of my squeezed in belly and took a deep breath finally, and carefully lowered my hands down before walking towards the designated table in the darker corner of the club. It had a good view of the whole club and yet was a good place to get privacy, the reason behind which were almost never innocent or morally conscience.

As usual, a group of sleazy men occupied the table with massive cigars held in between their fingers, shiny chains around their necks, sunglasses on their eyes and one of those weird suits that looked anything but formal. Not to mention the women that danced around them or rather on top them as they smiled and laughed and did enjoyed.

“Finally the shots are here!” One of the men shouted in their intoxicated state as the words slurred a little before spilling out of his mouth. He tossed the woman on top of him on the seat beside and tried to sit up and the other’s followed as hands reached towards me and grabbed the shots of murky alcohol that looked too strong and smelled the same. Ofcourse they were no gentlemen and didn’t order any for their… partners? Whose provocative dancing they seemed to like a lot.

I shook my head in disappointment internally and looked down at my tray to find it almost empty as one last shot was left untouched.

“Hey! Vincent! Get yo shot man hahah.” My eyes darted to the man that I didn’t quite notice before because of the deafening music and the blinding smoky fog of the cigars. He was a part of this group but occupied a little distance from them not because he was upset with his friends but because he was busy doing things which was anything but innocent.

The women that were with the men looked more or less conscious of their surrounding and were here with consent which was evident as they sat up soberly with fake smiles on their faces as the men spoke loudly to each other and drank their shots. But Vincent…he seemed to have gone off the rails. He was forcing himself on top of what looked like another one of the underage girls out of the crowd. Not only that, she was not in her full conscious state as she tried very poorly to fend him off through the intoxicated haze of some possible alcohol or maybe something worse.

A chill ran down my spine as I stood there in complete shock and looked at the pair, contemplated my next set of action. I couldn’t simply let the girl get molested or worse. It definitely seemed to be heading to the worse part.

“Sir, your drink.” I quickly walked towards his direction and pretended to have innocent intentions which were anything but that as I suddenly ‘tripped’ with the tray in my hands. The shot of alcohol went flying and landed on both of them and thus my mark was hit with absolute accuracy.

“You stupid-“ the man started shouting and screaming at me with the worse kind of slurs in his anger induced state. He didn’t stop there. I didn’t think things could go this way too… I wasn’t prepared.

Slap.

I thought it was over. That no one could ever touch me again or hurt me like the way my family did. No one else in this world was my family, my parents, my brother. So they couldn’t possibly hurt me the way they did right? Everything is over now that I was away from there. I ran away. I am free from everything that hurt me in the past and it can’t hurt me anymore. It was over. Right?

Wrong.

For a second, I stopped breathing. That’s normal. But I couldn’t start breathing again no matter how much I tried. The tray fell from my hands and dropped to the floor as I looked at the man with wide eyes and an open mouth but that didn’t help me breathe. There was no more darkness in the club now, nor the booming music. Only the flash of vision in front of my eyes and mystically still silence. So many memories of similar pain and ache. Some all too real and some constructed by the devil that resided in my head. They chocked me, strangled the present and threw me into the cage of past.

The panic attack made my legs so weak but what me drop to the floor was the need to breathe as I slammed my hand on the floor repeatedly at the failure to do so. Everything was disappearing infront of my eyes and I just couldn’t hold on to the reality anymore as I dropped down with a loud crash into the house that I ran away from with three pair of eyes glaring cruelly at me.

You are worthless.

A failure.

You don’t deserve to live.

DIE!

Was it them or was it me all along? Voices in my head that didn’t want to shut up no matter how much I begged. A destructive hammer that crumbled me from within and then outside. What was left? Not even the shell perhaps. Just nothing except hatred wound around my naked form like a shawl in the coldest and loneliest night.

A cold hand grabbed my arm and another my chin to lift my face upwards. Eyes met and I saw blue through that darkness and then slowly more as a distant and hazy voice talked to me calmly. Blonde hair, bright eyes, pale skin and a strong voice.

“Hey, hey you are safe. It’s okay. Everything is okay. You are here right now with me. Okay? Everything is okay. Just keep your eyes on me and breathe. Yeah? Breathe with me.” She breathed slowly and deeply while nodding her head to show me that it was really okay to do so. That if she could do it then I could as well.

I breathed in and breathed out. Slowly, deeply, just like her. Things started to get clearer and I was able to notice things now. It was not dark anymore especially here in this bathroom even if the poorly lit tube light barely provided any proper brightness to the awfully scrabbled bathroom with stickers and graffiti on the wall and rusted bits on the chipped off ceiling that shed everyday more and more with fail.

This very bathroom was far worse when I first came in here. It was my first day of work and I had to clean the club. Clearly, there was no one else looking after the hygiene of this place because the disaster I faced was like nothing I had ever experienced. The random dirty stains, blank gunk and disgusting toilet seats were anything but appealing. Perhaps that was the reason why I got the job when I begged the manager for one. I threw in the cleaning with the waitressing when he denied me the latter.

“I would have liked to offer you some water but I clearly couldn’t fit any in my purse.” She lifted up her small sparkly sling bag which was indeed to too small to fit anything but a lipstick maybe. That paired with her goofy eye role and sarcastically quirky voice made me smile as I sat up and stopped leaning  on her.

I wondered how I managed to move from the dark club to the bathroom floor and not notice it at all but I was thankful that I was the clean up guy here because otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting on this floor for as long as I had.

“I am so sorry… for bothering you and making you go through this.” Embarrassment hit me suddenly and I realized that I have been bawling my eyes out in front of a stranger without a care in the world. I should have had more self control.

“Hey no, no. Don’t be! It’s absolutely okay, yeah? You should not be sorry for these things. And anyways you were the one who saved me first! If you hadn’t been there then I would have surely gone through something… traumatic. You saved me.” She smiled a small smile and looked at me in such a way that made me feel safe and comforted. It was scary that it felt so nice. I didn’t want to trust this feeling which felt so abnormally nice and fragile but I trusted her for some reason. It felt like I have known her almost all my life even if we met just today and I knew it was not going to be the last.

I nodded slowly and then softly whispered.

“Thank you for saving me too.” Smiling was still not common for me but I wanted to this time. A genuine smile that came from the bottom of my heart. I never knew what it would feel like to not feel bad about having uncontrollable reactions to situations. Let alone being helped come out of it.

A comfortable silence fell upon us as we smiled at each other, not feeling lonely anymore. She helped me stand up slowly and I did the same. I wanted to ask her if she would like to take some rest in the back of the club in my room because that’s where I was about to head after all this but then I realized that I didn’t know her name and before I could ask her, she read my mind somehow.

“Hi, I am Liza. It’s nice to meet you.” She smiled widely with a sparkle in her eyes that warmed me from within.

“I’m Rose, nice to meet you too Liza.”

“What’s behind those eyes Rose?”