Striptease

Apprenticeship

[Everleigh]

"Party girls don't get hurt, can't feel anythin'. When will I learn? I push it down, push it down…."

The strong willed voice of Sia, one of the greatest artists of this generation, sang through the speakers inside the bustling strip club, my own voice humming along quietly to Chandelier.

It was a party song, one that you could blast on full volume with the windows rolled down as you drove down an empty, country backroad but it was also an emotional song.

She sang of masking her pain behind a party girl lifestyle, fooling and tricking everyone into believing that she had it all when she was actually at rock fucking bottom.

Most people didn't see that song as anything beyond a good beat to jam out to and I couldn't blame them, Sia was an incredible singer and storyteller.

But that song almost felt a bit more personal to me…..Maybe it was because I could relate to the lyrics better than I let on.

The song spoke of holding onto a thread of sanity, of hiding pain beneath a plastered on facade and an insane amount of alcohol and while it was a great song to dance barefoot in the living room with Teresa and Kayla as we sang obnoxiously loud into the plastic handles of our hairbrushes just for the sake of enjoying the slice of joyful happiness and peace that life could offer us at the time.

A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips at that memory, that wasn't the first time my best friend, my little sister and I all had a sleepover and danced and sang our asses off.

That also wasn't the first time one of my old, stuck-up neighbors came over complaining about the noise and I told them, in a polite manner, of course, to shove it up their assholes because this apartment complex didn't give a rat's ass about noise complaints since the landlord only cared about the money we gave him every month.

Those moments were rare but they were the ones I lived for.

Not much in this life was worth living for but those times with Mikayla and Teresa made it all worthwhile, they made me want to stick around to see what would happen next.

Sighing under my breath as my eyes suddenly burned hotly with unshed tears, I swiped under my eyes quickly to wipe away from tears and to keep my makeup intact.

I wasn't normally the depressive type but these saddening, pitiful episodes would come out of seemingly nowhere.

They usually occurred after an encounter with my mother and Mikayla was a witness once to an episode of hopelessness and dread after Elodie came around again several months ago, demanding that I give her money or the drugs she thought I was hiding in my apartment.

Elodie had once again beaten me to within an inch of my life, my face had been more swollen than if I had an allergic reaction to peanuts or something, bruises decorated my body like they were vast displays of exquisite, fine art.

Except they weren't.

And anybody who thought otherwise was fucked up in the head.

And in my mopping mini pity party for myself, I had forgotten to text Mikayla and tell her not to come over for the evening so when I answered the door with blood staining my cheeks from the broken ridge of my nose and the deep cut on my forehead near my hairline from the shard of glass Elodie attacked with me earlier.

She had shown up unexpectedly, as per her usual habit, but this time, I didn't have the money or the drugs she requested and it was like a light switch flipped.

She came swinging at me with the glass shard, cutting me while screaming her head off like a banshee, cursing me, Teresa, the world and God all to high heaven.