Daphne Collins, a 21-year-old aspiring artist who is attempting to make her way in the world of the bustling New York City. Though when a new nannying job gets offered to her, she takes it, hopeful that it'll give her the extra money and nudge to ma...
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Chapter Song - Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall
New York.
The city that never sleeps. The Big Apple.
The New York where there are $1 hotdogs, whirring coffee shops alive on every corner, and a certain messy noise no other place in the world can recreate.
I wish I lived in that New York.
The one you know; where Serena Van Der Woodsen is got-to-going by you in a wave of dirty blonde hair and Blair Waldorf's Prada heels are cracking the centuries old foundation.
For me, however? It's a city filled with shadows.
Under the trees, beneath the sewers, around the alley ways. I see the joy, but my eyes will always glance over to those shadows. A shadow tormenting a life where you either pay for the electricity so you didn't freeze in the Winter, or your next meal so you didn't go hungry during the night.
Now, New York is littered with boroughs, and my certain shadow - The Bronx - is a box I keep tucked away, but don't get confused, plenty of suburbs in The Bronx are safe with that lovely white picket fence house aesthetic families strive to happily live in.
I just wasn't graced with that white picket fence luck. I grew up in South Bronx away from the safety of places like Fieldston, but I won't spoil the New York city that you know for you.
The one you all so love.
That came out terribly wrong.
I do love this city with all my fibres; the city is a part of us as much as we're a part of it. New York is my home to an abundance of happy memories, because that's the thing with us silly humans, we can create happiness even out of the dust in our forgotten corner.
The indomitable human spirit some would call it.
Although, another fabulous part of this city are the bills - those high strung, capitalist addicted bills. To specify, those rent prices I'm a thumb and forefinger gap from drowning in. I mean, come on, $2,187 per month for a one bedroom, one bath apartment?
Andone that smells like off hamburgers soaking in pickles?
Not even the good kind of jarred pickles either. Along with the fact I'm 99.9% certain on the fact my building has a rat infestation. This stems from the basis that my cheese puffs always get broken into paired with the incessant scratching within my walls.
Working two jobs isn't enough these days, nothing lifting me close to reaching my almost too far away dreams. The money I make still doesn't scrap by for my rent in New York, a rent of which is considered on the cheaper side in this city.
Reeling from the pay check of my last nannying job, I'm looming for a new family since the parents of my past one decided they wanted to be closer with their children. Which is great and all, but when it's also your best source of income and you lose it...
