Smile

Graveyard

"Hey are you excited for the carnival?" I looked into the shining eyes of my sister as she bounced up and down letting her pig tails swing side to side.

"Yes! I'm so excited to go on the Ferris Wheel!" My young girl voice radiated into excitement as my large glasses slid down my thin face.

"Eleanor, just remember I-"

"El, Eleanor, get up." A cold hand prodded my hollow cheek as I rustled around on my new bed, the disgusting street bench. The hand poked my cheek again as I rolled over, trying to not face my nightmare of a life that I have wondered into.

"Nicole, I'm tired..." I muttered as a snicker escaped my alarm clocks raspy voice.

"Nicole? It's Hollie, you must have been drinking heavily last night." My heavy eyelids peeled open as I glanced up at my new best friend. It's been a month since I've started living on the streets of London. Now I was not Eleanor, I was a prostitute. Every night I would wander aimlessly to my street corner with a couple of other hookers (or my "girls") and wait until a drunk or lonely soul asks me to be his for the night. This was what my life had wandered into now, and it was awfully degrading.

At dawn, I would normally either wake up on another bench or in the bed of a man that is not the handsome boy I left a month ago, but that month seem like years. I wish I could have known the feeling of waking up next to someone I love and truly care for, and not a man who wants me because I seem like another easy, skanky hooker. The truth is, most of the women here, have a similar issue to me.

The first woman I met here, Hollie, was a housewife. One day when she was off cleaning objects that had no meaning to her, she heard her husband come home, and there was a woman with him. She was in so much shock, that she just got up and punched him right in the face. Hollie said it was one of the best decisions she's ever made, and leaving him was even better. The only thing she regrets is leaving her only son with her cheating ex-husband. He was three years old when she left, and she loved him with all her might, she hasn't seen her baby boy in over four years.

Another woman in our crew is Anya, she is a tall blond woman who was a businesswoman. She told me that she had an affair with her boss, who apparently was as attractive as James Franco. Once when she came in early she saw him there and they started to have one of their "sessions". About ten minutes later, his wife came to visit him, and their they were. So, he fired her and she could not find any work, so it led to this kind of job.... Apparently she's seen him before around this side of town.

Our final woman is named Carrie, she was a wild teen when she was growing up. One night she snuck out late at night to go to, supposedly, the best party of the year. On her way there, she witnessed a cruel murder, and it was someone she knew. The man told her if she ever told anyone, he would find her and do the same to her. After that, she ran away, changed her name so she could not be found and became a little unstable, if you know what I mean....

Anyway, here we all were cold, hungry and missing our old lives that we wish we could change. I do not regret Harry at all, I would never regret our short but beautiful relationship that made my life complete for those weeks. But, I do regret meeting that beast who also loves him, the man who swore he would do terrible things to me if I ever even saw my love again…

"El, we got to get some food, how much did you earn last night?" Anya asked, giving me a kind smile, she was the least dissapointed of what happened to her life, so she doesn't take it out on us, like Hollie and Carrie do. At this, I held out about seven pounds. Carrie gave an annoyed sigh as she slapped my cold hollow cheek.

"What happened to the rest?" Carrie's tone rose as I held my throbbing cheek. "There is no way in hell that you only made a measly seven pounds, you got taken the most last night."