Exploited Escape- Grester

Chapter Eleven

I dreamt of shooting stars that night, I dreamt of them sawing though the sky and never stopping along the way, not glancing or even thinking about anything else. And I dreamt of never regretting a second, never doubting the selfishness and never questioning the arrogance. I felt alive and I was only dreaming.

The thing about shooting stars is that they soon disappear, just like everything else they move along and are gone before you even realised they were there to begin with but I woke up with the same feeling of an exhilarating adrenaline and infinite luck. I woke up truly believing that the world could only get better.

There are many days in your lifetime, thousands and thousands and it's physically impossible to remember each and everyone and I've blocked out the past twenty years but I never want to forget another day.

I was dying to hear someone say that I didn't need to be perfect, that I didn't need to try so hard and that I was enough and it was okay being enough. I just wanted to feel worth the life I was living, I didn't want to waste another second regretting yesterday and pondering on would've's, should've's and could've's. I was living now and it was my day.

The world is made of good and bad, strength and weakness, quitting and perseverance and the negativity had held me down for too long. One more day would never be just one more day. I couldn't shake this new motivation from my system and I kept staring at the door and for the first time I could picture myself walking right out.

I thought back to yesterday where my lips touched Grace's and how I felt empowered and indestructible then just like I do now and how I thought the moment would never end. I thought about how in that moment, for the first time, I truly understood love.

We live one life as multiple people. We all have a few alter-egos and faces we put on for certain people and personalities. I had been pretending to be so many people for so many years but Grace reminded me of me. She bought out who I truly was and I hadn't been that person for so long that it almost seemed foreign. I wanted to feel foreign and new, I wanted to start from scratch and dive into the unknown and undiscovered.

I shoved a few clothes into a bag, pulling random items from drawers I never knew held anything when the sound of the door knocking ran through the room. I received a text at the same time, it simply read 'ready' and I knew exactly what they meant and what that word was indicating and I felt myself shut down, dropping me to the floor and picking a certain identity as I opened the door.

I used to think it never got easier but there's an immune system you create, this wall where nothing and no one effects you anymore. The girl at the door was physically stunning but her eyes were beholding an ugly mind. I let her in, slipping her coat off her smooth tanned shoulder. She smiled out the corner of her eye and I took one last breath of innocence before engulfing reality.

Everyday I promised myself it was the last day but I continuously found myself in the same situation day after day and the future was cloudy. The more I seduced and used women whilst revolting myself the more I realised it was all I'll ever do.

The night was longer than any other, time felt like it was slowing down with every hour-long minute that pasted and as I was laying in bed with a stranger, tracing kisses down her chest-plate, all I could think about was Grace and how this more wrong than it had ever been. When the night did end, I felt like I had just robbed a bank. I felt like I had ran into a place I wasn't meant to, taken something that wasn't mine to take and ran away with it like it was mine all along and I ran into the bathroom; tilting my head over the toilet before throwing up my dignity. I needed Grace here, to remind me of the purpose of life and make me feel like a shooting star.

I called her up and with no surprise she was at my blood-stained door before I had even hung up. I opened the door, this time as myself and she looked at me for a few seconds and all I had to was shake my head and she knew what I meant, embracing me delicately.

Grace looked at the bag which was sticking out from under my bed, her eyes darting up at me as she registered what its purpose was.

"Going somewhere?" She asked curiously, picking up the bag.

"Come with me, come with me and we'll go far from here. I have money saved and I am ready, I can't do it anymore, lets go. Me, you and an open universe." I pleaded, my heart pounded with the thought of finally and freely being able to walk out the door, for good.

She smiled at me sympathetically. "Chester, you can't go; all you have is here."

"All I have is you." I replied, a slight questioning tone filling my voice because as the worst left my mouth I wasn't sure any longer.

"But you're not all I have." She zipped up the bag and placed it back under the bed as I stared at her slow movements longingly.

"I'm sorry Chester but we can't all run from our lives like you." She placed her hand on my arm as she spoke, her eyes gazing into mine distantly.

"But this isn't my life." I responded and she nodded, like she as agreeing but her words weren't matching up with her actions.

"You only get one, and this is yours and you can't just run away from your problems."

"What like you are?" I snapped and Grace's eyes sharply glared into mine.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" She demanded, her voice authoritative. I wasn't sure what I was talking about to begin with but witnessing Grace's response words fell carelessly out my mouth.

"Your scars. They aren't from your childhood are they?"

"I don't want to have this conversation." She said, avoiding eye contact and scanning the floor.
"Don't think I haven't noticed Grace. There's more from that night and I'm not stupid." I couldn't stop and I couldn't let it go.

"I said I didn't want to have this conversation."

"It's him, isn't it? It's Joe." I spoke, my voice gentle and soft.

Grace looked up at me slowly, her eyes locking to mine. She stared at me too long, confirming everything I had just said. I could see her eyes begin to cloud over and tears build up in her eyes. She breathed in, looking at the buttons on her shirt as she breathed out.

"Like I said, this is the life we have been given so deal with it."