Arina

Chapter Twenty

It’s 1:25am right now as I type, but I just felt the urge to write another chapter because I realise the ones I have written previously haven’t been very eventful, so I apologise, and to make it up to you, here’s a chapter that should be interesting.

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             “Come on!” D instructed the girls as he banged on the door.

Arina was sitting in her room with Natalie there also. Their conversation the day earlier, with Zoe too, really opened Arina’s eyes to the world and she now had a new positive mental attitude. She decided to not be so hasty with her decisions to cut people off. She should, instead, listen to their side of the story if they were willing to share it and then make a careful decision dependant on the circumstances of that person. That was her new outlook on life.

And that was the outlook that she would now implement concerning Haden, which was why she was so excited to be going on the round today.

Natalie was staying in the building whilst Arina and Zoe were going on the round, with some other girls too, of course. Although Arina had stopped thinking of Zoe as a threat when she was alone- without the help of Natalie- she now saw Zoe differently. She saw a more vulnerable side to her and she now understood why both Zoe and Natalie were so cold and distant to everyone; they had been through a lot.

D banged the doors of all the girls again to indicate that they should hurry up.

             “Goodbye, Natalie,” Arina said to Natalie who was in her bed. Arina still didn’t have to confidence to call Natalie ‘Nats’ again. Although they had opened up to eachother, Arina knew how quick Natalie was to change her mind about someone so she didn’t want to trigger one of her rude responses.

Natalie grunted under her pillow so Arina could acknowledge that she had heard her ‘goodbye’ instead of offering her own words.

Arina then left the room that they shared and rushed downstairs to see an agitated D who was continually looking at his watch.

             “About time!” He exclaimed when he saw Arina leaving the building to the car.

She joined the other girls in the car including Zoe. Zoe sat by the window and stared out, as if she was reminiscing her previous life. Arina couldn’t help but stare at Zoe who had given up everything to be honest to herself.

Zoe had had a privileged background- one that Arina could only dream of. She had parents who supported her through her earlier days, she had siblings with whom she could share memories and she had all the money she could dream of. Despite all this, she still wasn’t happy, and it was only until Zoe was true to herself that she felt complete. This proved to Arina that wealth wasn’t everything. Zoe had everything, but she was still unhappy.

Arina felt guilty about always complaining about her unprivileged background. Though she didn’t have much materialistically, she still did have everything emotionally.

The car drove off and Arina began staring at all the other girls in the car. She stared at all of their facial expressions, wondering how their past life had been and how they had ended up working for Mustafa. Did they go through a life like Natalie and Zoe? They probably did. Arina made up a story for each of the girls in her mind for how their life had resulted in working as a prostitute.

Although she lived with all these girls, she barely knew any of their names. They were all closed up just as Arina was. None of them wanted to share their story, and it was obvious none of them was happy with their life now.