PERMANENT HOLD Liberated (New Version of: Falling for a Billionaire)

6: My Life

Wow, way to sell me out.

Daniel turns his full attention to me. He slowly walks to a chair a few feet away and sits down. Things are silent for a few moments. Then he speaks.

"So this is what you do?"

I'm not sure how I feel about the question. I wonder if he's talking about the exchange between Myra a few minutes ago and how she did business. But another part of me explores the possibility that he is referring to the club, where I dance. I can't shake the nauseous feeling I get when I imagine him witnessing me pole dancing out there, in front of all of those strangers. He certainly didn't seem to like the idea when I told him about it in his apartment, and it makes me wonder why.

I shrug and raise my arms, gesturing around the room where the strippers' costumes hang on clothing racks and makeup spills over the dirty vanity counters.

"This is me," I declare, lifelessly, blandly.

I spread my arms out, looking around at the towels on the floor and the tote bags full of clean clothes and underwear that lay beside all five chairs. A leopard-printed cut off t-shirt with the words 'I strip for tips' in gold glitter hangs halfway out of the dirty clothes hamper. I think it was Esther's, but I know I've seen Ymir wear it before. We shared costumes.

A long lost and forgotten feeling creeps into my stomach and I feel horrible.

Guilt. Shame.

When I look back at Daniel, I see him staring at me with a deep expression that surpasses everything I've known him to be so far, and he says, "how did you get here, Aspen?" The tenderness in his voice is stirring.

I don't know what to say at first. So I start off slow, my voice hoarse. "My mom was a single mom trying to keep her head above water. My brother was ten years older than me. He worked hard to support our family while trying to get through high school. I was six when he killed himself." I pause to catch my breath.

As I talk his posture changes. His shoulders become more rigid, his lips pull into a tight line, and his hands clench at his sides.

"He took a gun to his head in the driver's seat of my dad's old truck. My mom found out how bad things had gotten at school. He had been in a fist fight a few weeks before, because some of the kids at school were spreading rumors about our mom, saying she was a whore. The school suspended him for a week. His grades were already low, because he spent most of his time outside of school working two jobs to support our family, but after the suspension he failed every class. I guess he couldn't handle the pressure anymore. I can't blame him." I look down at my hands which are firmly locked in my lap. "After he died my mom was admitted into a mental care facility. She would talk to herself, they said. And she would see things that weren't there."

I'm no longer in the room with Daniel. Instead I am the six year old girl watching her family slowly being stripped away from her. I wear a blue dress in a waiting room with chairs that are too big for me. The big people passing by look sad when they see me. The woman who pulled me away when they came for my mom whispers to another stranger while looking at me sadly. All of them are strangers. I don't know anybody here. Tears are running down my cheeks. I'm scared. I want my big brother back. The white walls feel suffocating. There are people in the building who do weird things. Some of them scream and make odd noises, and others have to be restrained by guys in blue uniforms. Slowly my vision clears up and I'm back in the dressing room.

"My dad showed up after what? Five years? He was the only person left who could take care of me. I lived with him until I was seventeen. On my eighteenth birthday I packed my bags and left." I look up at Daniel and shrug, "I barely finished high school, I didn't have a home; no one would hire me until I got here."