Chapter 1
RED IN EXCALIBUR
Hell is not a place; it’s just a memory you cannot overwrite
Della
I saw it yesterday in a boutique window — blazing red, too bold for the woman I’ve become, but perfect for the girl I used to be. I almost walked away. But then... I didn’t. I wanted to give myself something. I told myself it was a reward for this hard year.
So, I bought it.
The red dress clings to me with every step onto the dance floor—short, shimmering, unapologetic. The fabric catches the lights like embers on skin, flickering with every sway of my hips.
It’s not just a dress. It’s a whisper from another life. An armor. Against the past, the numbing pain and everything he made me feel.
I tried to stay away, but here I am. Back in Chicago, at the very place where it had all started—Excalibur. I never thought I’d return to this place. Not this lifetime anyway.
Five years ago, this city was my second home, and I loved every minute I spent here. For almost a year, it gave me freedom and self-confidence, real friends and amazing experiences. And above all that… love. My first love.
But then I left, I had to. And I lost everything in one single night.
“Just a week, Della” I keep telling myself.
That’s all I have to survive this city that gave me and took me all. One week till the biggest marketing conference of my career is over and I can return home, to this shadow of a life that I live.
After a long day of meaningless smiles and empty applause at the conference, I felt like I was choking. My colleague, Adriana, insisted we go out—to show her the city by night.
“Come on, Della, you’re the only one of us who’s been to Chicago before! Let’s taste the American nightlife and forget about content calendars and conversion funnels!”
Someone at the conference had suggested Excalibur during the lunch break.
“I googled it,” they said, “and it’s the best-rated club in town. It’s been refurbished recently and it’stheplace to be on a Friday night.”
But for me, this club was a forbidden refuge.
Here, I had met him.
I tried to suggest a different club and then I thought I was overreacting. He’d surely forgotten about this place, and I was certain there was no chance I’d see him tonight. So, I agreed.
If I think again… I came here to bleed out what was left of a memory and bury him in noise and bodies pressed too close.
I let my eyes sweep across the crowd, heart tight in my chest.
Maybe it’s foolish and maybe it makes no sense, but I chose red on purpose.
Not for nostalgia but for the ghost of a moment, I still can’t shake.
I walk through the crowd at Excalibur with my head high and my chin defiant and feel like a flame encased in glass: fragile but untouchable.
I make my way to the bar.
“Something strong?” the bartender asks, eyes dragging over me, his grin careless.
“Something light,” I answer, looking him straight in the eyes. “But heavy on the ice.”
Alcohol was never my way out. To forget, to not feel, I use something else. Sex.
So, when the green-eyed stranger with caramel skin touches my waist and asks if I want to dance, I don’t say no.
