I always thought Tyler was that for me, but he proved me wrong…for them.
I still wonder why he chose to abandon me the way he did. He has to have a reason, right? And I hate that I can still feel that pull of hope, the one that should have snapped years ago.
I haven’t forgotten how it felt to nurse those shallow wounds. It still hurts. Unanswered text messages, phone callsthat only reached his voicemail, left there to wither away, kind of like myself.
Yeah, I want to take him out too.
As much as I would love to see Cameryn again, I’m not ready to add on the extra weight of liars.
Staying afloat is already difficult enough.
Maybe I’ll forgive Tylerone day.
But what Harlen did to me is unforgivable.
He is everything I hoped he wouldn’t be.
I only have myself, my brother, and Caleb too, if he doesn’t fuck me like everyone else.
We will see.
I’m ashamed to say I’m almost prepared for it now.
Present
Before my name was called to audition, I had popped four Tylenol. I didn’t leave an inch of that stage untouched. With fiery passion surging through my veins and the staggered air in my lungs, I had closed my eyes and let the electrical current spark at the fuse the way my mother’s always had.
When the music cut out, I hadn’t waited for my result. I spun around, and I left. I did exactly what I went there to do,to dance,one final time,for her.
But that life wasn’t for me.
I wasn’t a clean-cut ballerina.
No, I was a twenty-five-year-old woman who had fought for her life,twice.I was a survivor of something so callous, of something you would watch in a sick horror movie and believe to your core that depravity like that could never touch you in reality.
I needed to find myself again, and it wasn’t going to be like that.
So, that is why I’m standing at the top of two flights of concrete stairs that lead beneath the hustle and bustle of a populated off-street in the middle of LA, having just settled on a vacant building space that I was going to turn into an underground club, one that had a stage.
“You coming, boss?” I drop my chin and find Caleb at the last step.
“Yep,” I whisper as I stare at the illuminated barbed wire image of a cherry in front of me.
While I’ll always be forever haunted by the clink of chains, sallow light, and the smell of burning flesh...it was time I created an environment that was safe, sexy, and full of vibrancy.
A place where the jagged edges and quiet murmurs of my heart could be healed through music, dance, glowing lights, andfriendship.
Welcome to The Barbed Cherry.
It’s time to finally breathe.
Six Months Later
“Mother’s Daughter” by Miley Cyrus pirouettes through the backstage dressing room. The bass is thick, vibrating off the thin walls draped in silver and black damask wallpaper. I snatch up the chrome fabric scissors that sit at the edge of my glossy black dressing table, lifting my leg and resting the tip of my cherry-red pointe shoe on top of the tattered leather stool. Flicking my long wavy hair to one side, I tear into my tights with one edge of the sharp, glistening blade.
The crowd is loud, and I don’t have to peer from behind the velvet midnight curtains to confirm that we are full. I can hear it.
Just how we like it.
