by Kailin Gow
I can get a job, I think. It won't be easy but I'll find one. A cocktail waitress, maybe, in Vegas; I can parlay my experience at the Blue Room into something less sordid. Just something to start me on cash. And I have my savings, too, about fifteen thousand dollars in Blue Room funds. That can go a long way towards my mother and me.
Maybe my father will resurface. Maybe he'll reappear. Maybe he won't. I don't really know him. I don't really know if I can trust him. But I know that whatever life my mother and I lead after this, it will be just the two of us, independent. We can't need anything from anyone. We can't expect it. We'll just be the two Atussi women: strong, proud, needing nothing from a man. It's a life that will make us happy.
Maybe my mother will get well again. She's left the hospice, now – she seems to be responding to the experimental treatment. I don't know how long or how much my father paid for before his disappearance, but I know I'll do whatever it takes to keep her in the treatment program. And maybe we'll have years – many more years – together. All I know is that I want to savor every last one of them. I want to savor every moment of my freedom.
As I drive along the coastal highway, looking at the clouds and the cliffs and the sparkling water of the ocean, I think to myself: I never realized how happy I am to just be alive.
And I am. Happy, I mean.
Just a couple of hours ago I was catatonic: in shock. I let Mr. X. bathe me, kiss me, touch me, caress me, sleep with me, unable to respond except with sex, unable to express my feelings because they overwhelmed me so terribly. I was resigned to death. I figured someone would get me sooner or later, in this world where everybody is a betrayer, so why bother trying to fight it? I was sleepwalking through my own life: convinced it would never get any better. Convinced that I was worthless, that the world was not worth living in. Convinced that the world had nothing to offer me but pain and suffering and the betrayal of those I loved.
How great a difference a day makes!
Now I am riding on the highway, speeding, even, riding free. I am blasting my favorite music on the radio: loud riot girl punk music like Patti Smith, defiant music, angry music, music for a girl like me: who has finally set herself free. And I am enjoying every second of this freedom. This is me: alive. This is me: happy. This is me: Staci Atussi, a human being, a real live flesh-and-blood woman, not a bait or an idol or an heiress or an unwanted bastard child but a person, complicated, with desires and thoughts and feelings and needs and a car that's going a hundred miles per hour but I don't even care. I'm happy. I'm happy. I'd forgotten what happiness feels like. Almost. But now I know. Now I know and I never ever want to let this feeling go.
The sun sets as I drive. I enjoy the view. The rosy-fingered clouds that stretched across the horizon, the incandescent glimmer of red and pink and gold, all melding together in such unreal beauty that at first I think I am staring not at a sky but at a great, grand painting, painted by a hand that made the world, I think I am staring at a masterpiece, the work of a great creator. It's almost like faith. And I'm singing along to Patti or maybe she's singing along to me, I don't know, but I'm shaking out my hair and my whole body is cresting with joy.
And then the adrenaline starts to wear off, and it starts to hit me.
The dark night sky is filled with velvet stars. My mind is clear. I am on the open highway in the desert, in the dark of night. Nobody is around for miles.
Bbzzz bbzzzz bbzzz
I see a text on my phone. It's from Terrence. I tried to see you I visited your room only to find that someone's torn it apart. What's going on? Are you OK?
Another message, a few minutes later, from Xander. Where are you? Terrence told me what happened to your room? I promise I'll find out who did this Staci. Whoever did this to you will pay. Please say you're OK.
I ignore them.
I can't think about them right now: the two men I cared for, the two men who broke my heart. If I think about them my muscles will seize up. I'll want to turn back. And I can't turn back, not now, not when I've come so far, not with this inky sky above me and the desert all around me stretching for miles like the possibility of a new life, so many miles, so much space.
I have to get back to sanity. I have to be Staci Atussi again, a Staci I can never really be with either man. I need to be more than just a Blue Girl. I have to return to who I am, to get out of the fantasy. I don't want to end up like Rita, like Roz, like Julie or Brandi or Scarlett or Ben or any of those Blues Girls or Boys I'd seen who were trapped in a life of constant sex, constant drugs, constant addictions to new forms of pleasure and pain that at least provide a relief from the crushing spiritual bleakness of the place.
My stomach rumbles. I stop at a drive-thru and get myself a burger ,the biggest one they have, with an extra-large order of fries. Now that I'm not a Blues Girl anymore I don't have to worry about “keeping up appearances”, about putting the perfect body on display. I can enjoy every second of life and what it has to offer. I can explore who I am. And I can explore this burger, which I swear tastes better than any burger I've ever tasted in my whole life: all melted cheese and extra rare meat that seems to up the iron count in my blood the second it hits my lips. And I scarf it down, along with the fries, my mouth watering with every juicy, flavorful bite.
Patti and I keep singing along. She's on repeat, now, and I enjoy her more and more every time.
And then I see something that gives me pause.
A car that looks familiar.
I'd seen it behind me at the drive-thru. A green Audi. A distinctive car.
It's not following me, is it?
I feel nervous all of a sudden.
I speed up. The car speeds up. I slow down. It slows down. I switch lanes and then it's switching lanes, too, keeping me in its sights.
My heart sinks.
I knew my freedom was all too easily won.
Somebody is following me.
*****
Well, that’s yet for Part 7
Thank you for reading
The Blue Room Vol. 7.
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Also, The Blue Room Series features some characters from The Never Knights Trilogy
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If you liked The Blue Room, you would like
Barely Legal
A New Adult Romantic Thriller
For Laura Turner, helping others had been her way of coping and forgetting a past so painful, she had to hide it from the ones she loved or risk going insane. Helping her best friend Serena Singleton start a new life free from a dark past, made her feel she was helping herself move forward.
Laura, whose family ran in the same circle as billionaire composer Sebastian Sorensen and lived a life many would envy, had secrets of her own, and it had been years since she’d lived free of the same addiction that consumed her friend Serena.
When Laura moved to Los Angeles to work at a law firm who hired her to start even without her passing the bar, she meets the mysterious and sexy Peter Townshend, whose
irresistible charm and take charge personality brings out a part of her she had hidden for years.
Hidden behind a wall of secrets and giving her his orders, she only has his seductive voice to guide her to do his bidding. He knows all her buttons. He knows all about her.
He knows she’s been a bad girl.
He knows good girls do bad things sometimes…even things that are…
Barely Legal
Available Now at:
The Barely Legal Series
Barely Legal Vol. 1
http://www.amazon.com/Barely-Legal-Vol-ebook/dp/B00LEWHNWG
Barely Legal Vol. 2
http://www.amazon.com/Barely-Legal-Vol-ebook/dp/B00LEWHWK4
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She writes in different genres and have known to write where she’s compelled to, often surprising and delighting her fans with something new.
