AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Positive.” I smoothed down the white undershirt I’d worn beneath the jersey. “Just promise me you won’t worry so much about what job you do when you grow up. That’s not as important as what kind of person you become.”
I’d failed at that, but Dylan still had time to get it right.
Electra
“HOW THE HELL can you be stressed in paradise, El?” Ally Stewart, my best friend and roommate, was four thousand miles away in our shared budget-friendly Northwest Highway apartment in Dallas, but the censure in her voice was crystal clear.
“Because it’s not paradise without you,” I grumbled. Ally was the light to my dark. I wouldn’t feel like peeling off my skin if she were here with me.
On my hotel balcony, I leaned into the cool iron railing and frowned at the endless stretch of turquoise water before me as if it were responsible for my antsy mood. But it wasn’t. It was me. I wasn’t comfortable alone. There was too much sadness inside me.
“Aw, well, some of us have to work while our headliner is on vacation in Saint Croix.” Her tone lightened.
“Seems like my being here is punishment for everyone,” I muttered. “Including me.”
“I don’t mind covering for you,” she said sweetly. “And neither does anyone else. Mercedes paid for you to go on vacation because she wants her best dancer to get some rest.”
“She doesn’t want me losing my shit again on the job, you mean.”
“Aren’t you sleeping better there?” Ally asked softly.
“I’m doing all right,” I mumbled, which meant the usual.
My sleep was restless. Nightmares lurked in the darkness, memories of a tragedy I couldn’t change. It had been night when I’d lost them. Thinking of it, I gripped the railing tightly. At least I hadn’t experienced a nightmare since arriving. I focused on that blessing, acknowledging that the change of scenery was doing me some good.
“Are you ready to admit that Mercedes was right to make you take a vacation?” Ally asked gently.
She never pushed me too hard, even during our disagreements. My bestie was soft-spoken and a conflict avoider. She sought peace above all else, that being something she’d craved but rarely experienced when she’d lived with her volatile drug-addicted mother.
“I guess,” I said.
I didn’t like being told what to do after having nearly all my choices ripped away from me. Far too often, I butted heads with my boss at Fantasy because of that.
Setting my gaze on the sea, I focused on the rhythmic crash of the waves. When I took in a steadying breath of the salty fresh air, my grip on the rail loosened. Some of my tension eased, but I refused to admit being here was beneficial, especially after making such a big fuss about going away in the first place.
“Mercedes cares about you,” Ally said, being uncharacteristically persistent to make her point.
“She only cares about ticket sales.” I wrinkled my nose, though I knew Ally was right. Mercedes was good people.
“That’s not true.” Ally’s censuring tone returned. She was disappointed with me and probably shaking her head. I could almost picture her long blond ponytail swishing over her slender shoulders. “Not entirely, anyway.”
I sighed. “You’re right, Ally. I’m sorry.”
Mercedes treated her dancers better than the other club owners did. Sure, we paid the usual steep overhead for our work locker, supplies, and our dedicated spot in the dressing room where Jeremy attended to our every need. Every strip club took a cut off the top of what their dancers earned.
But unlike those other club owners, Mercedes was a former dancer. She knew what it was like and looked out for us like a mother hen would her chicks.
That unfortunate analogy reminded me of the small farming town I’d grown up in and the past I’d left behind. Memories slammed into me like a sucker punch to the gut. The pain doubled me over.
Survive. Breathe. Don’t feel guilty.
Now, like then, I powered my way through the pain. Three measured breaths later, I managed to straighten. I couldn’t think about them, or I would freefall back into the debilitating depression I’d experienced after the accident.
The person I had been before the accident was gone. She had to be gone. She couldn’t exist without them. I was no longer a daughter or a sister. I was just Electra now.
As Electra, I did what I needed to. I could breathe, not easily, not without pain or guilt, but I got the oxygen required into my lungs. I worked. I paid their funeral expenses and my medical bills, all the stuff that selling the house I had grown up in hadn’t covered.
Curling my fingers around the cool metal, I squeezed my eyes shut and forced the bad memories away. Very deliberately, I imagined packing the good ones in soft, protective tissue blankets. I never wanted to think about the risky surgery or the year of physical rehab and emotional counseling that it had taken to get me to this point.
