Forbidden For Me

Gabriela

I drag myself from bed still unwilling to face another day, I change quickly and leave still having coffee. Every day I feel less like working, eating, even getting out of bed. All I wanted was to wake up from this nightmare that was not having my mother around anymore, the nightmare that my life had become since the day I opened up to a man.

"Good morning, sunshine." I tease Ane, who was already waiting for me in front of Monty’s.

"Good morning, bitch." she says throwing the rest of her cigarette on the floor.

"Was it a good night?" I ask looking at her hungover and tired face. " It will kill you." I murmur pointing at the cigarette now crumpled on the floor.

Not that it made much difference to scold her about the habit of smoking, Ane hardly listened to anything, she seemed to be in a marathon to sink.

"It sucked, I kicked the guy after we had sex on the couch. And for your information, going without food will also kill you young lady, but what the hell, in the end we’ll all die anyway." I nodded my head. It was the only certainty we had in this life, no matter how good, bad, honest or a total asshole you were, death would come.

" Bitch sorry, I’m a fool." She ran off with words when she noticed my frowning eyes.

Ane didn’t have a filter, she spoke her mind, but she was sensitive to people around her and when she noticed that she had reminded me of my mother she regretted it.

My mother passed away six months ago after suffering from breast cancer, now it was just me.

"You’re right, everyone dies and yes you’re stupid, but one of the few who put up with me."

"Unfortunately, I can’t help it." she replied more relieved returning to smiling.

We were not best friends who hug and kiss, exchange confidences, just talked about our day to day, she hid as many secrets as I, but in the middle of our mess we took care of each other, even in a strange and cold way.

I had already given up understanding how Maryane came to this city, in fact did not even know where she was from. But she was like that, with her expressive green eyes and her flashy blonde hair, running away from everyone who tried to learn something from her past.

And even though I knew her class didn’t suit this little town in the middle of nowhere, I never pressured her to talk about her life, I had my own demons to hide.

"How about the girls come in to work? Or do you want me to take it out of my salary?"

We both faced each other with real revulsion, working to pay the bills sometimes means working for that kind of shit like Monty, who owns the diner, unfortunately that hole was one of the only ones that paid a decent salary in that town.

The customers who passed by, except the drunks on duty of course, always came back thanks to Ane, Nana and me, who prepared a wonderful food.

Our routine was to clean up first, cook while serving the tables and clean up before leaving. If we were lucky, I’d be so full of customers traveling down the road that drunks would be looking for the bar across the street.

"Why hasn’t Nana arrived yet?" It was past one in the afternoon, she always arrived around eleven, sometimes delayed, but never this much.

Nana was our guardian angel. The little lady who stood by my side as we faced my mother’s illness, when I started working here, after my mother died and protected us every day when disgusting men tried something hard with both of us.

"I’ll call her." Ane said already taking her cell phone from her pocket, but even before she unlocked the cell phone Monty entered the kitchen scaring us.

"Your darling Nana isn’t coming today, she said she’s sick, looks like she’s got the flu. God knows that old lady could have died already." The creep finished the sentence talking more to himself than to one of us. "And keep that fucking phone, you don’t get paid for it." He spit out the words before he left.

He was a prick! God knows that if I didn’t need this job I would have broken this wretch’s face by now, which didn’t stop us from cursing him every once in a while.

"Do you know anything about it? When she left here yesterday she was fine."

"We’ll keep an eye on each other and take care of each other, when we get out of here we’ll stop by Nana’s house to check it out." I say trying to look strong in front of Ane.

The truth is that I had never been here without Nana, Monty was one of the men who tried at all costs to put his dirty hands on one of us and since I came here there was a day that Nana did not keep us company.

That wretch did not deserve be compared to a human being, he and his whole troupe could be anything but people of character and that left me terrified, because there was not much that they were not able to do to get what they wanted, I was afraid he’d been able to do something to Nana.

But thanks to any force in the universe our afternoon was so hectic that we barely saw it and was faster than I thought. The problem was that during the night the flow was higher, mainly of drunks, so we had to redouble the attention to each other. Any longer and we’d be out of here.

The bar was crowded as always and Monty did not stop around us, it seemed that there was nothing illegal to do out there because he spent the whole damn day watching us closely.

My distrust was big, he was no good and my fear was that he would attack Ane, so even inside the kitchen I tried to keep an eye on the salon always seeing where she was.

I had just delivered a request to her when the door behind me opened making me jump, the back door leading straight to an alley between the bar and the pig’s house.

"What do you want here?" I questioned trying not to look scared and keep the cranky pose, even if my whole body trembled.

"I own this place, I can go anywhere I want without having to explain myself to you." The skinny man spoke, he smelled of cheap cigarettes and alcohol, even when he did not drink the stench did not come out of his body.

I stood at the counter, pretending to go back to work, but I was actually looking for the knife I use to cut meat. Monty passed behind me, causing me a chill and reached the window through which we passed the requests, when the wood slammed against each other my body jumped and I ran to the door, but he pulled my hair so hard that tears filled my eyes.

I turned my body with the knife in my hands, focusing on sticking the steel anywhere on his body and running away from there. But Monty went faster and held my wrist laughing at me.

"You’re a brave bitch, but not as brave as I am."

I pushed my body against his, using my weight to unbalance it and make it crash against the stove, tears trickled down my face as he pulled my blouse, tearing the fabric and hit me with a slap, but I managed to get rid of him by throwing his body back and making him hit a hot pot, dropping all the sauce on the floor.

I ran and managed to open the door, but the disgusting hands held me and he threw me to the ground.

My back hit the cold floor so hard that air escaped from my lungs. I felt his body over mine and opened my eyes in time to see his closed fist hitting my face hard.