I slowly shake my head.
“No. Not really.”
“Why?”
“Bad timing, wrong people.”
A bitter smile tugs at her lips, her eyes going vacant.
“Bad people, huh?” she mutters absently.
“Some of them... Yes.”
She shifts her focus back to me.
“Is that what it was for you too?” I ask.
“Maybe...” she says.
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
Her eyes lose their luster.
She looks pale in the dimness as she struggles with her emotions. Light dances in her tears when she pulls her gaze away.
“I told my mom... Then. But she didn’t believe me. Or rather, didn’t want to believe me. Not my version of the story, anyway. She said I had made the whole thing up.”
“What thing?”
She stays quiet before she speaks again, her eyes no longer locked with mine.
“He was not a good man...” she finally says, her words sounding like a confession.
A rueful smile comes to her lips as she relives the memory of that man.
“But he was very close to them. And they liked him a lot. Why wouldn’t they? He was the perfect man. Good looking, wealthy. Driven. The quintessential definition of success. He was the kind of man they would’ve liked for me as well.”
She shifts her eyes to me, expecting a reaction. I stay silent, observing her.
She takes a long breath before talking again.
“I couldn’t stop him,” she says, the skin around her eyes creasing from another bitter smile. “He liked it hard. He craved having that power over women. And especially over me. He might have had the appearance and sophistication of an educated man, but deep inside, he was nothing but dark lust. That’s why I had to leave and get away from him. But once I left, I couldn’t go back. Failure was not an option for me. It wasn’t only him I left behind. It was my family and my old life.”
She pauses and muses over something, her eyes briefly coming to mine.
“I didn’t have a plan. And even if I had, I was so unprepared for life it would’ve made no difference. I grew up in a very restrictive environment and didn’t have much love around me, but I was brought up to live a life of privilege and never face the harsh reality. Nobody taught me how to make a living. I had no idea how to support myself or interact with normal people. So I did the best that I could the first few months, bouncing from one place to another, forced to face my worst fears, and deal with stress and anxiety. Despite all that, I didn’t want to go back. One thing I did well. I learned how to make money fast and always keep things to myself. I couldn’t trust anyone. And I didn’t listen to anyone either. I learned that no matter what people say and try to teach you, it doesn’t mean shit when it comes to your life. Your life is yours. You’re the only one who knows what’s best for you. No one can teach you that. What I learned from others didn’t have much value to me. What I learned from my experience was invaluable to me. That’s how it got ingrained in my brain that money is the blood of everything. And then I realized... That’s why my parents didn’t try to stop me. That’s what they counted on. They betted on the fact that once I hit real life, I’d sober up and change my mind. They thought I would return to them and beg for mercy, forever indebted to them. ”
She slowly shakes her head.
“They had no idea...” she mutters. “There was no way I could go back. It wasn’t pride or anything on my part. It was mostly desperation. Plus, once I got a taste of freedom, there was no point in going back. Living on my own–– as bad as it was––had given me absolute power over who I was. I no longer had to define myself according to their values. I didn’t have to repress myself and pretend to be someone else. So anyway...” she says in a mellow voice. “The first few months were the worst. I took every single job I could and learned as fast as I could, and I still sucked at them. And there were other things I had to do on the side to make enough money to survive.”
“I have a hard time imagining that,” I say.
She breathes out a chuckle.
“I could say the same thing about you.”
“Yeah... I guess.”