Stepping out into the freezing cold, she put her hand up and hailed a taxi. She climbed into the back and gave him her address.
She tried not to notice the strange looks she received. The coat she wore was buttoned up, so they shouldn’t be able to see the uniform she wore was torn. She’d done her best to conceal everything. Each time she moved, she couldn’t help but wince, and the most shocking thing of all was that she was still aroused. The pain didn’t detract from her need.
Wilson had been an attentive … lover.
She didn’t know what else to call him.
His hands.
His touch.
It was … she couldn’t think of the right word for it. This was why she’d failed high school. Words were a mystery to her. She got by, provided no one needed her to understand big words.
Tears filled her eyes as she thought of the years of humiliation. Besides the fact her mother was known for screwing everything with a dick, some of the crueler people at school had made it their mission to make her even more miserable. She recalled one bully, and she couldn’t think of his name, but he’d shoved her into a circle of all of his buddies, and they started to laugh at and mock her, throwing words she didn’t understand.
At the time, she’d held herself together, simply facing him, or turning in a circle to see all of his friends laughing at her. She ignored all of them, not reacting.
That was what she learned. Bullies wanted a reaction. If she acted like she didn’t understand what they were doing, or didn’t care, they stopped.
At night, alone in her room, she reacted. Sobbing into her pillow, like it would help.
No! Stop thinking about that.
Macie pushed all of those negative thoughts out of her head. She didn’t have time for them. Wilson would never hurt her like that.
Sinking her head back on the seat, she stared up at the roof of the taxi, feeling … odd.
She didn’t know if Wilson would follow her, or ignore her now that he’d gotten what he wanted.
“We’re here, miss,” the driver said.
After the way he looked at her, she knew she shouldn’t give him a tip, but she did so anyway. She knew what he was thinking after she gave him her address. What was a girl like that doing in such a grand place?
After climbing out of the car, she didn’t linger, wanting out of the cold, knowing her small apartment would still be freezing.
With shaking hands, she pushed the door open, not surprised to see the security lock was once again broken.
She took the steps, not even bothering with the elevator. It had been broken so many times, and often with people in it.
The stairs were a lot faster.
She got to her floor, and she tried the key in the lock of her room. It took her three attempts to finally get it in and flick the lock.
As she entered her apartment, there was no difference in temperature. She quickly moved toward the heating, flicking the switch and knowing it wouldn’t be warm at all.
To get warm, she had to keep moving.
Bouncing on the tips of her feet, making sure she didn’t actually make a sound, just moving her body up and down, she rushed to her bedroom and grabbed her spare uniform, which was just as stained as the one she wore.
In quick, easy movements, the dress was on the floor, and she pulled the other over her head. It was a little squeeze, but it fit.
Her tiny repair sewing kit was on the single, threadbare chair she owned, along with a quilt. After wrapping it around herself, she grabbed the kit and the thread, trying to find as close to a matching one as she could.
She didn’t have the color and so settled for a light one.
Slowly, she started to repair the dress, reattaching the buttons. She couldn’t afford a new uniform and she knew Carl didn’t have any spares. When he put an order in for a uniform, they demanded a bulk sale.
He had asked all of his waitresses to try to keep their uniforms for as long as possible. She hated the idea of being the first one who hadn’t been able to keep hers for as long as possible.
With the five buttons secured, she looked through her tiny stash of buttons and found a few more. They weren’t an exact fit, but they would do for her.
She attached them and started to work on the hole that had been created when there was a sudden bang on her door.
She jumped, losing her needle in the process.
Glancing down at the floor, she saw it had slid between the slats of the floor, and she groaned. How many needles did the floor hold?