“Kimi, breakfast”, mother calls me out of my room. To be honest, I feel my stomach muscles growling at me. I sit up and recalled yesterday’s incident, but my eyelids were literally stuck closed. I remember that I had cried myself to sleep. Painfully, I picked on the dried up tears that glued my eyes shut.

I kick off the blanket and padded to the living room, where my mother is seated with the half piece of bread cut in another half. Quarters. She had boiled some water with sugar, too. I sit across from her to eat my bread and drink my sugared water. My physical hunger is satiated, but I feel no satisfaction. It’s like this everyday.

“Thank you for the food”, I nod at my mother and watch as she stays put in across of me, clasping her hands on the low tabletop in front of her. I hear her exhale a sigh. My curiosity perks up.

“Ma?” I indicate with a tilt of my head at her that I want to hear what she had on her mind. Looking at mother’s perplexed expression brings an inkling of apprehensiveness through me. She usually tells me everything without hindrance, so I wonder what she is so hesitant to say to me. “Seriously, tell me. Please?”. She seems to relent, as she unclasps her hands and opens to say “I’ve got a plan”.

This catches me way off-guard. A plan for what? How long has she been planning this? So, that means she had been hiding secrets from me. This is a really weird behavior coming from my mom.

“What plan?”

“A way for us to live better”

“Tell me”

As she relays to me the details, I sit back while I look at her with an expression of increasing confusion. Is this for real? Mother, an honest, kind person so unlike myself, is now telling me of a way I could use deception to climb back up onto the pedestal I once was on.

“What do you think?”, she asks me, and I blink before answering her with a quick

“No”. I got up and laid back down in bed.

I think that it’s a genius idea, really. To find a man who is rich, but foolish for love. Only, I doubt it will work at all if it’s me who does it. I’ve been mocked and stepped on one too many times before, by those people. I want nothing more than to see them regret their actions for once, but one thing that I hate is to take advantage of people. If I had just a bit more confidence, I would love to manage to get to them and crush their egos with my heel. For now, I would love to watch. I don’t see how I myself will be able to do that. Can I bring myself to inflict the same pain that has been brought unto me?

The tall man’s face reappears in my mind. I scoff. Nevermind, those cheeks look very slap-worthy. Wait.

Stupid, just do it.

“So I will”, I hear myself say.

I wont regret this. I wont regret this. I wont regret this.I wont regret this.

It’s Monday. Today, I'm motivated. For once in a blue moon, I am in the least bit feeling positive. The first thing I do this morning is rush to the nearest internet cafe. I pay for ten minutes of internet (because it’s the only thing I can afford), and I google for job openings as a waitress. In a couple of clicks, plenty of results show up, so I weed out the less impressive offers, leaving myself with five or so positions at the nicer restaurants. I ask to print the details then I quickly rush out of the cafe. Rich man, I'll find you!

I nervously draw in a deep breath. Deep breath. Job-hunting…here it goes.

Once outside the internet cafe, I close my eyes and say a little good luck wish to myself from the universe.

Please, for once, be good to me.

Then, I started the trek (by foot) to the first restaurant on my list.

Needless to say, I was rejected even before I could ask for an interview. Once I entered the quiet eatery and asked for the manager, the first staff that I encountered scanned me with his eyes. He had looked at me from top to bottom and back, uttering an expression of disgust at me. I had stared at him dumbfounded. I glanced around the vicinity and noticed several pairs of eyes doing the same. That had caused a shiver to run through me, gooseflesh prickling up on my arms.

So, I’m running out the door and straight to the rest of the places on my list - As much as possible trying to hold my tears back. My exterior is a concrete wall. I look indifferent. I'm not broken. I'm not broke. So I hold my head high, and with what self-esteem I have, I go on.

It’s not working. None of my applications have been considered. I am consecutively being judged merely on my appearance. My regular clothes. My lack of makeup. My beat up pair of sneakers. Despite my carefuly formed words, my pleads for understanding and my hopeful face, they judged me on the things other than those. Never have I been that humiliated.

With dejection freshly printed onto me, I stand outside - I don't know where I even am - and look up. I just look upwards and look at the wide expanse of the sky. I feel so, so, so tiny. I bite my lip, close my eyes, and cry. Yeah I'm crying - what's new? No one is watching me now, so I cry. Even if someone was watching me right now, what will it matter to me? I can't fall any lower than right now.

In the middle of that sidewalk, I break down. A bolt of lighting flashes above; a clap of thunder follows a second later. The next thing I feel on my cheeks, other than my tears, are cold droplets. This atmosphere, topped with whippling gusts of wind, causes me to sob audibly. They come out choked - I sound as if I am mourning the death of someone. In a sense, it does feel that way.

After who-knows-how-long of finding my way back to my street, I am a mess in every way. Clenching my jaw, I force my legs to continue the excruciating trudge towards the only place that welcomes me at the moment - my apartment. I finally reach the door and am about to grab the doorknob, when I feel my other arm pulled back. The hand on it causes my muscles to send out pain signals. I let out a wail and whirl around to find myself face to face with a man I do not know.

"You look like you need help. Come with me"

I am unable to even process his words before he pulls me the opposite direction of my door. I am so tired. Before it registers in my head that I am in the hands of a stranger at night, I am across the street. I am within the tall black gates. I am facing a completely different door than my own. I'm on a couch that is not mine. I am on a comfortable, soft couch. I'm sleepy. I'm asleep.

Waking up to the soft dinging of a phone alarm, my arms flail around to look for it. Instead of finding the phone, my hand lands on something..so..soft. My nose crinkles. There's a sweet smell wafting into my nostrils. Images flash in my eyes, and I sit up so quickly that I see more colorful stars.

I'm on the soft sofa. In front of me is a coffee table laden with food I have not seen in a while. I flit my eyes up, to be met by two other brown ones. The man who sat on the other side was no one familiar. But his eyes were. I gasped.

It's the man who pities me. In my spite, some sort of growl comes from behind my throat.

I hate him.

[A/N]

I hope you like this chapter. Not much is happening yet, but I'll try to pick things up in a few chapters.

Anyway, thank you for reading the second chapter.

- Eunice