Sometimes I feel like my life is nothing but a series of protective masks. By day, I’m a nondescript, gray girl who hides from the crime of Englewood. At night, I’m a dancing doll for the perverse pleasures of rich men. At home, I put on a mask of restraint that saves me from the endless drunken chaos—yet even that mask is given to me no easier than the painful image of my best friend. For years I’ve loved a person who doesn’t see me truly—and unlikely, even if ever, will notice me the way another man did. Unusual. Alluring. Stealing common sense and terrifying to the point of shaking.
The one I met—purely by fateful chance—one disastrous evening, when in total despair I begged the universe for a miracle to solve all my problems. But apparently I should have stated my wishes more clearly—because instead of a miracle I met him, and now I’m afraid that nothing will help me, neither escape nor hide. It contains offensive language.