Cross My Heart // Harry Styles

7

GWEN'S POV:

  
The day went s l o w.

Slower than most days, because tonight, I had something different to look forward to. Well, having ANYTHING to look forward to was a new concept for me in itself, actually.

I had Harry possibly coming back tonight. I didn't know if he was able to select me for tonight or not. I wouldn't know until he walked into the s.ex room tonight, or someone else walked in. But the suspense was killing me. I wanted it to be him soooo badly, it was making my stomach jump around all day. I could barely even eat. Today's lunch was dog food, as it is a few times a week. We mostly eat leftovers from the restaurant. Meaning any food that is scraped off of customer's plates goes into a bin in the fridge. And we all get plates of that. There's usually enough. Kids' scraps are the best, because lots of times, they barely touch their food, so just one kid wasting his or her food, could feed two of us that day.

Also, we get any of the food that we can't use for customers any longer. Strawberries that have gone bad. Fruit that's started to rot. Meat that's starting to get brown in the fridge. (Don't worry, we cook it up quick before we eat it. The boss wants us alive. Not puking and having diarrhea all over the clients.) When there's not enough leftovers, as sometimes happens, dry dog food is poured from the dog food bag into the bin, and mixed up for us to have enough food to go around. That way we all get some real food, and some dog food as filler. I'll never ever get used to the dog food taste. It's disgusting. Just absolutely disgusting. Every day is suspense as to whether we'll get real food scraps, or dog food for a meal. We get three small meals a day, and that's it. But we have unlimited water. Yay for that, at least.

One girl must have had a health problem a few years ago, because she kept fainting from not eating enough times a day, so they took her away. I wonder if she's alive or not....

So yes, we're always hungry. And we're all too skinny. And it's uncomfortable to feel like this. We have no energy. We drag ourselves constantly. And yes, there have been girls who have died here. I guess their bodies couldn't take the malnutrition or the constant work and hardly any sleep. A few woke up dead in the morning, and few died while working in the kitchen. One died at night, under a client.

We're all so devastated when that happens, but we're not allowed to cry on work time.

We have our own mourning methods, though. The first chance we get, usually during sleep time, we'll all huddle together after Gus and the boss leave for the night, and we put our arms around each other in a circle, and we whisper whatever prayers we remember, or whatever nice words we can say about the girl who died. And we all cry a little bit, but not too much. All you can hear that night as we climb into our cots for our 5 hours, is sniffles and held back sobs, which in turn makes you sob more....then we wouldn't get enough sleep, and that would be even more unhealthy, and maybe one of us would be next to die.......

There hasn't been a death in about 2 years now. It's been "nice".

At 12am, I sat anxiously in my s.ex room, in my lingerie and the sheet pulled up across me.

Please, please please be him. Please be Harry again. I was almost hyperventilating, not knowing who to expect.

And then.....someone finally walked in. I looked up right away, eyes full of hope....

It wasn't Harry.

It was the strangler.

Good God, please no.

My entire soul died a sudden death right there, as the strangler walked over to me on the bed, as Gus closed the door and locked it.

I couldn't move. I couldn't think. I couldn't function.