Finally Finding Perfect

“Are you kidding me?” I think to myself as I step on the scale in my bathroom. It reads an awful number I can’t believe. 140. Shit. I weigh 140 pounds. Are you fucking kidding me?!

I take in a deep breath and think to myself for a minute. 140, that’s not bad. I can loose 5 pounds by next Friday when I go in for measurements. I’m five foot eleven for crying out loud. I’m supposed to weigh more than most models. I look myself in the mirror. Crap. I have a muffin top! There’s no way I can hide that no matter how much I suck it in or how many layers of spanx I use to hold it in. I step off the scale and fall to the floor. I hold my knees into my chest and bite my lower lip. How am I going to pay the bills next month if I can’t be the size they want me to be? I want to sit around on my bathroom floor in my horrendously small one bedroom studio apartment and sulk all day until I figure out a plan to make ends meet. But I can’t. I have to be to the bar to work in less than an hour and I know if I don’t get my butt up off of this floor and take a shower, then I’ll never get the money I need to pay the bills.

An hour later, I’m tying on my folded apron, shoving a notepad into one of it’s holey pockets and all the while, wishing I was anywhere else than this dreaded bar I call my second home. I take a second to look out behind the curtain and I see Chase, my bar manager shoving a few twenties into the register. Before he can see me looking at him, I find my tray and run out to the bar.

“Where do you need me?” I ask him.

He points to the booth in the far right corner and I immediately know the group. I sigh and walk over to take their order of their first round of beers for the night. My shift begins in all of its’ misery and the sun’s not even down yet.

The night drags on with endless drink orders, idiots hitting on me who don’t stand a chance, drink spills, morons with no life moping around the bar, drink refills, jackasses slapping me on the ass; it’s just a normal day at work for me. As usual, Chase just stands by the register, shoving the money in and not giving a damn. I’m one of only two waitresses tonight and my feet are beyond sore after running around for the past ten hours. We close every morning at four and with the clock only reading twenty of, it seems like the last twenty minutes will never come.

“Come on sugar, just one more beer!” a drunken slob slurs at me, holding his empty beer bottle. I take it from him and shake my head. “What? What’s wrong with you sweetheart?” he asks.

“No more beer for you tonight,” I yell over the crowd.

“There’s no need to yell at me girl!” he shouts back, raising his voice higher than I did my own.

“Sir, I cut you off on the last beer,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but somehow I got this other one, so I must be sober!” he shouts even louder this time.

“Sir, no,” I tell him, turning my back on him. I feel the consequence before I even see it. His hand smacks my numb ass hard enough it causes me to take a slight misstep forward towards Chase and his stuffed cash register. When I gain my footing, I can’t help but glare at Chase.

“Loose your shoe there?” he asks. I want to tell him to fuck off, that he should have helped me with the drunk, but I know if I do, I’ll loose my job. Instead, I look past him and dump the tray of empty glasses on the countertop.

“The least you could have done was help,” I say.

“But that’s your job,” he tells me. Again, I want to tell him to fuck off and help out every once in a while, but the same as last time, I think of my job, or my many jobs around this place.

“Chase,” I hiss.

“What?” he asks.

“Am I good to go?” I ask.

“Go where? Back to our place?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I mutter.

“No, give him his beer,” Chase tells me. “Then you’ll go home.”

“Fine,” I say after a moment of silence. I grab the Sam Adams off the counter and walk over to the man who belligerently asked for it in the first place.

“Here you go, sir!” I shout.

“Finally!” he grumbles, nearly ripping it out of my hands and taking a huge gulp of it.

I walk back to Chase, hand him my tray and start to walk to the back.

“Hey, Ry,” Chase says, stopping me. I turn back and look at him. He hands me a hundred dollar bill folded in half. I look inside the fold and see the fresh white powder protected in the plastic bag. I shove it in my bra and keep walking.

As soon as I’m back in the bathroom I so desperately didn’t want to leave nearly eleven hours
earlier, I grab my cosmetic mirror and a razor blade. I pour the contents of the plastic baggie onto the mirror and form four perfectly straight and narrow lines out of the white powder. I reroll the hundred dollar bill into a tight cylinder and hold it up to my nose. I lean over the mirror and sharply inhale the first line. It takes a moment, but I soon feel the relief I’ve been anxiously awaiting all day. I do the second line and feel more energetic and more confident with the third. I take one look at the fourth and inhale it for good luck. I no longer feel as tired as I did before, I feel like I have hours worth of energy bursting inside me. I barely notice Chase walking into the bathroom behind me. Before I know it, his hand scoops my hair off my shoulders and his mouth meets my shoulder blade.

“How was it babe?” he asks seductively. Both his hands are around my waist. I try to slide out of his unwelcome embrace.

“Perfect,” I tell him as I’m looking at myself in the big mirror.

“Mm, just like you,” he says.

“Ha!” I scoff. “I’m just barely perfect,” I mutter in an inaudible voice.

Chase breaths in my skin and I pretend for a moment I want him there. When he makes a move to kiss my cheek, I pull away.

“What?” he asks. “It’s good enough for Russ, but not good enough for me?”

“Shut up!” I tell him without thinking about it.

I walk out to the bed in the middle of the one room. I sit myself down onto it and reach for Chase’s pillow. I throw it on the ground and point to it. He picks it up almost immediately and laughs, putting it back on the bed. I sigh.

“I don’t think so,” Chase says, lying down next to me. He wraps his arms around my waist again, this time with more force than before. He pulls me down next to him against my will.

It takes me so much strength not to try something and punch him in the balls even though the four lines I just snorted are begging me to do it. I grind my teeth in anger. I don’t want to be anywhere near Chase. Not now, not ever! The guy’s a prick, always has been and always will be. I desperately want out of this hellhole of a life. It’s not what I imagined it would be. I feel Chase near my neck.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have given you enough for four lines. You obviously couldn’t handle it,” he snickers before he lets go of me and rolls over, taking the covers with him.

I feel the tears swelling in my eyes, becoming too much of a weight to bear. I wipe them away and close my eyes to try and get some sleep.