Jasmine
I told myself I wasn’t going back.
I told myself that the whole walk home, then again in the shower, then again while I stood in front of my closet in a towel, dripping onto the floor, arguing with my own reflection like it owed me an explanation.
Eight hundred dollars a month. That was rent, that was groceries, and my mother’s medication, and the bus fare I’d been skipping to save two dollars at a time. That was money that would give me a breather I hadn’t had since the semester started.
It didn’t matter how much sense the money made. My whole body still remembered what it felt like to stand under those studio lights while he looked at me like I was the only thing worth looking at in the entire city.
That was the problem—not the money. Him.
I pulled on jeans and a plain shir
