I'm not alone but I'm lonely - CH. 1

" The Sky is pink today. 

It's my heart that feels blue." 

- Unknown

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The first breath I take this morning is filled with solitude, overwhelm and no will to get up any more. Lately, I have spent most of my time in my own mind, wondering why and if I deserve this chain reaction of emotions all the damn time, the suffering, the urge to push people away, the inability to cope with the person I've become, the challenges life constantly throws at me. All I want to do is go back to old habits, smoke my brain out, close the curtains even further and stay up late at night in an illusion of life, because it is way more convenient than reality.

I crane my neck forward, slowly open one eye after another and look straight ahead at my reflection in the cheap white mirror I got from one of the flea markets a couple streets up. The beige curtains are thin, not thick enough to let me hide from the world outside, there is a tiny space between the two curtains ending. I leave it open each day to trick myself. I learned little tricks over the past few years. This one helps me to get up in the morning.

And as for every morning, a single sunray shines through the space I left open. The warmth of life reaches the surface of my skin. It tickles. 

My hair is messy. It is thinner than usual, frizzy, dry, flat. I'll need to spend at least twenty minutes on it so it won't be any less beautiful than how it used to be. 

My eyes are bloodshot from last night's behavior. I am not sure if my makeup can still cover it up.

My hand reaches the edge of my shirt and I pull it up. I glance at my body's reflection. I swallow. My throat aches. I can't bear looking at my body for long. It hurts too much.

I pull my shirt down and my head falls back into the turquoise pillow. My body aches. I look at my knuckles and realize the pinkish tone. The red had vanished. Huh. The woman at the pharmacy wasn't joking when she said that cream is the quickest way to encourage healing.

I relapsed last night. 

But what is relapse? 

To fall back into a former state, practice, condition, habit? Deterioration in an individual's condition after partial recovery? To slip back into vice, wrongdoing, self-destructive habits that you are so used to?

I do not know the answer. 

Some nights, I burn in the fire of my own thoughts.

Nothing kills me like my own mind.

A sound.

A vibration.

My chill fingertips grasp my phone that lays on top of the wooden bedside table to read the message I have just received.

"Good Morning beautiful, how did you sleep?"- Brooke

Brooke Morgan. She sent me a text like this every morning to ensure how and if I awoke. 

"You're an angel. I slept alright, how about you?" - Rae

I put my phone aside and let my eyes gaze through my bedroom. So organized. So put together. So perfect. So different from what is going on inside my mind.

Another vibration. 

My fingers reach the wooden table and once again, I take my phone off the surface, but this time, to answer a call.

"Where the hell are you? I have been waiting for you for the past fifteen minutes! Wait, are you still in bed?" I sigh deeply as I hear her voice on the other side of the phone. Hazel Leez. My boss.

"What? No," I reply, and get up straight away, "I'm on my way!" I add, press speaker and open my closet. 

Woollen shirts, white starched jacket, loose pants, open necked blouses, large cardigans, ankle-length summer pants, cashmere sweaters, tight designer dresses with variations of long and short sleeves from Marco Polo and Jimmy Choo to Prada and Marc Jacobs, excellent tailor, respectably dressed, earrings and necklaces from Tiffany.

"Well, I hope you are for your own good, because if you aren't here in the next fifteen I might as well fire you," the deep and noisy vibrations of her voice let my phone move on my unmade bed.

"Hazel, don't be foolish. I am your most booked employee," I answer in a high-pitch voice and giggle. Hazel murmurs some words that four years ago I would not have been allowed to hear followed by a deep sigh, "don't be impertinent, young lady. I don't even know why that's the case. Surely not because of your unmannerly personality."

Another short giggle leaves my mouth while I change from my pyjamas into a short-length skirt and an oversized T-shirt. I avoid glancing at my reflection, "I'll take that as a compliment."

I tuck my shirt into the jeans skirt and upgrade my naked feet with some nice black boots I got a few months ago.

"It wasn't supposed to be, but as long as you are here in fifteen minutes I'll leave you with that belief," she tries to remain serious, but it is easy to catch onto the sound she makes as she suppresses a laughter.

"Words are what you make out of them. I'll hurry," I promise, pick up a concealer and a brush and place them in a hidden compartment inside my purse.

"Okay," Hazel responds and I imagine her smirk, "see you soon."

I pick up my phone, cancel speaker and hold it between my ear and shoulder while making my bed. 

Another sunray makes its way through the tiny space between the two endings and ignites my back. It tickles.

I turn around and open both curtains in one go. Oh, how much I love this apartment.

"yeah," I whisper, "I'll see you soon."

Then I hang up.

The sun rises on the horizon, golden petals extend into shades of peach, magenta and amber, embracing hope, a new beginning. Another chance to live. The start of a brand-new day. After the dark solitude of night, it blossoms on the horizon, the golden petals reaching out for hearts to heal, needing no invitation but yet feel welcomed. Her light is a gift, for anyone who opens their soul to her and watches the world awake, self-sacrificing, wanting nothing in return. An inspiration to seek our own beauty from within. Why is life so precious?

A smile graces my face as her light illuminates my soul. What a beautiful world. 

I still love life with every fiber of my beating heart. I just forgot how to love myself for a while now.

The tower grows from the ground, but not as much as the buildings on the Upper East Side, the place I was born in. It is made out of the sincerest grey, that deep-bright comforting color, with generous sized doors and windows painted in light new white. UWSAit says in dark black ink, the letters written in bold lively italics.

Upper West Side Accompanies.

Accompanies is the nicer word for escort. 

Not to confuse with prostitutes – though we are often compared. We get paid for our time. What we do within that time could be in fact sex, but I do not do that. I only get paid for accompany men to social events they cannot bear to go to alone. I have never been physically intimate with any of my customers and I intend to keep it that way.

I place one feet in front of the other until I have to press the heavy door open and Calissa at the reception smiles at me friendly. I give her a wide one in return.

"There you are, Rae," she greets me and gets up, "let me show you to the room."

"Oh no, don't get up," I wink, "Hazel's anger scent is one in a million."

She suppresses a laughter and sits back down, while I walk up the polished stairs. As I am still walking up the last few, I hear Hazel's dominant voice talking to some newbies.

"So you will take – Rae. Only forty-five minutes late."

I take a coffee from the by stand table next to the door and drink a big sip, "you know, if you would do these meetings online they would be much more efficient."

For a second, the deep dark green in her eyes is gone and replaced by white as she rolls them, "just...take a seat and listen."

We discuss schedules, profiles of customers, the big social events of this month and inquiries. Surprisingly, most inquiries are coming from customers from the Upper East Side – as USWA is on the Upper West Side, that is where most of our inquiries are usually from. But not this month.

Hazel gives each one of us a list of customers for the next four weeks. A quick glance over my list reveals that all of my customers are from the West Side. I give Hazel a quick thankful smile. 

I am solely able to work at the Upper West Side, and Hazel knows that. 

As close as the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side are to one another, the individuals you meet differentiate quite extremely. The Upper East Side is a neighborhood full of charming museums, wonderful architecture, and lovely areas of the central park. The Upper West Side has some parts of the park that are easily accessible from the west side and include the Shakespeare Garden and Strawberry fields, and closely situated to the beautiful riverside park and has amazing architecture as well. While it is quite difficult to get around on Upper East side, getting around on the Upper West Side is way easier, as it has more urban areas and used to be a place were quite an amount of people worked daily. 

The hatred for one another is something they both have in common. Many Upper East Siders would never dare to set a foot on the Upper West Side voluntarily. "Many" includes my parents. I am a lucky girl. 

I am quite glad that I had found UWSA, or more specifically, they had found me. It could've as well have been some company in which employees are arranged with customers to keep them "special company." 

So, prostitutes with a higher income. But UWSA isn't like that. Though they do have employees that are open to be booked for physical intimacy, you could as well only accompany the wealthy to gala nights, company parties, or dinners like I am and earn a decent income. As long as I get paid and they do not touch me, I have no problem with continuing my job. 

I only take about three to four a month – and my working days merely include Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. Usually Saturday is the day I get booked, most social events happen on Saturday's anyways. On Fridays, the rich get drunk, leading them to say things that cause quite a turmoil. Saturday is "remorse day". It is the day they present themselves as worthy in their somewhat exclusive society. The day where they have to look and behave well in order to not screw up business deals, cooperation's, arranged marriages, affairs.

This might seem like a quite easy way to make money and work little, but in reality, it is tiring. You play a role that is entirely different from the person you are in reality. You play the role the customer pays for. You are an actress in your own life. But I know how life is in New York – you need to function. 

But somehow, it fascinates me as well.

The roles they play.

The face changes.

How far they go in order to get what they want.

My parents have never understood my fascination about people's behavior and minds. In their head, studying anything in this field is superficial, unnecessary, stupid, not useful. They have spent my entire teenage years trying to get me into the field of law administration or medicine – then they gave up on me. Why study germs and cells when we as humans are way more interesting to study?

So, when I decided to go the Houghton Academy, but instead for majoring in one of the two fields my parents so passionately wanted me to I majored in Psychology, they were enraged.

I therefore paid half of my college fee by myself even though my parents very much had the money to pay for it entirely– and Houghton fees weren't fees that you could pay by wiping floors of restaurants or babysitting on the weekends. 

Escorts are well-paid, and as the events I accompany them to are usually scheduled on the weekends anyways I have enough time to continue College while earning a decent income.

As what I was working is unknown to my parents. And it should remain that way – otherwise, I'd probably be under their dignity. They are snobs – wealth, fame and glamour runs in our family for generations. They do not know a life outside of that lifestyle. I prefer not to associate myself with these things. But they cherish their wealthy, glamourous lifestyle and that is okay. It does not make me love them any less.

I do not enjoy the glamour, but I am grateful for it.

The subway station looks as if it could be at the dead of the night, but perhaps only because of the blackout. It is noon and the platform is only occupied by my shiny boots and my favorite bag. Under the steady beam of my phone's flashlight it's the same place it always is. Grey above, grey below, and a tunnel of black. The air is just as stale and surprisingly familiar. 

The subway is late. I am waiting on the platform for ten minutes of numbing silence. I enjoy some of my favorite songs to calm down my impatience, my feet tipping on the ground out of boredom, but then line 1 arrives.

The raucous, metallic shriek heralds the arrival of the decrepit carriage, standing in defiance of its condition – all corroded iron and tacky upholstery. The doors reluctantly ease open with the force of a stocky station guard. 

I am pleased – at this time of the day, others are working, guaranteeing me a window seat all to myself. I seat myself down on one of the empty window seats and get my job list out to go through the names. Today, 8:00PM – Havier Williams. Huh. He is new.

As I read the address I realize it is a place I have never been to before, but the neighbourhood is prestige, wealthy, with wonderful nature around. Excitement streams through my veins. I like something new. Something exciting. Something that could lead to a little adventure. 

I put the list back into my bag and skip to a song with rainy beats and lyrics full of wonder. The view is filled with darkness, but a kind of darkness that is nice to look at. A promising darkness.

I prefer taking the subway over a cab or a driver. It is relaxing. Comfortable. Nourishing. Another secret of mine that my parents wouldn't approve of.

But I like keeping secrets. I like surprises. I like a good game. I like the mystery. I like a wonder.

As if life is just a tool to discover the souls of one another.

Maybe, it is.

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Individuals with Bulimia can experience major physical side effects such as irritation of the esophagus, electrolyte imbalances, cardiovascular problems, intestinal problems, tooth decay or acid reflux, as well as other severe side effects less talked about such as callused knuckles, frizziness, dryness or even loss of hair, a sore throat and conjunctival hemorrhages. These are caused through repeated contact of the incisors to the skin of the hand that occur during vomiting, dehydration and extreme pressure through purging.

For further reference visit; https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322853#effects-of-bulimia, https://www.healthline.com/health/bulimia/effects-on-body, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/bulimia-nervosa