CHRISTANA
The cheap, rundown apartment smelled heavily of stale takeout, damp crumbling walls, and pure, raw desperation.
It was a humiliating, agonizing far cry from the luxurious penthouse I had been violently thrown out of just hours earlier. The air inside felt thick, toxic, and suffocating, pressing down heavily on my chest like an invisible, crushing weight.
I paced the tiny, cramped living room restlessly, my bare feet slapping against the cold, cracked floor tiles that sent sharp, icy chills racing up my legs with every frantic step.
Stella had told me there was no way, she could take me in but she gave me some money to rent out a small apartment.
My right cheek still burned fiercely where my father had slapped me, the skin feeling tight, hot, and throbbing with a dull, constant rhythm, a cruel, physical reminder of how catastrophically my life had fallen apart in a single afternoon.
