Broken Girl

  "Broken Girl is a raw and gritty story about the ways in which we are all so very fragile. But even more so, it is a story about the ways in which love can make us courageous."

  ~ Mia Sheridan, a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Best Selling author

  “This book was unlike any other I've read. Gritty, honest, and in your face! 5 stars!”

  ~ Ellie is Uhm a Bookworm

  “Gretchen de la O creates flawed characters bound by painful circumstance, creating a beautiful, stunning 5-star read.”

  ~ D. Flirty and Dirty Book Blog

  “It's been a long time since a book has made me FEEL like this! 5 huge, beautifully broken stars.”

  ~ Adriana Locke, a USA Today Best Selling Author

  “Every once in a while you read a book that you know will stick with you for a long time. Broken Girl is one of them.”

  ~ Kathy from Panty Dropping Book Blog

  “Dark. Gritty. Raw. Real. All of the things I love to read. I would never had expected such deliciousness from Gretchen. I devoured this book and relished every last word!”

  ~ Up All Night Book Addict

  “A jaw-dropping, heart-pounding story that you won't soon forget. Gretchen pulls you in from the first word and holds you hostage to the end.”

  ~ C. A Book Whores Obsession Book Blog

  “This story is as raw and painful as they come, but what impressed me most about the book is the absolute honesty the author uses to bring Rose to life.”

  ~ The Pleasure of Reading Today Book Blog

  “Gretchen de la O’s words pull you into a world filled with heartache and warmth. “Broken Girl” is beautifully written story filled with depth, devotion and love.”

  ~ J. Three Chicks and Their Books Blog

  “Big O has done it again! I felt the anguish and pain. . . . I felt the fear and shame and guilt. Such a deep deep read.“

  ~ Tiffany, Goodreads review

  Broken Girl

  Copyright © 2016 Gretchen de la O

  ISBN: 10:0-9974792–0–5

  ISBN-13: 978–0-9974792–0-1

  First Edition, April 2016

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.

  Edited by

  Nichole Strauss, Perfectly Publishable

  Interior Design and Formatting by

  Christine Borgford, Perfectly Publishable

  Original Art and Cover Designed by

  Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Covers

  Table of Contents

  Broken Girl

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Do you or someone you know need help?

  THE ROOM’S SO dark, smells like moldy cheese and dirt. It’s cold, so cold that I can see my breath. My heart’s pounding in my chest, echoing in my ears. All I can see is him. He leans me back across the bed.

  “Now, dirty little girls need to learn their lesson when walkin’ around in the confines of men like me.”

  My feet are dangling off the bed.

  Even though it feels like it is freezing, my skin is sweaty. His eyes are dark, narrow, filled with a look my daddy gives my mommy before they make me go to bed.

  His hands are hot and sticky; the tips of his fingers scratch my waist as he pulls my pink shorts and flowery panties down and off my legs.

  “You’re making me do this, my little Rosalie. You give me this sickness, you see, you keep causin’ all of this in my body and well, now you’re gonna help me with it.”

  I can’t talk as my voice is hiding in the back of my throat.

  I am drowning.

  I am scared.

  More scared than any other time in my life.

  I’m naked, my privates exposed.

  Mom tells me that girls who let boys touch them in their privates down there are bad girls, naughty girls . . . damaged goods.

  I don’t wanna be bad.

  The heat of his hands are burning the inside of my knees as my mom’s voice floods me. ‘No man wants to marry a whore, Rosalie; do you hear me? Girls who let boys touch them down there are nothing but whores!’

  My tummy twists at her words and knot at his touch.

  What’s a whore?

  I don’t wanna be a whore.

  His dark eyes widen and I watch him look at my privates. His smile gets big.

  The tips of his fingers are dirty, crammed with black under his nails as they touch my thighs . . . I close my eyes.

  He pulls my legs apart and it seems like forever before he says something.

  “You so perfect, little sunshine. We gonna take care of my sickness now.”

  I open my eyes just enough, still afraid to see what he’s about to do to me; his stare finds me.

  Globs of tears collect on the edges of my eyes.

  Silently, I cry.

  “Shhh, Rosalie, don’t cry, you gonna fix me up. Make me all better; you’s about ripe for the pickin’, girl.” He pushes his fingers against the tears racing down my cheeks.

  My voice isn’t working. I can’t scream.

  I wish I never came here to see if Tami could play. I wish I didn’t have any friends with stepdads who need little girls like me.

  I am like my rag doll as he pulls me to the end of the bed; my arms drag up around my head.

  Why is he doing this? How long till he stops being sick?

  He unzips and his jeans drop to his ankles.

  I didn’t mean to look.

  “You see what you do to me? I need some healin’,” he growls before he touches his sickness.

  I am scared.

  I never saw a man’s sickness before. My daddy never shows me his.

  I feel my tummy shake, my muscles turn to mush, I have no control. I feel my soul leave as he begins to break me.

  He pushes against my privates, too hard, too much. He hurts me down there.

  Broken little girl.

  I hold my breath . . . he huffs.

  He won’t stop pushing.

  I am . . .

  Torn . . .

  Apart . . .

  In Seconds . . .

  ELEVEN YEARS LATER . . .

  BEER BOTTLES RIDDLED the nightstand, clanking with the tapping of the mattress wedged between it and the wall. The music that blared from the stereo was loud enough to drown out my date’s exaggerated huff
s and the squeaking of the bed frame. I held my breath as I counted the pushes, hoping he wasn’t gonna take much longer. Business was time and time was money. The faster they’d come, the better it made for repeat business. I threw my hips into it, tightened my cooch around his dick and huffed out how I was about to come. I didn’t want to keep the other girls waiting.

  A chill of satisfaction slipped down my spine with the helpless look in his eye. One last thrust, as a long bellowing growl scorched across my skin, was proof enough for me that I had claimed another satisfied customer. I focused on the velour blood-red roses on the dark, drab wallpaper while I waited for him to pull out. Time was money. His breath was sour, beer mixed with cigarettes; he didn’t bother kissing me and I was fine with that. I never kissed on the lips anyway . . . Never.

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” he spat. He stretched off the rubber filled with his seed and chucked it next to me on the bed. “You’ll take care of that, right?” He zipped his pants before he tossed two twenty-dollar bills across my chest. “And here, get yourself something pretty.”

  “What the hell is this? It was sixty if I fucked you,” I snapped as I pulled down my skirt. He plopped in the high-back gaudy floral chair next to the door and sucked a short breath through his shit-eating smirk, before he smacked his lips together as if he had caught the smell of sex in his mouth. He dragged his filthy work boots over, pulled them on as he answered my demand.

  “Is that what you call it? Laying there like a dead fish? You didn’t fuck me. I fucked you . . . as a matter of fact, you should be paying me,” he snarled before he meandered toward the door.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” I hissed.

  “I can’t say you weren’t a tight lay. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you . . . I’ll tell my buddies down at the shop what you’re willing to do for sixty bones and let’s see how many run down here to bang at your door. You want sixty for a fuck, at least make it worth it. Roll your hips against my cock or give up a little whimper every once in a while. If I wanted a dead lay, I would fuck my wife.” He tossed me the same shit-eating smirk from earlier, like it was the only one in his arsenal, before he walked out, leaving the bedroom door wide open.

  “I’m the best lay you’ve ever had and you know it, mother-fucker,” I hollered after him.

  Every muscle in my body quaked; that dirty bastard shorted me and there was nothing I could do, absolutely nothing. Who was I gonna tell? I was a twenty-year-old prostitute who fucked guys almost twice her age for money. As long as they filled the rubber separating them from all the worthless fucks that had come before, nobody would ever give two shits about it.

  I learned a long time ago, nobody was willing to help the broken; they swept us under the asphalt of cracked streets and piss-drenched darkened alleys forever. Besides, most prostitutes were the unmentionable leftovers wired on crack or strung out on heroin. But not me, even with all the demons I fought every second of my life, I’d managed to keep off that shit. I stuck to pot and always slammed a couple of fists full of throat-burning-gut-ripping-whiskey before I punched the clock and sold my body. Damaged was one thing, even broken, but to become a prisoner of that shit other girls were shooting or snorting? No fucking thank you, I stuck to the joint and the bottle.

  Sex was my vice and it didn’t take someone with a degree plastered behind a thin sheet of glass to tell me. It was fucked up and crazy and nobody understood it, not even the nut job psychologists could explain it. I was playing Russian roulette and every spin of the cylinder, every pull of the trigger and every time the hammer slammed against an empty chamber and a bullet didn’t pierce my skull, I had another day and another reason to numb myself. Every time I had gained that much more control of my fucked up existence, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I took a bullet. Only a matter of time before my card was pulled and my past would catch up to me.

  “Rose, we’re heading downtown, you in?” Sybil said as she poked her head into the room. Her fire-engine-red broom-bristle hair swayed across her face. Her ocher vamp-style eyes narrowed, exaggerating her thick black eyeliner and clumpy mascara. She didn’t wait for my answer before she released a smile that would turn anyone into a paying customer.

  “Who’s going?” I asked, knowing the only thing we had in common at the moment was spreading our legs.

  “You, me and the two new girls, Crystal and Brie. I was thinking me and you could teach them a couple of things. You know?” Sybil tapped her hand on the door, pushing it open a little wider before she lengthened out her leg wrapped in fishnet stockings.

  I didn’t come into this business with bells on and a party hat strapped to my dome. The idea that I had to fuck gross old men so I could eat and put a roof over my head had never crossed my mind, not until I was forced to. Although, I knew how to disconnect, fuck them before they ever had a chance to fuck me over. I was always in control and kept it business as I had administered the moment with a look, a smirk, a hum, or a whimper. It had become the way I controlled these fucks. When my body was numb, my mind would check out; it tended to dull the sharp edge of what I had to do.

  “Sure, give me a minute.”

  I wedged my toes into my four-inch black stiletto heels, adjusted my thin, red spandex skirt and pulled my fingers through my lengthy black hair. I spent a little extra time to make sure the back of my hair wasn’t natty or flattened from my last lay. I freshened up my makeup, lipstick—candy apple red—black mascara.

  Most guys were drawn to my eyes. I guess my eyes told them every detail I kept locked away in my mind. A hollow goodbye with a touch of something curious, and I never allowed tears to well over my eyelashes. I just couldn’t let anything affect me that way anymore. My need to feel beyond the decay of my soul wasn’t warranted and neither were tears. Call me a callous bitch, a broken woman, hell, you could even call me a slut, but don’t ever call me a victim. I was exactly what my past had created. It happens, people get hurt and nobody stops their day or waits for you to catch up. Either you found your way or you got lost in the nightmares.

  “Hurry up, Rose. Brie said she’ll drive,” Sybil said before she knocked on the bedroom door. She swung her purse across her shoulder, her florally forest perfume filled my room. That was another thing totally messed up about selling sex . . . you had to douse yourself in enough perfume to erase the smell of used latex mixed with semen.

  I looked around the room; pictures of my great-grandmother hung on the walls and propped on the tortured old furniture that had a past equal to mine. On the full-size bed, wedged between the nightstand filled with beer bottles and the wall, the dark-brown comforter was bunched up with the used rubber. Fuck it; I’m not touching it, not for forty bucks. I snatched my purse off the gaudy floral chair. The same chair my grandma always had sat in when she’d spit her judgments on me as a child.

  “So, this is your parents’ house?” Crystal asked as the four of us collected up our coats and headed out the door.

  “Yeah, they’re on their annual trip to save the world,” I murmured.

  “How long are they gone?” Sybil asked.

  “They go every year for two weeks; they should be home any day now,” I droned.

  Even though it had been three years since I’d spoken or seen my parents, they were predictable. Every year at this time they’d take a two-week trip to some exotic place and used the excuse that they were somehow doing their part to help the world. Always keeping up the perfect façade.

  I pulled open the huge front door and let everyone shuffle out before me . . . I looked around and was content that they’d know it was me who left the house the exact way they had left my soul . . . dirty, used and vacant.

  GOING DOWNTOWN ALWAYS consisted of wrangling up a group of guys who wanted to have speed sex in the narrow alley between the Stop & Wash Laundromat and the Iron Hog Pub. It was the perfect place filled with lonely, horny men who would be willing to pay to have someone give their cocks a little attention. I called it speed sex be
cause I didn’t have to work too hard to get them lining up while they’d willingly drop a couple or three Jacksons for me to fuck’em or suck’em off. It was quick money and since word had gotten around, there were more guys than Sybil and I could handle. Pick and choose was our best option . . . oh, and the other horny bastards, take a number motherfuckers.

  Sybil suggested we bring Crystal and Brie in on our back alley gold mine venture and in the process collect a little finder’s fee. I was for anything that kept Sybil and I flush with a little extra cash. We were golden . . . or so I thought.

  We had had it all set. Crystal and I would take a walk around the laundromat and see if there were any potential customers, while Sybil and Brie would meander through the Iron Hog, order a couple of drinks and show the drunk fucks what they could have if they’d come out into the back alley.

  Sybil pulled open the back door of the Iron Hog and both she and Brie slipped past a loudmouthed drunk asshole who used the opportunity to cop a feel of Brie’s rack. He acted like he was trying to find the restroom and that’s when he noticed Crystal was tapping away on her iPhone. His heavy-lidded eyes narrowed, his vision scraped up her bare legs and across her firm tits.

  “Hey you, what are you willing to do for a couple bucks?” The gawky stranger slurred at Crystal before he stumbled forward and grabbed his dick. He shook his head back and forth clearing his long, wiry blond hair away from his sunken wasted eyes.

  I knew this wasn’t the type of prick she should proposition in the back alley. Even though Crystal was only two years younger than me, she was just barely legal to make her own decisions. I’d seen girls like her before; they’d spend their days convincing themselves that they’d sell their bodies just until they made enough money to pay for their grandmother’s operation, or back taxes, maybe even work their way through college with a little extra money to survive. Her story was the same as all the others. When she’d make enough, she’d stop. It was always about selling themselves only long enough to pay for what they needed. Right? Then before they’d realize it, the sharp claws of greed would sink their black pointy tips into their skin and never let go. It basically boiled down to the fact that they’d get too used to the lifestyle.