Guys My Age (Part 3)

The default chime of a text coming through, woke Violet with a start. She felt anxious as she searches for her new phone. "Take your time coming by the office today," a second text came as she read, "Cloudy."

"Her alarm then went off, the phone still in her hand. It was 5am. Two days before Thanksgiving. In the year of our lord, 2019." Her woken anxiety started to settle with narration. "She still had to find something else that was white to wear, the next time they ... " she almost said, fucked, but it was too crass for how she felt, and she couldn't say making love out loud, yet.

She got up and used the lavatory for its intended purpose. When done, Violet looks in the mirror and sees her own big eyes first. She likes what she sees for the first time, in a long time.

Then she looks at her hair. She remembers the box of hair dye in her bathroom closet. It was red, not like her natural dark auburn, or Irish copper even, but real red. Vibrant red like that in the rainbows from yesterday. "That would be wild." She says out loud, already opening the door.

***

Violet steps out of the shower an hour later, her hair blazes with color and shines from the extra conditioner. Wrapping her hair up with one towel and her petite body with another, she dries herself off. A short time later Violet is dressed and out the door. She drives to the bank to deposit her check at the ATM. There will be a hold on most of it for a few days, but she has $100 available.

She looks in her bitcoin wallet. Nick has already deposited 2 of them. She just sat there in her car, staring at what translated into over $20,000. A startling horn honks behind her car. Realizing she is in the way, she puts her phone down and pulls off. Excitement and anxiety overtake her so she pulls over, trying to catch her breath and not hyperventilate.

It was the realization she could go to Rachel's drug dealers and sell them the bitcoins. She could pay off her mom's mortgage tomorrow, but then she would ask where Violet got that kind of money. It was just too much for her to handle, and Violet began to cry, feeling overwhelmed by everything going on in her life.

She was supposed to be in school right now, but all she could imagine doing was going to Rachel's to calm her nerves. So she texts her, "U up?" Dots appear, "Thank god!" Violet says out loud and calls Rachel. "Can I come over?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Rachel says, she is worried about her friend.

"Nothing is wrong, everything is perfect, that's why I'm freaking out!" Violet says.

Confused, Rachel invites her over.

***

Ten minutes later Violet is in Rachel's room lighting up the blunt she had ready for her.

"OK, Lil'Bitch, how is the sky falling on you when the world is perfect? I love the red hair by the way!"

Violet hit the blunt a second time and passed it to her friend, "Thanks, I'm a porn star." She admits. "Hell yeah you are!" Rachel compliments her friend.

"No, you don't understand." She pleads with her, "I answered a craigslist ad last week and then went to the shoot yesterday." Rachel's eyes went wide!

"He bought me this new phone and gave me $20,000 in bitcoins to come back for the next month. He already paid me to be his sexy little toy on screen, and I'm freaking out, because I liked it. All of it, and I'm going back this afternoon." She said it all with equal amounts of pride and shame.

Rachel was silent. Processing the new information. "First off, it's not a microphone, give me that..." she points to the blunt and Violet hands it to her, "You're not kidding are y..."

Violet cut her off, "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"God Damn girl, that is the last thing I ever thought you would have told me. You need to give me a second." Rachel hits the blunt, and then again, and passes it back to her friend, while holding the hit. Violet smokes some more as well. With a release of smoke from every word, Rachel asks, "Do you love him?"

"I don't know, I only met him yesterday, and I thought I loved Tee a month ago. He seems to really like me though, and that scares me, like a lot, almost as much as it scares me how much I like him. He's not like some fat sleazy porn producer in a dirty wife beater. He wears a suit at the office and then later he gave me his hoodie when I was cold, you know, like a real gentleman, in the movies. And that was after he bought me this new phone and over a thousand rainbow condoms!"

Rachel takes the blunt from Violet again, "Not a microphone!" She says again, looking at the hoodie. It looks warm. She hits the blunt again.

"So what's wrong again?" Rachel keeps trying to figure out the problem.

"What if my mom finds out?" Violet says, like someone half her age, who just broke a vase.

"Then you have enough money to go get yourself a new place? Assuming he doesn't ask you to move in with him?"

Violet's expression of panic and delight was like a neon sign across her face. Rachel could tell Violet was enticed by the idea. "O M G! You do love him!" Rachel exhaled. The letters may as well have been shaped in the smoke with how high Violet was feeling. She couldn't deal with all these emotions. It's like, everything is happening at once, and it is giving her a feeling of being at the top of a roller coaster.

"'Click, click, click, the gears raise the coaster over the top... or am I just going to fall from leaning back to far in my chair?" Violet was babbling about her emotions as Rachel listens, like a good friend.