Chapter 10 (Beggar)


    Kylie and I are sitting in the kitchen. Eating two trays of mini Taco’s she ordered from this new ce not


    too far from B-Street.


    She likes to bring different food all the time. Even though she cooks up a storm.


    I eat and don''tin.


    Truth be, I think I have eaten more here than I have eaten my whole life. Even at the clubhouse I hardly


    ate anything extra than the three meals I was given.


    It just didn''t feel right to take their food and eat it when I wanted.


    These past months since I have left The Satan Snipers I''ve lost a lot more weight than nI SHOULD


    have.


    I know I look like a skeleton with flesh on bones. If I am honest I could say I have looked a lot more


    scary.


    By Kylie''s house, we are both always eating, buying food, or making it.


    Well, she does the cooking and I just clean the mess. There is nobody else here besides Vincent, Kylie


    and I, so we have to eat it the and we do.


    I know Kylie likes to eat, she isn''t a skinny woman, but I know she eats more now and makes it a habit


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    so I do the same.


    I eat until my stomach pains from fullness everyday, my body is more used to it now. I haven''t picked


    up much weight but that should change if I keep up this eating.


    At first when I got here I wasn''t able to eat. My throat was fucked. I didn''t realize it at the Sanati Pce,


    but my shock cor was sizzling.


    It burnt through my flesh around my neck. Not sure why I didn''t feel it at the time. I was shot and


    stabbed.


    The pain from the wounds on my body must''ve taken priority in my brain.


    I don''t know, don''t care really.


    It is just another scar to add to my long list of others.


    The worst are the ones you can''t see on the surface, those ones you are unfortunate if you get to see


    them at all.


    I let her do my hair today, she said it wasn''t perfect but it felt fucking amazing, light and fluffy.


    “So, what would you like to do today?” She asks.


    It isn''t the first time that our resemnce is almost shocking. I am the beggar version of Kylie Bray. The


    damaged end of the stick. Our hair is both ck and her eyes though dark brown and mine are ck it


    is simr shape. Except for our noses, mine is sloped, showing my Italian heritage, hers is straight and


    perfect.


    “What do you think we should do,” My dry, damaged voice answers with a question of my own.


    I like her to have the options. It is the only time I get her to lose the frown. Thest time I saw Kylie she


    was a few shades of lightness and an equal amount of darkness.


    She had a constant smile on her face, and her brown eyes twinkled. Now she walks around here like


    the world is on her shoulders.


    For a young girl like herself, who has all the luxury money could buy, she shouldn''t have to carry such


    burdens.


    I used to think that money wasfort. A false sense offort, but now, these weeks with Kylie, a


    young woman who has all the money she could possibly ever want I know I was wrong.


    The money suffocates you, it deludes you to a false sense of eptance until you start hating yourself.


    You start to burn up and use it as a shield.


    But only when it is toote do you realize that shield is weak.


    It is just paper used to exchange for material things.


    It can''t offer you emotional solutions. And I think this is where Kylie is.


    She is learning that material things are onlyfortable when you ept that it will never bring you


    happiness only leisure.


    “Ever yed archery?” She questions with a smirk she could only do.


    Her one eyebrow lifts, and the side of her face transforms to something akin to evil yet yful. Her


    eyes, they tell me so much and mine widens and it is the first time in a long time I smile.


    Life has never been kind to me but I neverined I learned that it could always be worse.


    Almost five months ago I took down The Satan Snipers, I betrayed them even if I was just trying to


    protect them.


    Kylie mentioning archery it brings back memories. It isn''t the first time I think about Zero, Killer and


    even little Aron.


    I hope they are OK maybe soon I would be able to see them. And maybe if I''m lucky Zero and the


    others would believe me when I tell them that I was just protecting them.


    I have never been lucky so I won''t hold my breath, honestly when the timees and I would have to


    choose between them and her- I would choose her.


    It will always be her, that is why I will kill Thorn and why I would have to go back to La and kill him


    too.


    I hold my smile as I stare at Kylie and she smiles back, I like the way she smiles it is not forced it is


    natural, easy, simple- things that I would never have.


    Natural for me was living on the streets begging for food. My simple was sleeping behind a bin.


    And easy is something I''ve never had, everything in my life has been a challenge, a hard part, a never


    ending torture.


    Now I have a reprieve and like all that I have known I take it with both hands, a smile filled with


    eagerness because I know like all the people still on the streets that I won''t get this opportunity again


    for a long, long time.


    My day went quick, Kylie and I spend it ying archery, lying outside by the pool. Everyday we talk and


    every day I notice Vincent melts Kylie''s skin.


    Our next week goes much about the same, Kylie feeding me, then suggesting we do the craziest of


    things. Everyday she gets weaker where my cousin Vincent is concerned.


    I have told her to go for it, give him a chance, but deep down I hope she doesn''t.


    Vincent is not the man Kylie thinks he is.


    I''ve just finished in the bathroom, and I head straight to the bedroom and jump under the nkets into


    my soft bed.


    I close my eyes with my head on the pillow and I think. I pretend in my mind that Zero and I are


    together.


    Imagine me as someone else, not a beggar on the street not a poor girl with no education.


    I imagine that La was a normal man that I ended things with, and my baby was with me, alive and


    well. The bedroom door opens, so do my eyes. I already know who it is.


    “Today is one of does days, where I just want to forget. Here I brought you a ss of vored water."


    Kylie hands me the ss and slips into the bed next to me as I gulp the sweet melon vor down my


    throat.


    "I think if we forget, how would we learn,” I say in answer to her words, “Sometimes I wish I was not


    given the rough end of life, but then I think of La. I think of all the other Monsters in the world that


    had life too easy. Then I think maybe if my life was easy I would be just like them. I don''t want to be a


    monster. So whenever the thoughtes to my head I think that I''m exactly who I should be, a


    worthless filthy dirty beggar. Rather that, I could at least look at myself in the mirror.”


    Kylie touches my arm and my head turns to her as I ce my empty ss next to my bed, on the table,


    which Kylie calls a nightstand.


    “You are worth more than all the zeros in my bank ount. And I have a lot of them. Maybe you were a


    filthy dirty beggar Sugar, but worthless is something you are not. No man goes through so much for


    something worthless, let alone a monster. And I never waste time with worthless people and these


    days you have all of mine."


    I remain quiet, her words hit me somewhere deep inside me. It makes me feel weird, like almost


    somebody, somebody important.


    It is hard to say Ick confidence, because I never really had a choice but to put myself out there, I had


    to eat, that meant begging most of my life.


    But I feel like I have another kind of confidence, one that has me wanting to sit up in bed and put my


    shoulders back and lift my chin. It is weird but good.


    There''s nothing more to say, Kylie seems to have the same thoughts as I do.


    We both switch off our sidelights. I close my eyes, my mind skirts from the past and the present,


    wondering if what she said and the feeling it made me feel is safe.


    I''ve been burned too badly in the past to just change, or want to be different.


    When I lived with the Satan Snipers I thought of a fresh start.


    At first, it was alone, but as time went there was a small part in my mind that wanted to stay there with


    them.


    The more days went by, the stronger that feeling became.


    Damn what a wake-up call I got when La took those women. It was a reminder that I wasn''t born to


    get a new start.


    My life on this earth is my torture.