The Billion Dollar Girl

(Chapter 1)

 What do you think when someone says, “I go to the gym”?

You think, “Wow”, don’t you? You think, “Wow, isn’t she sporty? I wish I were as sporty as her. She must be really fit. I wish I were as bothered about my fitness as her. She must be a cheerleader”.

What if someone said, “I met him in the gym”?

That’s just like a double-whammy, right? You think, “Whoa. She goes to the gym. He goes to the gym. They’re both fit. They both enjoy lifting heavy things, and running while not really moving at all. They’re totally perfect for each other.”

Right?

Because I just wanted to start this story with, “I met him in the gym”. I could’ve also started it with “I go to the gym”. But I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I hate exercise. I hate running, walking, swimming, cycling, dancing, jumping, throwing, catching and climbing. I could go on, but this is not a book about how I hate sport. This book is about him.

The love of my life.

***

I met him in a gym.

I wasn’t there for fun. God knows that. God respects that. Yet, he makes me go there practically every day.

I worked in the gym.

“Why don’t you scrub harder?” my Boss said, over the inter-com.

Well, you fat, dumb, lazy bastard, I thought, as I rubbed a sponge over the metal joints in the treadmill. Why don’t you come down here from your little office, so I can scrub your face off?

Or better yet, why don’t you come down here so I can hack your head off?

Okay, I knew I was complaining, but to be honest, this was the best job I could ever find. Fifteen bucks an hour. Twenty hours a week.

But it still barely covered my school fees.

I went to the Charlotte Private School for Girls, and every week it cost my family nearly nine hundred dollars. I did what I could, but at the end of the day, I was a minor, and the best job I could find was on campus. In the school gym, mainly standing behind the desk, for three-hundred bucks a week. (But sometimes I cleaned when the cleaner didn’t turn up. Like tonight. Whatever, I got paid double for over-time.) Okay, maybe that was better than almost any other job, but still. It was pretty humiliating.

You know when you were younger, and you dreamed of being Cinderella, and you were waiting for the day your prince came, to whisk you away from your boring life, so you could finally become the princess you’d always deserved to be?

When you came to a certain age, you realized that was utter bull. But the way I found that out hurt. A lot.

I still remember my first day in this damn school. I was so excited. Finally, I could meet the real princesses. The beautiful, smart, rich girls who’d always had it all.

Yeah, right. I was such a naïve little prick.

But now I was a cynical big prick that got bullied.

“Work!”

I started. I’d just stopped working, and started reminiscing. Damn it. I tied my long, wavy ebony hair up – long, because I don’t have enough money to get a decent haircut. I pulled a strawberry lollipop out of my pocket, and shoved it into my mouth. A lollipop to me is like a coffee to a regular guy. I’m totally addicted.

And then I started working again, the essay I had due tomorrow hanging over my mind like a big black cloud. My eyes slid closed every so often, but I tried to shake the sleep out of my head, and get this job done.