Lucky Lucy runs the shower cold for the last few minutes.
The icy water hammers her shivering body.
Waking tired muscles.
She turns the rust-stained handle off and pulls back the mildew covered, plastic shower curtin.
Like everything in the apartment, the bathroom is grimy and falling to pieces.
Junkie chic.
She pats her body dry with a dirty threadbare towel and checks out her face in the cracked mirror.
Her bloodshot eyes are framed with heavy dark circles.
A memory forms in the dull glass.
A reflection of another time, another place.
She stares at the bruised cheek and closed up eye.
Her lips split and bleeding.
She sees the droplets of blood in the white porcelain sink.
The one her mother scrubbed every day until the depression finally won.
Forcing a bottle of sleeping pills down her miserable throat.
The teenage girl who looks back from the mirror begins to laugh.
Her narrow shoulders shaking off the years of abuse and torment.
Freedom was a pillow held tightly over a drooling drunk.
Suffocating the man who had stole her youth and innocence.
"Fuck you, Daddy! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you..."
Lucky Lucy blinks and the memory of her past vanishes.
She wraps the filthy towel around her head and walks out the bathroom.
Kitty is curled up on a couch.
Laughing hysterically at the flickering black and white pictures playing on the ancient television set.
Daffy Duck is blabbering in badly dubbed French.
Hitting himself on the head with a frying pan.
Lucky Lucy sits down next to her and watches the cartoon.
Both girls quickly look up as the battered front door to the apartment opens.
Velvet enters carrying a large brown paper bag.
"About time! I'm starving", Kitty screams.
She jumps off the couch and snatches the warm bag from Velvet's hand.
"Best I go get changed out of these clothes". He says with a sigh.
Lucky Lucy gives Velvet a sly wink and opens her legs a little wider.
A he becomes a she.
Velvet pouts and claps her hands together.
A bunch of red roses magically fall from the ceiling and land on Lucky Lucy's naked lap.
Velvet chuckles to herself.
"Watch out for the thorns, gorgeous girl."
~
Sophia peers through the decaying plaster and peeling wallpaper.
Sadness stealing the smile from her pretty lips.
The sight of her three friends sharing croissants and drinking coffees reminds her of the terrible loss she feels.
How much she misses them.
A phantom teardrop running down her pale cheek.
She remembers the words Velvet's once told her.
Wrapped in the warmth of his arms.
"Death is never the end of love."
