The dark shadow of fate crept another step closer to me.
The harder I tried to run from it, the closer I ended up drifting toward it in the end.
I didn’t regret quitting my job at the diner in the slightest.
Yet the heavy shadow weighing on my chest still filled me with a deep, visceral terror.
I knew deep down that I could bring myself to attach my life to a single man.
After everything I had been through, I saw right through the fake intimacy between men and women.
The moment a woman lowers her guard just a little and lets down her boundaries, men come sniffing around like vultures.
They never cared about a woman’s heart—they only wanted her body.
Once they satisfied their desires, I could trade that moment for temporary food and clothes.
“And after the novelty wears off,” I whispered to the empty room, “they’ll beat you, ignore you, and cut you off completely.”
That was how women sold themselves off piece by piece.
The saddest part was that sometimes, women were foolish enough to feel satisfied and even proud of it.
I had tasted that fake sense of pride once, too.
When I was lost in that sweet illusion, my head was filled with nothing but unrealistic daydreams.
Yet the dream vanished in a flash, leaving behind nothing but an aching body and a heart full of despair.
Still, depending on a single man meant you at least possessed a fleeting moment of tender fantasy.
If I ended up like the women at the diner, working a room of countless men, I wouldn’t even have that tiny comfort left.
My mother never even had a single moment’s dream in her whole life.
That was the real reason I refused to listen to the head waitress.
Both outcomes were equally humiliating, but depending on one man felt slightly less terrifying.
Even so, I hated the thought of selling myself from the bottom of my heart.
I wasn’t even twenty years old yet, and I had no desire to rely on any man to survive.
When I was younger, I naively thought that sharing a life with a man would be full of endless wonder.
Only after living through it did I realize that what they sought was the exact thing I feared the most.
Back then, I was like a stray leaf tossed around by the spring wind, letting others push me wherever they wanted.
Only after the fog cleared did I wake up: he was just taking advantage of my ignorance to satisfy his own urges.
All those tender, sweet words were nothing more than lies meant to lull me into a dream.
Now that the dream was over, everything was empty.
I gave up everything I had, and all I got in return was a few meals and a few new outfits.
I refused to degrade myself just to scrape together a bite to eat ever again.
Food was real, and I only wanted to earn my living through honest, hard labor.
Yet the brutal reality stared me right in the face: if every honest path was completely blocked, a poor woman ultimately had no choice but to compromise and sell her body to survive.
Ever since I quit the diner, more than a month had dragged by.
I pounded the pavement everywhere, yet I still couldn’t find a single decent job.