“I’m sorry, can you check again?” I say laughing nervously. “There must be a mistake.”

I’m standing at the counter, across from a bank teller with a bored expression. He sighs and looks back to the computer, tapping a few keys and clicking the mouse. His eyes scan the screen and then slide back to me. “There’s no money in your trust fund. It was pulled out by a... Mr. Styles. The system says he’s your--”

“Father,” I say through gritted teeth. My heart is pounding in my chest and I feel light-headed. I can feel the full weight of reality waiting to crash down and crush me, but I’m not there yet. It’s too much to take in at once. “Is there someone else I can talk to about this? It was supposed to be a trust for me. He shouldn’t have been able to…”

The teller, Steve, according to his nametag, gives me an obnoxiously placating smile. He turns and taps a woman in a pantsuit with the back of his hand and speaks to her in low tones. The woman eyes me while they talk and then walks over to me, heels thumping on the cheap carpet. She flashes a toothy smile that says she’s ready to go through the motions to get rid of me and no more.

“Let’s just look into this one more time to be sure,” she says.

I force a smile back at her, clutching my hands together on the counter to keep them from shaking. All of it. He took all of it. The words echo in my head and I feel tendrils of hopelessness reaching up to grab me from somewhere dark. I think of all the loans and the debt I thought would be completely covered. If I don’t get this trust money, everything could fall apart. Every last thing. I could lose my business, my apartment, my chance at finishing school. Hell, I don’t even know how I’d find money to eat.

Breathe, Emmaline. I force myself to breath more slowly, realizing I’m on the verge of hyperventilating.

The manager purses her lips and clicks the mouse a few times and then nods her head. I can tell she’s trying to look sympathetic, but I can see right through it. She doesn’t really care. “I’m sorry, Miss Styles. Your Uncle left the right to access the money to your parents. Your father was within his legal rights to withdraw it early.”

I feel numb. My hands are shaking and tears threaten to fall, but I push them back. Not here. Not now. Hold it together. I’ll talk to him. Maybe there’s a way to resolve this and I’m just not seeing the whole picture.

“Miss, could you please step aside so I can help the next customer?”

I jump a little at the sound of her voice, sniffing in a startled breath and adjusting my purse on my shoulder. I step away from the window feeling worthless, walking out of the bank as quickly as I can to find a quiet place outside to sit down. I pull out my phone with a trembling hand and realize I’m going to have to call my mom to get my dad’s number.

I call my mom quickly, before I can talk myself out of it. She answers on the first ring.

“Emmaline,” my mom says. Her voice is stern with a note of warning. She’s probably planning to tell me off for not texting her back, but I don’t have the patience for that right now.

“Mom, I need dad’s number. It’s important.”

“You haven’t texted me back in days. Ronnie and I are trying to make plans and you are making it impossible for us.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to push down the anger rising up and threatening to explode. The fastest way through this whole mess is just to tell her. I doubt I’ll ever get dad’s number out of her unless she thinks it’s the only way she can get to the trust fund money. “Dad took the money in the trust. All of it. I just left the bank. There’s nothing left.”

Silence follows and I can hear the distant crackle of the wind from her end of the phone. “He wouldn’t dare,” she says finally, voice cold and threatening.

“Yeah, well apparently he would, mom. I need his number.”

She gives me the number and swears she will straighten this out if I can’t. Of course she wants to help. I can count on my mom to step in and look after me if she thinks there’s money in it for her.

I hang up the phone and punch in my dad’s number, hands trembling. It rings for a long time until I’m about to hang up. A gruff voice answers finally, a voice I haven’t heard in several years. “Who’s this?” he asks.

“Emmaline,” I say.

“Oh, yeah. I thought you’d be calling today.”

My blood chills. “Why is that?” I ask. I’m barely in control. My heart thuds against my ribcage and my blood pounds in my ears.

“Don’t make me say it, Em.”

I wait. He’s not getting an ounce of mercy from me. Not a fucking ounce.

He finally sighs. “Yeah. I withdrew the money. I made a few bad investments and had to pay off my debts.”

I wait for more, for an apology, some shred of regret or remorse to soften the betrayal, but nothing comes. “There’s none left?” I ask, hating how my voice quivers.

“No. I still owe money. Mom said you had a business and were making good money, so if you can just lend me--”

I hang up the phone, breath heaving. I close my eyes, squeezing them against the tears that finally come streaming down my cheeks and leaving hot trails in their wake. My skin tingles. The wave of reality threatening to crash down on me for the last few minutes finally comes down with crushing force. He left, but I always clung to the idea that he regretted it, that he missed me and would try to make it right some day. It made dealing with my mom’s increasingly disturbing behavior and the other stress in my life easier.

It’s all gone. Not just the money, but my hope too. My hope of making a life for myself better than everyone thought I could. My business. My passion. I can see it all slipping out of reach and there’s nothing I can do.

Even worse than my own failure is the way I’m failing my best friend. I know Scarlett has made sacrifices to work for me, and I’ve been doing everything I can to pay her what she deserves. Now? God. Now I don’t even know if I’ll be able to keep paying her.

I lose track of how long I sit there alone on the bench, feeling more completely alone than I’ve ever felt. There’s a world of responsibility and sadness threatening to close in around me and I have to somehow find a way to shoulder it all and push through. Somehow.

I press an iron to the heat transfer pad, applying a decal to the onesie I’m working on. Scarlett huffs in frustration when she accidentally tears the vinyl design she was peeling from the transfer paper.

“Dammit, be careful!” I snap.

Scarlett looks up in surprise, face reddening. The vinyl is expensive, but I’ve never lashed out at her like that before for a mistake. It’s part of the business.

“Sorry,” I say quickly, feeling myself deflate.

“Hey,” she says, moving closer and putting a hand on my arm. “What’s going on? You’ve been off all morning. I thought you’d be all bubbly because your bank account is probably looking really nice right about now. Today was the day, right? Emma?”

I shake my head, but can’t stop the tears from coming. Dammit. My mind floods with unwanted memories. Images of the bills laid out on my kitchen table that are now going to get more and more overdue, of the fees that will add up, of how long it will take before collectors start calling. It’s too much. My body shakes as a wave of sobs rip through me.

Scarlett is holding me tightly, squeezing her arms around me and shushing me. “It’s okay, Emma. You’re okay.”

I let her soothe me, pushing down my worries for the moment until I get control of myself. She gently sits me down on a box and pulls a stool up across from me and sits, eyeing me critically. “What’s going on?”

It all spills out of me. The problems with my mom I’ve been holding in, the bills, the debt, and finally the trust fund. Scarlett’s face wrinkles with sympathy and she squeezes my knee when I finish. I feel like an emptied vessel, having poured everything out makes the wounds feel fresh and raw, but somehow better in a way.

“This is going to sound a little weird,” says Scarlett slowly. “But I know a way you could make some extra money. There’s this club, it’s for people with… exotic tastes. I worked there to pay my way through college. You just have to wear the, uh, uniform and play by the rules. If you think of it like acting, it’s really not that bad.”

I frown, confused. “I’m not following...”

She sucks in a breath, obviously uncomfortable. “It’s a BDSM club. Club Crave. The clients are all extremely wealthy from CEOs to senators. They paid girls like me to help create atmosphere and sell the scene.”

“Sell the scene?” I ask, still not fully wrapping my head around what she’s saying.

“You would play the role of a submissive. You mingle with the guests, socialize, and keep an eye on everything to make sure no one is breaking the rules.”

“I don’t think this is for me,” I say quickly.

“It pays five grand a week,” she says, smirking a little.

“A week?” I ask. “For how many hours of work?”

“You would only work weekends and it’s only from 6 P.M. to 2 A.M.”

“Five grand a week for two days of work? You’re serious?”

She nods. “I still have the Matron’s number. I could be your reference. If you want.”

I swallow hard. BDSM? My knowledge of the subject starts and stops with Fifty Shades. But I’ve admittedly always felt drawn to the idea of it all. I’ve never experimented sexually. Maybe it was just the guys I was with or my own self-consciousness, but the only sex I’ve ever had is as standard as it comes, minus the whole part where I enjoy it. The money sounds like an answer to my problems, and the club… I’m a little embarrassed by how much the idea is quickly taking root in my head, making me think a crazy thought. The thought that maybe the key to my stunted sexuality is buried somewhere in the world of kinky sex, leather straps, handcuffs, and collars. “I don’t know,” I say. But I do know. I’m going to try it because I have no other choice.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I think you should still go to the party tonight. It will help get your mind off things. And I already told Michelle you were coming.”

“Why not?” I ask, feeling more than a little crazy.