She stood in front of his door again.
For the second time, maybe the last time.
But this time... she didn't hesitate.
She had passed the stage where hesitation is called weakness, shame is called shame, and hope is called hope.
Her face was rigid, with nothing to read, no shame, no dignity, not even an obvious brokenness.
There was only fatigue.
A heavy fatigue, stuck in the details of her body, in her sunken eyes, and in that line that runs silently between her closed lips.
She knocked lightly on the door, as if she didn't want to awaken anything in herself.
Within seconds, the door opened.
Leo stood in front of her, as if he had been expecting her since the moment she first left.
He had something like a smile on his face, but it wasn't a smile... It was something else, a mixture of satisfaction and gloating.
"You're back?"
He said it in his over-confident voice, the voice that always thought he had the keys to all the doors and all the weak hearts.
His eyes gazed at her with an insolence that he didn't try to hide.
It was as if she was a used commodity that he knew well, but still wanted to try it again.
She did not answer him.
She didn't need words.
She just looked at him with one look, a steady gaze that held only one question:
"How much... will you pay?"
He laughed.
A short, cold laugh, as if it didn't surprise him.
It was as if he had been waiting for this question for days.
He opened the door wide and said, in a lazy voice:
"Come in... and we'll talk."
She stepped inside.
One step, then another... Each step was like taking something away from her.
Something small, invisible, but important.
Her soul, maybe. Or what was left of it.
The room was : dark, cold, with heavy air.
But the light wasn't necessary.
She knew the darkness well.
She knew it when she suffocated alone on endless nights, when no one could hear her, when hunger became louder than pride.
He closed the door behind her.
The soft sound of the door closing seemed like a lock on what was left of her old life.
Then... silence.
Not a word. No look. No question.
Everything after that was just an absence.
As if she wasn't really there.
Just her body, moving as it was told, while her mind floated away... far, far away.
She watches herself from a distance, as if she were someone else.
Time stopped.
Space has shrunk.
The world has shrunk to a room, walls, an outstretched hand, and a price to be paid.
Later that night.
In her apartment, I sat on the edge of the worn-out bed.
The silence was deadly.
The room was devoid of everything but shadows.
No sound was louder than her labored breathing, as if the air itself refused to enter her chest easily.
Her hands were clutching money, neat... clean... cold banknotes.
But she didn't feel it.
It didn't feel like it was hers.
It was like the money was a stranger to her, like it was brought from another dimension, from a life that didn't belong to her.
She should have felt something, anything.
Maybe relief that she got what she needed.
Or guilt, as happens in novels.
Or self-loathing, as in sermon stories.
But the truth is, she felt nothing.
Just... emptiness.
An immense emptiness, swallowing up everything that was left in her.
A noisy emptiness, filling her ears, pulsing in her veins, pressing against her chest like an invisible wall.
She looked at her hands.
Her fingers were shivering, even though she wasn't cold.
Then, in a barely audible voice, she said to herself:
"I... I became someone I don't recognize."
The sentence slowly slipped out of her mouth, like an irrevocable confession.
It was as if she finally admitted that she had left behind the old version of herself... that what was left was a walking, breathing shell.
---
The window was slightly open, and a cold wind crept into the room.
She grabbed the money again and stared at it for a long time.
Each leaf represented something she had lost.
Each piece of paper was a memory... it belonged to the girl who refused to beg, who stubbornly closed the door in Leo's face.
But now?
Reality is harder than dreams.
Hunger is stronger than dignity.
She felt tears fill her eyes, but they didn't fall.
Even crying... was a luxury she couldn't afford.
She was empty inside, as if something important had shattered inside her, crumbling into pieces that could not be collected.
---
The next day, she put on her old coat, with the missing buttons, and tied her hair as usual.
She walked down the street, moving among passersby, unnoticed.
She was just another face in the crowd.
A skinny girl, walking silently, looking for something... that she didn't know.
She walked past a café where she had once dreamed of working.
The café was elegant, its glass gently reflecting the morning light.
She paused for a moment and looked inside.
She saw a girl about her age, laughing as she served coffee to a smiling customer.
She felt a twinge in her heart.
Not jealousy, but heartbreak.
She, too, had once laughed.
She too thought the world would give her a chance.
But the world gave her nothing.
---
She returned to her apartment in the evening.
She put the money in a brown envelope and wrote on it in shaky handwriting:
"This month's rent."
Then she sat on the floor, leaned her back against the wall, and stared at the ceiling.
The empty refrigerator made a soft sound, like it was moaning.
She wasn't hungry that night.
Not because she had eaten.
It was because she didn't feel as hungry as she used to.
It was like something had changed in her body, or died.
She slowly closed her eyes.
She wished that sleep would take her, without dreams.
She doesn't want to see herself in a dream as she was...
She prefers to sleep empty, as she is now.