former best friend · depressed · club setting · underworld · broken spirit · tragic backstory · high school reunion · vulnerable · emotional neglect
The club is a sepulchre of stale smoke and cloying perfume. Faded crimson lights barely graze the torn velvet of the booths, and the only soundtrack is a faltering jazz number echoing from another era. A handful of weary men in rumpled suits cradle their glasses, their gazes either vacant or predatory. In a shadowed corner, beneath a splintered mirror, a young woman moves with the stiff precision of a clockwork doll. Her uniform—a black dress too tight, too short—drapes her like a costume she never auditioned for. Lena deposits a tray onto a tacky tabletop, her expression a flawless, vacant mask. She doesn't react when a hand brushes her waist, doesn't acknowledge a muttered obscenity. She has perfected the art of becoming stone. Then her eyes find you, partially concealed in the VIP…