THREE IS A CROWD

Sarah walked to the house, struggling with the grocery bags that were twice her size. She had finally been able to stock up her new house and decorate it to her taste.

It felt really good to finally live alone after spending years with three roommates. She enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house and the fact that she could actually hear herself think in contrast to her shared apartment back in college where she couldn't go a second without hearing a squeal or an "oh my God, he's so hot."

Her roommate has been fangirls of any and every hot boy band on the planet and it wasn't like she judged them or thought she was better than any of them. As a matter of fact, she loved them dearly and all of them stayed like sisters.

It was just that she had passed that phase and those years were behind her now. She has been forced to grow up after the incident happened. Sarah in the past had been wild.

She had spent the better years of her high school being that girl. She missed the thrill and excitement it brought to have friends that shared your mind set.

As a matter of fact, back in school, her mindset was the mindset of every one of her friends. Whatever she thought was what they thought and what she said was the law.

Anyone who went against her had better change school or else they were as good as dead.

She missed how it felt to be worshiped, to be sought after. Sarah had been the standard, beauty standard and coolness standard. Her long strawberry blonde hair had turned heads during that senior year and her bright blue eyes always captivated the soul of every one she spoke to.

Her face was the perfect shape and her red lips were the focus of every boy who stood within two feet of her. What drew even more attention were the round and full breasts that took their place proudly on her chest.

She has worn them like trophies and worn clothes to show them off. The curves were in the right places and it seemed like God had taken a different day to create her.

Everyone wanted to be her friend and would basically do anything to be in her good books. It seemed it had affected her ability to discern between good and bad.

Everyone on the outside had thought she had the perfect life, but the sad reality was that it was the opposite. Right on cue, her phone rang and she reached into her bag before remembering it was in her coat.

Dread filled her as she looked at the caller ID and took everything in her to not launch her phone across the room to avoid picking up the call but she knew that the caller would just look for another way to get to her and frustrate her.

"Hello? Ana, are you there?" She closed her eyes as she heard the voice. One she had been dreading for months.

She had no idea she picked up the call and she instantly regretted it because she was thinking of a way to ignore it.

"What do you want? I'm busy."

The caller scoffed. "I didn't raise you like that, young lady. That is no way to speak to your mother."

That statement was more than enough for a good laugh. Mother?

"I don't have time for this. What do you want?" She used her free hand to move the grocery out of the way.

She would deal with them later but for now, she had a more annoying issue to deal with..

"Anyway, I'll ignore your attitude and go straight to the point. My house rent is due already and I need money for some other things."

Other things like drugs... but she didn't say that out loud. The shorter this conversation was, the better for her mental health.

"Don't you go and look for jobs? All you do is sit at home all day and ask me for money. Maybe if you went out and did something with your life, you won't sit at home and waste."

Her "mother" stayed quiet on the other side of the line. That outburst was just a little of what she actually had to say to her.

"Seems like you have a lot to say to me. Why don't I come over to LA and you say it to me over a nice long coffee chat? "

"I'm busy." She quickly ended the call and felt a weight lifted from her shoulder.

That woman had been the bane of her existence since she became a teenager. Other people had been proud of their moms while hers made her life a living hell..

From asking her to serve her 'visitors' whenever they came over every night, to condoning the beating she got after the visitors reported to her mum that she had been violent and disrespectful when they tried to touch her.

After that, she had begun accepting whatever came her way. After all, she had begun to grow up and she could handle it.

Then it graduated to being sent to get the drugs. That was when she realized that her mother didn't really care about her.

She could have been raped or even worse, killed for the massive debt that her mother owed them. But when they had come knocking down the door asking for their money, her mother had willingly given her up for them to take as collateral.

Even the man had been disgusted at her and asked the mother to pay them with cash and not her own child. That night, she had gotten a beating for not being valuable and not being able to help in the family.

Her mother called her a liability and a worthless child because she felt Sarah brought her just as much pain as her father had while they were still together.

She stood up from the couch and faced the groceries. Anything to distract her from her sad life.

Sarah walked to the house, struggling with the grocery bags that were twice her size. She had finally been able to stock up her new house and decorate it to her taste.

It felt really good to finally live alone after spending years with three roommates. She enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house and the fact that she could actually hear herself think in contrast to her shared apartment back in college where she couldn't go a second without hearing a squeal or an "oh my God, he's so hot."

Her roommate has been fangirls of any and every hot boy band on the planet and it wasn't like she judged them or thought she was better than any of them. As a matter of fact, she loved them dearly and all of them stayed like sisters.

It was just that she had passed that phase and those years were behind her now. She has been forced to grow up after the incident happened. Sarah in the past had been wild.

She had spent the better years of her high school being that girl. She missed the thrill and excitement it brought to have friends that shared your mind set.

As a matter of fact, back in school, her mindset was the mindset of every one of her friends. Whatever she thought was what they thought and what she said was the law.

Anyone who went against her had better change school or else they were as good as dead.

She missed how it felt to be worshiped, to be sought after. Sarah had been the standard, beauty standard and coolness standard. Her long strawberry blonde hair had turned heads during that senior year and her bright blue eyes always captivated the soul of every one she spoke to.

Her face was the perfect shape and her red lips were the focus of every boy who stood within two feet of her. What drew even more attention were the round and full breasts that took their place proudly on her chest.

She has worn them like trophies and worn clothes to show them off. The curves were in the right places and it seemed like God had taken a different day to create her.

Everyone wanted to be her friend and would basically do anything to be in her good books. It seemed it had affected her ability to discern between good and bad.

Everyone on the outside had thought she had the perfect life, but the sad reality was that it was the opposite. Right on cue, her phone rang and she reached into her bag before remembering it was in her coat.

Dread filled her as she looked at the caller ID and took everything in her to not launch her phone across the room to avoid picking up the call but she knew that the caller would just look for another way to get to her and frustrate her.

"Hello? Ana, are you there?" She closed her eyes as she heard the voice. One she had been dreading for months.

She had no idea she picked up the call and she instantly regretted it because she was thinking of a way to ignore it.

"What do you want? I'm busy."

The caller scoffed. "I didn't raise you like that, young lady. That is no way to speak to your mother."

That statement was more than enough for a good laugh. Mother?

"I don't have time for this. What do you want?" She used her free hand to move the grocery out of the way.

She would deal with them later but for now, she had a more annoying issue to deal with..

"Anyway, I'll ignore your attitude and go straight to the point. My house rent is due already and I need money for some other things."

Other things like drugs... but she didn't say that out loud. The shorter this conversation was, the better for her mental health.

"Don't you go and look for jobs? All you do is sit at home all day and ask me for money. Maybe if you went out and did something with your life, you won't sit at home and waste."

Her "mother" stayed quiet on the other side of the line. That outburst was just a little of what she actually had to say to her.

"Seems like you have a lot to say to me. Why don't I come over to LA and you say it to me over a nice long coffee chat? "

"I'm busy." She quickly ended the call and felt a weight lifted from her shoulder.

That woman had been the bane of her existence since she became a teenager. Other people had been proud of their moms while hers made her life a living hell..

From asking her to serve her 'visitors' whenever they came over every night, to condoning the beating she got after the visitors reported to her mum that she had been violent and disrespectful when they tried to touch her.

After that, she had begun accepting whatever came her way. After all, she had begun to grow up and she could handle it.

Then it graduated to being sent to get the drugs. That was when she realized that her mother didn't really care about her.

She could have been raped or even worse, killed for the massive debt that her mother owed them. But when they had come knocking down the door asking for their money, her mother had willingly given her up for them to take as collateral.

Even the man had been disgusted at her and asked the mother to pay them with cash and not her own child. That night, she had gotten a beating for not being valuable and not being able to help in the family.

Her mother called her a liability and a worthless child because she felt Sarah brought her just as much pain as her father had while they were still together.

She stood up from the couch and faced the groceries. Anything to distract her from her sad life.

"I don't care. Do it again. I hate it." Dan threw the designs for the new company project across the room in anger.

They had been going at it for three hours and no one had come up with anything worth seeing.

"For God's sake, the final meeting is next week. We have nothing to present to the investors. All these designs are horrible and I can't even look at them and neither would the investors." He could see the tired looks on his employees faces and he knew they were out of it and won't contribute so much to this anymore.

He was tired himself. He had stayed up all night trying to do his own job and had come here straight in the morning hoping to put ideas together with what his employees had to offer.

Apparently, it wasn't much.

"Sir, we are designing based on the ideas and instructions you have given us. I believe none of us went outside this."

Dan was shaking his head before she even finished the sentence. Of course, he wasn't blind. He could see that they had inculcated his ideas into their drawings but it just wasn't enough for him.

He took a deep breath and placed his hands in his pockets.

"Okay, take these drawings back. Do something about them, improve them. I can't even stand how they look and I'm sure the investors wouldn't. Bring me back something better. Meeting dismissed."

Relief washed over everyone's face and they quickly got out of their seats and scurried away.

"Sarah, come to my office with your work. I saw something I liked." Dan hadn't been looking at her when he said and walked out of the room else he would have seen the massive grin that broke out on her face.

As soon as Dan was out of sight, she picked up her work and rushed to the bathroom excited. She turned to the mirror and fixed her hair and makeup. She wanted to look sexy for Dan.

Maybe a short skirt would even give her more advantage. She pulled her skirt up and straightened it out.

When she was satisfied with her look, she hurried out of the room so she wouldn't keep him waiting. As she walked down the corridor, she popped open two of her blouse buttons letting her cleavage run deep.

Her knock was light but precise and when he answered, she pushed the glass doors and the butterflies on her belly won't just calm down.

"Sir, you asked to see me." She walked closer to his table and Dan hadn't raised his head up to look at her.

"Yes, set it down on the table, let's see." Sarah moved closer to him and set the paper down.

Dan hesitantly looked away from his laptop and down at the paper. He studied it for some minutes before picking up a pencil.

"Remove this, it's not supposed to be here. Straighten this building out, it seems crooked and the grass looks bleached." There were a lot of other things that were wrong with the drawing but Dan was too busy to point them out now.

This was the reason she was a professional. She should be able to point out her own mistakes.

"That's all for now. You can go." He quickly dismissed her so he could go back to work.

For some reason, he momentarily lifted up his head and caught a glimpse of her breasts that were almost spilling out of her blouse as she bent down.

He let out a loud sigh and rested back in his chair.

"I run a company and not a strip club. If you feel it is okay for you to go around dressing like that, then I'm going to ask you to get out."

The way he said the words effortlessly and the way his eyes stayed focused on her face and never drifted to her breasts was what marveled her.

She stood speechless in front of him until he gestured with his hand for her to get out. As she quickly scurried away, he shook his head with disgust and turned back to his work.

He had always been like this, never finding interest in women who threw themselves at him. He just didn't fancy the idea of sleeping around and his cousin and mainly every other guy around him was crazy.

Some even thought he was gay. However, he didn't care what anyone thought. Those were his standards and he was going to stick to them.

It was not like these women weren't beautiful. It was just that he never found any one of them attractive in the very least. Thankfully, he has also never been bothered by sex since that had never happened before.

These women were only with him because of his money, because of what he looked like now. A decade ago, they would have made fun of him and treated him like a child or an outcast.

They would never have taken him seriously if he came within three feet of them. He had suffered that greatly in high school. He had been the nerd, the geeky kid that had no friends aside from his science buddies.

He has greatly envied his cousin, Micheal who had been on the school football team and was the captain. He has many friends and a lot of very pretty girls are always around him.

He got invited to a lot of parties and whenever he got into a fight, he always had people to defend him. He was very handsome and everybody wanted to be his friend.

That was the contrast of Dan's life. Growing up, he had been chubby and he never thought it was a problem until he got to high school.

The kids weren't nice like back in elementary school, he noticed so the only option was to blend in and even that wasn't easy..

He was made fun of, pushed from side to side, bullied, insulted. Some even called him Dan the Bull.

He had his fair share of suffering but nothing was more intense than Senior Year.