2.
The locker room after practice always smelled the same: a humid, cloying mixture of sharp athletic sweat, aerosol deodorant, and Victoria’s Secret body spray.
I sat on the scarred wooden bench, my head resting against the cool metal of my locker door, my chest still heaving slightly. Every muscle in my legs felt like lead. We were preparing for regionals, and Coach had run us through the tumbling pass until two girls threw up.
Across the aisle, in the corner with the best lighting and the largest mirror, Tiffany and her lieutenants held court.
They weren't showering. They didn't seem to sweat like the rest of us; they just glowed. Tiffany was applying a second coat of lip gloss, her designer gym bag open on the bench next to her, a casual display of wealth.
"I swear, if Daddy doesn't have the jet fueled by three on Friday, I'm going to lose my mind," she said, her voice carrying over the hum of the ventilation system. "The snow in Aspen is supposed to be perfect, and I refuse to fly commercial with my skis."
"Ugh, tell me about it," chimed in Lauren, her second-in-command, adjusting a diamond stud in her ear. "My mom booked us at the St. Regis, but she got the wrong suite. It doesn't even have a fireplace in the master."
I closed my eyes. Listening to them whine about private jets and luxury suites while I worried about my electric bill made me want to scream. We wore the same uniform on the field. We learned the same routines. But we weren’t on the same team. The moment practice ended, an invisible line was drawn.
They lived in a world where the biggest crisis was a missing fireplace. I lived in a world where I had forty-three dollars to last me until Friday, and my boyfriend was drowning in gambling debt he expected me to help fix.
I opened my eyes and looked at Jessica, my roommate, sitting two lockers down. She was holding a single, hotel-sized bottle of shampoo, trying to squeeze the last few drops out of it. Her face was pale and drawn, the stress of her maxed-out credit card visible in the dark circles under her eyes.
"You guys look exhausted," Tiffany’s voice sliced through my thoughts.
I turned. She was looking at us, the B-squad, the scholarship girls, the ones who actually had to scrub the mat burns in the shower. Her smile was perfectly white, perfectly pitying.
"You should really try the electrolyte IV drips at my mom's spa," Tiffany suggested, applying a dusting of setting powder. "They're, like, life-changing after a hard practice. I think they're only a few hundred dollars a session."
A few hundred dollars.
I looked at Jessica. She looked down at the floor, biting her lip.
"Thanks, Tiff," I said, forcing a tight, plastic smile onto my face. "I'll look into it."
"You should!" she chirped, snapping her compact shut. "Okay girls, I'm out. See you tomorrow!"
They swept out of the locker room in a cloud of expensive perfume and ringing laughter, leaving the rest of us in the damp, quiet aftermath.
I stood up, every joint popping in protest, and grabbed my towel.
"A few hundred dollars," Jessica muttered, tossing her empty shampoo bottle into the trash. "Fucking bitch."
"Come on," I said, grabbing my street clothes. "Let's just get out of here."
Twenty minutes later, the three of us—me, Jessica, and Maria, a sophomore who worked nights at a campus dive bar—were walking away from the athletic complex.
The A-squad girls were probably ordering nine-dollar vodka sodas in one of the popular bars. We couldn't even afford the cover charge. So, we walked in the opposite direction, toward a quiet, dimly lit campus park situated behind the old library.
It was a chilly night. We sat huddled together on a cold stone bench, pulling our frayed university hoodies tight against the wind.
Maria unzipped her oversized tote bag, rooted around past her textbooks, and pulled out a silver flask.
"Thank god," Jessica breathed, reaching for it instantly.
Maria unscrewed the cap and passed it over. "It's Evan Williams," she warned. "Don't sip it. Just swallow."
Jessica took a long, desperate pull, her face contorting as the cheap whiskey burned its way down her throat. She coughed, eyes watering, and handed it to me.
I wiped the rim with my sleeve and took a swig. It was rough, fiery, tasting like gasoline and regret, but the sudden, spreading warmth in my chest was exactly what I needed. I passed the flask back to Maria.
For a few minutes, we just sat in silence, passing the metal back and forth, letting the raw alcohol take the edge off the exhaustion and the anxiety. The quiet of the park was a relief after the claustrophobia of the locker room.
"I don't know how I'm going to make rent next month," Jessica finally said, her voice small, staring blankly at the ground.
The whiskey was loosening her tongue, breaking down the wall of denial she usually kept up.
"My Visa is maxed. My parents said they can't help until January.
And if I take another shift at the coffee shop, I'm going to fail Chem. "
"I get it," Maria said, taking another sip. "I had to choose between paying my phone bill and buying groceries this week. I've been eating ramen since Sunday."
I remained quiet, the whiskey buzzing pleasantly behind my eyes. I thought about Tyler’s demand for money. I thought about the red PAST DUE notice on my corkboard. I was right there with them, treading water, trying not to look down into the depths.
"There's this girl in my Sociology seminar," Maria said suddenly, her voice dropping, taking on a conspiratorial tone. "Sarah. She's on the dance team."
"The one with the new Range Rover?" Jessica asked, looking up.
"Yeah," Maria nodded, passing the flask to me. "I was talking to her in the bathroom before class. She was showing me pictures from her weekend in Vegas."
"Let me guess," I said, taking a burning swallow. "Her parents are loaded."
"No," Maria said, looking at me intently. "She's from Fresno. She's on financial aid."
Jessica frowned. "Then how the hell is she driving a Range Rover?"
Maria leaned in closer, the smell of whiskey on her breath. "She told me she's on Seeking Arrangement," she said.
"Shut up," Jessica scoffed, though her eyes were wide. "You mean she's an escort?"
"She says it's not like that," Maria argued, defensive but clearly fascinated.
"She says it's just ... companionship. Dinner dates.
Going to galas. She meets these older guys—CEOs, lawyers—and they just want someone pretty on their arm.
In exchange, they pay her rent. They buy her clothes. Loan her a Range Rover."
"And she doesn't have to sleep with them?" I asked.
"She says it's up to her," Maria shrugged. "Some do, some don't. But she said even just for the dates, she's pulling in two grand a month in 'allowance', plus her rent and clothes."
“And the Range Rover,” Jessica said.
Two grand a month. The number echoed in my head. It was an impossible sum. It was all my bills paid, a full fridge, and money left over. It was freedom.
"Yeah, but it’s bullshit," Jessica said, grabbing the flask back. "It's prostitution with better PR. You can't just take two grand from an old man and not expect him to want something in return."
"Maybe," Maria conceded. "But what are we doing that's so much better?
We're breaking our bodies for a scholarship that barely covers tuition, working minimum wage jobs that leave us exhausted, and we're still starving.
Sarah's driving that Ranger Rover and hasn't stressed about a bill in the last six months. "
I stared at the dark silhouette of the library across the lawn.
I thought about Tiffany bragging about her private jet. I thought about Tyler, demanding I spot him cash from a paycheck I didn't even have yet. I thought about the constant, degrading feeling of being poor in a place designed for the rich.
"It's not just the sugar websites," I said, my voice startlingly loud in the quiet park.
Jessica and Maria both looked at me.
"What do you mean?" Jessica asked.
"I mean, look at us," I said, gesturing to the three of us huddled on the bench. "We're young. We're athletes. We spend hours every week making ourselves look perfect so we can jump around and smile for a stadium full of people who don't even know our names."
I took the flask from Jessica and took a long, final pull. The whiskey didn't burn this time. It just fueled a cold, hard clarity that was forming in my brain.
"We’re already treated like a commodity," I said, wiping my mouth. "The university leverages our looks to sell tickets and keep the alumni happy. We're already performing for old men. We just aren't getting paid for it."
The silence that followed was heavy. Neither of them argued with me. They couldn't.
We sat there on the cold stone bench until the flask was bone dry. I don’t think anybody made a decision that night, rushed home to create a profile online. But the idea was out there. Our bodies—our youth, our flexibility, our perfect, pretty smiles— they were the only things we had to sell.
The walk back to my apartment was a cold, sobering reality check. The cheap whiskey buzz had evaporated, leaving behind a dull throb at my temples and the biting chill of the wind cutting through my thin hoodie. Jessica had nothing to say. I wondered what she was thinking about but didn’t dare ask.
She unlocked the door and gestured me inside.
The apartment was dark and silent. Jessica kissed my cheek as she said goodnight and disappeared into her room, probably hoping to escape the reality of her Visa bill in her dreams. The red PAST DUE notice on the corkboard caught a faint light from the streetlamp outside, a silent, accusatory beacon.
I dropped my gym bag on the floor, ignored the rumble of hunger in my stomach, and sat down at my sticky laminate table.
I opened the Econ 201 textbook. I tried.
I really tried. I read the same paragraph about the marginal propensity to consume three times, but the words were just shapes on a page.
My brain refused to process them. The math wasn't abstract theory anymore.
It was the black hole reality of my bank account.
After an hour of staring blankly at the highlighter streaks, I slammed the book shut. It was useless.
I stripped off my clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor, and crawled into my narrow, squeaky twin bed. I pulled the thin comforter up to my chin, shivering until the sheets finally warmed up.
But sleep wouldn't come.
My mind was racing, fueled by the conversation on the park bench. Maria’s words echoed in the dark: She’s pulling in two grand a month in allowance.
And she was driving a fucking Range Rover.
I stared at the water stains on the popcorn ceiling, tracing the jagged outlines with my eyes.
What if I actually did it?
I thought about the options. The paths available to a twenty-one-year-old girl with a cheerleading scholarship, a pretty face, and zero other marketable skills.
Bottle service was probably the entry-level option. The most socially acceptable form of selling yourself. I knew girls who did it down in the Gaslamp district. Wearing a corset and a thong, carrying sparklers and overpriced vodka to tables full of arrogant frat boys and sleazy promoters.
Could I do it? Yes. It was just an extension of cheering—smiling on command, enduring the wandering eyes, laughing at bad jokes.
But what would it do to me? It would exhaust me. I’d be dealing with drunks until 4 AM, trading sleep and dignity for tips. It felt cheap. It wasn't a way out. It was a hustle.
Promotional Modeling? Standing in a liquor store or a crowded bar in a branded spandex dress, handing out free shots of terrible tequila? Well, yeah, I could do it, but the pay wouldn’t be enough to change my life. It wouldn't pay off Tyler's debts or my own tuition. It was just small-time.
My thoughts drifted darker, further down the rabbit hole.
OnlyFans or Camming. The digital hustle. Selling pictures of my feet, then my tits, then my pussy, to strangers on the internet. Performing in my bedroom for an anonymous audience.
My stomach dropped, but a hot, filthy thrill shot straight between my thighs. I’d be in control. I could hide my face. I’d be in control. I could hide my face.
But it would mean living a double life, constantly terrified that someone from the squad or a professor would find the account.
And the internet is fucking forever. When the time came for a real career, a real life, those images would be a ticking time bomb.
It felt like I’d be selling my future for quick cash today.
Then, I thought about Sarah on the dance team. The Range Rover. The "allowance." The Sugar Baby. The modern-day courtesan. Creating a profile. Listing my "assets." Going on dates with men twice my age.
I closed my eyes, picturing myself sitting across from an older man at a Michelin-star restaurant. Smiling while he talked about his divorce or his portfolio. Letting him touch my knee under the table.
My heart rate picked up in the dark. The thought was terrifying, but it wasn't repulsive.
I imagined going back to an expensive hotel room with one of them. Letting him undress me. Spreading my legs for him. That picture sent a rush of heat straight to my crotch. I didn’t understand why.
Maybe because it was so transactional?
I didn’t want to think about that anymore, so I turned over and buried my face in my lumpy pillow. Sleep did not come easily.