She looked at her watch, watching the two dots flash between the numbers, unable to believe how little time went by as she sat there. Customers came and went. She barely noticed them.

Have to do sales. Beat the records, beat the sales, make the numbers, make the money.

Everyday it was the same. The only thing that changed were the numbers, so many goddamn numbers that didn't mean anything.

Only the paycheck matters.

It wasn't too long ago she had been homeless...

How she had suffered!

Now she lived in an SRO, with no bathroom and only a sink but at least it wasn't the street. 30,000 people in the city called these private SRO's home, many of them working class. She spoke to many taxi drivers; one guy lived 30 years in an SRO only to be evicted as the rent went up on a rent-controlled room. Where do you go now? To live outside the city required a commute, displacing many residents away from their jobs and with their 12-16 hour a day schedules, it left them little sleep.

I should be grateful. I shouldn't think about my problems.

But it was hard not to be bitter.

People came in and bought over a hundred dollars worth of stuff. Stuff. Stuff. That's all it was. Things that people buy, use for a little while and discard or lose. They didn't care. She watched them with a smile on her face. She had to smile. She had no choice.

It wasn't always like this. She used to live in a house but had to take care of her family...

She used to have her own apartment but never had her own money. In the small town she used to live before, they would never hire her full-time. It wasn't until she came to the city that she got her first job, the first job in her life that paid the rent. Now she had her own money, but too many bills and insane rent meant nothing was left over. She never saved money but had to rely on her dwindling savings.

The customers always had money. Rich people.

They've never been homeless. They've never been scared, never been traumatized, never been threatened with rape or attacked... None of them had been illegally evicted then hospitalized...

But she wasn't supposed to think about her problems.

She should be lucky. She had a place to stay and food to eat.

For now.

She never told anyone (if she could help it) about her situation. She wasn't looking for pity and never expected anyone to understand. They couldn't understand. They never knew what it was like. People like them had never been in that position. They never suffered. Only she did.

No, that's not true. Others have it worse than I do.

She told herself this over and over to no avail. How did it make her feel better, knowing that others suffered worse than she did? She always saw them on the street: screaming, crying, begging, crawling, shitting over themselves. How could she not notice them? They were on the street, on the bus, even around the place where she worked.

She had to accept this was the way life was.

This is the way it is.

It had been over a year and she was still adjusting to this life. This life of poverty. Her grandparents had died and having been through that horror, the rest of her life stretched before her with only the end to look forward to. Seeing how it ended for her grandparents did not ease her pain. It only made the panic worse.

She did her best to pretend things were fine.

"How're you doing?" Customers asked.

"Great/Good! Fine! How are you?" she replied.

"How're you doing?" Her boss asked.

"Great/Good! Fine! How are you?" she replied.

Only a few friends knew the truth.

In over a year of living in the city, she never made any friends. The one boyfriend she met online broke up with her before her grandparents had to go into a boarding house. It was mutual. She knew it wasn't serious.

She kept on going in spite of it all. What else was she supposed to do?

She kept on with her self-defense classes and besides work that was all she did. Sometimes she went out by herself to dance. She was always by herself. No one was ever with her. Most people ignored her.

No one knew how she suffered. Alone.

I'm alone. Is this how it's always going to be?

She knew of other single women. They were on welfare. They couldn't make it on their own. Single women always suffered more, made less money than men, were more likely to be homeless when their families wouldn't take them in, or when they were kicked out onto the street.

But it was better this way, wasn't it? With a man, they would demand she quit her job, make her stay at home with nothing to do, then kick her out onto the street when they tired of her. Or worse, abuse and rape her. She heard the screaming of the residents at night, as the man yelled and beat his girlfriend while she whimpered and cowered before him.

Freedom was better. Even if it meant being alone. Freedom from abuse, free to do as she pleased, with no one to tell her what to do (other than her job).

She didn't have total freedom yet. The so-called family she had left her to deal with her grandparent's possessions, junk, furniture now damaged in storage and everything else she didn't want to think about.

The rest of the family avoided her and she them. The ordeal with her grandparents had proven to be traumatic for everyone. She became more isolated. Even dealing with others was an effort. She didn't feel like socializing. The prospect of dating made her panic, as it was so much trouble to pretend to be normal online enough for someone to be interested in her, only to be rejected after the first meet with no explanation. Too much effort for so little in return. Even trying to make friends was too much of an effort. She didn't drink or smoke, so there was no point in doing so to fit in with others.

She couldn't even have pets in her SRO and knew she couldn't care for them anyway. She couldn't even take care of a plant. She didn't have time for anything else.

If only I had more time...

I could do the things I want to do, like write, make music, movies, perform, do theater...

But I'm always working now, I have to pay the rent and the bills and my classes...

What else could she do?

I get dressed everyday for work, sometimes I shower at the YMCA (I hate the filthy SRO bathrooms), sometimes I have to skip showers. Rich people don't understand, they've never been homeless, never had to suffer as I do...

What else can I do?

No one else knows.

They weren't supposed to know. When they did, they treated her differently. They treated her like she was scum. SRO's were akin to drug-use, poverty and filth. People always asked, "What happened?", whenever she mentioned she lived in one. It was better to tell no one. Even at the YMCA they treated her differently when she came in for her showers. As with the rest of the poor people who used the facilities, it was just another burden for tax-payers.

Certain things you don't tell people. If she ever did manage to date again, she would have to try especially hard not to let them know she lived in an SRO, to have them drop her off someplace else and she would walk. She would never let them walk her home. She had no home.

It's better to say nothing.

It's better to keep silent.

Nobody has to know.

It's better this way.